[3] On October 1, 1956, George A. Wilson and L. N. Ostrander, doing business as the Birch Bay Broadcasting Company, filed an application for a construction permit to build a new 500-watt, daytime-only radio station in Blaine, originally specifying 930 kHz.

[4] It was dismissed, amended to specify 550 kHz, and reinstated in late 1957; a hearing examiner recommended its approval in 1958 as the first radio service for Blaine despite causing some minor interference to KVI,[5] and the FCC granted the permit on June 18, 1959.

[4] From a site on a field near Birch Bay, overlooking Drayton Harbor and White Rock, British Columbia,[6] KARI debuted on February 12, 1960.

In 1962, it obtained a construction permit to build an FM station on Orcas Island,[9] which went on the air as KERI in July 1965.

[6] This made it a new offering to the vast majority of the listeners in its service area, across the border on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia; Canada did not permit religious radio stations until the mid-1990s.