Wainwright, Alberta sits about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton, a prairie town that grew up around a railway stop in 1905 and never lost that sense of being a place where people look out for each other. It has a Canadian Forces Base, a rodeo, a historic downtown, and a radio station that's been part of the community since 1984. That station is CKKY, now branded as Boom 101.9, and it plays the 70s, 80s, and 90s hits that took root in people here the first time around.
Forty Years on the Alberta Dial
CKKY first signed on in 1984 as 1230 CILW, an AM station serving Wainwright and east-central Alberta. It moved frequencies, changed call signs to CKKY in the 1990s, and went through several formats including country under the "Cat Country" and "Key 83" brands, and later K-Rock 101.9 with an active rock and classic rock format. The station finally migrated from AM to FM on October 24, 2013, a major upgrade that extended its reach across the region with 50,000 watts of power. Shortly after the FM switch, it rebranded as Boom 101.9, settling into the classic hits format it carries today as part of Stingray Group's network.
The station broadcasts from 1037 2nd Ave in Wainwright at 101.9 FM, and its signal reaches not just the town itself but a wide stretch of northeast Alberta including Lloydminster, Vermilion, and Provost. Online, it reaches anyone who wants a dose of prairie-rooted classic hits.
The Sound of Three Decades' Worth of Hits
Boom 101.9's tagline puts it plainly: "70s, 80s, and 90s music that takes you back to the good times when life was simple without worry." That framing is deliberate. This isn't a rock station, or a pop station, or an oldies station in a narrow sense. It's a classic hits station that draws from across three decades without being precious about genre boundaries.
- 70s Pop and Rock, the era that built the format, ranging from arena rock to AM gold, the songs that defined the decade before MTV changed everything.
- 80s Hits, the heart of the playlist. New wave, pop, rock, and the era's massive crossover anthems. The decade when the station first found its audience.
- 90s Adult Hits, extending the format forward into the decade that rounded out a generation's musical memory, from grunge-adjacent rock to R&B-inflected pop.
The result is a playlist that feels genuinely comfortable, like songs you've known long enough that they belong to specific moments in your life, not just to a genre category on a streaming app.
Radio Rooted in a Prairie Community
Wainwright's history is tied to agriculture, the oil industry, and the military presence of CFB Wainwright, one of Canada's largest military training areas. It's a town with deep roots, the kind of place where local radio matters. Boom 101.9 leans into that: beyond the music, it carries local news, community events, school announcements, fundraisers, and the kind of programming that a national streaming service simply can't replicate.
That community function is real. Listeners hear about the Wainwright Stampede, one of Alberta's top rodeos, local weather advisories, and interviews with community figures. It's the station that connects east-central Alberta's scattered towns and farms into a shared listening experience.
Stream Boom 101.9 Free on Radio Shuffle
Tune in to Boom 101.9 on Radio Shuffle — no account, no app, no fee. Press play and get three decades of hits from the Alberta prairies, delivered with the warmth of a station that's been serving its community since 1984.