A Historical Directory of Manitoba Newspapers, 1859–1978

D.M. (Donald Merwin) Loveridge

• Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
• Year: 1981
• eBook ISBN: 9780887550539
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

A Historical Directory of Manitoba Newspapers, 1859–1978.

PART IINTRODUCTION

MANITOBA NEWSPAPERS: AN INTRODUCTION

Newspapers came late to Manitoba. In 1856, a writer in the American Harper's New Monthly Magazine described the isolation of the Red River Settlements in strong terms: "Deserts almost trackless, divide it on all sides from the habitations of civilized man.... Receiving no impressions from without, it reflects none. It sends forth neither newspapers, nor books, nor correspondents' letters; no paragraph in any newspaper records its weal or woe."¹ As it happened, these observations were made obsolete just three years later. In December, 1859, two pioneering newspapermen came to Manitoba from Ontario and established the Nor'Wester (B094).

In the first western issue of the Nor'Wester its owners asked, "what can prevent the settlement around Fort Garry from becoming the political and commercial centre of a great and prosperous people?", and stated their hope and belief that "the printing press will hasten the change."² During the ten chequered years of its existence, the newspaper was used precisely for this purpose. Ironically, though, it did not survive the events which led to the attainment of its goal. The paper was one of the first victims of the Insurrection of 1869-70. Louis Riel fully understood the power of the press. His supporters closed down Dr. Bown's proCanadian Nor'Wester, and Riel himself suppressed a new paper, the Red River Pioneer (B097), which had the same sympathies. Then, on January 1, 1870, the New Nation (B098) appeared. This newspaper was the organ of the Provisional Government and, although not always an obedient one, it disappeared with its rulers on the approach of the Wolseley Expedition that fall. A new "cycle" of newspapers started as Red River became the new Canadian province of Manitoba.

In the 1870s and 1880s Winnipeg was a hotbed of partisan, polemical and short-lived newspapers. First came the Manitoba News-Letter (B099), which appeared only ten days after the unlamented demise of the New Nation. Local opinion was divided. To one contemporary it was "an excellent newspaper": to another, "a small sheet...which abounded in scurrility, and was not regarded with favour by the more reputable residents of the town."³ In any case, it lasted only ten months before it was replaced by the Manitoba Liberal (B104). These two newspapers had several rivals in the period between 1870 and 1872, including the Manitoban (B100), the Métis (B034), the stillborn Manitoba Trade Review (B106) and its successor the Manitoba Gazette and Trade Review (B107). The competition among them was not a gentlemanly affair confined to the editorial pages. On one occasion, following the bitterly contested federal election in September, 1872, the supporters of the various parties cheerfully sacked the offices of their opponents' newspapers. Only the Manitoba Liberal came through the riots intact. The others were suspended for up to two months while new plants were imported, and the owners of the Métis (putting discretion before valour) moved their offices across the river to the French community of St. Boniface. The riots, however, created an opening for a new weekly. In November, 1872, the first issue of the Manitoba Free Press (B109) appeared.

The events of 1872 were the last instance of overt violence directed against the press, but they marked the beginning of a period of cutthroat competition among Winnipeg papers which grew in intensity as Winnipeg itself grew. The new and reconstructed papers were soon joined by another Nor'Wester (B122) and by the Standard (B138) in 1874; in the same year, daily editions of the Free Press (B123) and Nor'Wester (B137) made their debut. The latter development -- made possible by the availability of telegraphic news for the first time -- was a leap forward in the Winnipeg newspaper industry. The Daily Nor'Wester did not last long, nor did its two successors, both named Manitoba Herald (B139, B140), but their fate did not discourage other would-be publishers of dailies. The Daily Free Press, which became a morning paper in 1881, had to compete with the several daily Times (B144) in succession, with a Daily Tribune (B148), and with a daily Sun (B153); although all of these had disappeared by 1885. The weekly Free Press also had its rivals. All of the papers which had appeared in the 1870s (including four weeklies not mentioned above) had disappeared by January of 1880, but they were replaced by a host of new ones. Once again, the majority failed in 1885 or before, the sporadically disappearing Siftings (B165) and one or two others being the only exceptions. In all, some ten dailies and twenty-two weeklies and semi-monthlies had been started in Winnipeg in the period between 1859 and 1884. Of these, a grand total of one daily and four weeklies survived to the end of 1885. The early years of Winnipeg journalism had been energetic, if not stable.

Until the mid-1870s Winnipeg had a monopoly on newspapers in Manitoba and the North West, for the simple reason that this city alone had the population and economic base needed to support such enterprises. This situation began to change as the process of rural settlement gained momentum. Symbolically, the first signs of rural journalism were small newsletters produced at North West Mounted Police posts at Fort Dufferin (A112) and Swan River (A371) in 1875 and 1876. The first true newspapers, however, appeared in pioneer towns along the Red. In 1877 the Morris Standard (A230) started, and also failed. In 1878, the Inter-Ocean (A331) appeared in Selkirk, and the International (A127) in Emerson; a second paper, the Western Journal (A129) appeared in Emerson on the first day of 1879. Further afield, Portage la Prairie produced the Marquette Review (A272) in January, 1879, and Gladstone had the News and Westbourne County Farmer (A144) by November. The growth of rural journalism, spurred by the imminent construction of the C.P.R., then began in earnest. In 1880 seven new weeklies appeared, one each in Emerson, West Lynne and Morris, on the Red, and one each in Nelsonville, Pilot Mound, Rapid City and Rat Portage (Kenora, then part of Manitoba). This marked the beginning of seven years of rapid expansion. Between the start of 1881 and the end of 1887, forty-three new rural weeklies and four dailies were started.

The rural newspaper "explosion" between 1881 and 1887 spread newspapers across rural Manitoba from Deloraine in the south to Birtle in the north, and from Virden in the west to Rat Portage in the east. No sooner did towns appear on rail lines than papers were started to serve them. Often, the mere expectation of a line was enough to start both town and paper. In at least one case this was premature, for in 1884 both Nelsonville and its Manitoba Mountaineer (A248) had to be packed up and moved to the C.P.R. line at the new town of Morden. Much of the newspaper activity, though, took place in major centres, where the Boom had its greatest impact: notably Emerson, Portage, Brandon, Rapid City, Selkirk and Minnedosa. It was not at all unusual, in the early 1880s, for a one-track prairie tent town to have two, three or even four newspapers at one time. In Emerson two dailies and three weeklies were published during 1882, while Brandon supported the same combination the following year. This pace, of course, could not be maintained for very long. Of the fifty-six rural papers started between January 1, 1880, and December 31, 1887, only twenty-two (all weeklies) saw the sun rise on the first day of 1888. After a brief flowering between 1881 and 1884, rural dailies disappeared for ten years.

As has been seen, Winnipeg journalism "boomed" along with the rural, but by the mid-1880s there were pronounced differences between the two types. The rural scene was made up almost exclusively of weekly newspapers serving one specific district each. In Winnipeg, the metropolitan daily with its rurally oriented weekly edition, and its weeklies and semi-monthlies devoted to a special interest (aimed at the prairie region as a whole), dominated the picture. The race among daily newspapers continued unabated through 1885. While the Daily Sun (B154) and Daily Times (B151) died that year, the Daily Manitoban (B168) and Evening News (B174) were born, to be joined, the next year, by the new Manitoba Sun (B178) and, the year after that, by the Morning Call (B184). All except the Evening News provided weekly editions which presented a summary of events, mainly for rural readers. In addition, a number of special-interest newspapers were appearing. The earliest of these, the Commercial (B157) and the Nor'West Farmer (B160), had both started in 1882. In 1885 they were joined by the Weekly Spectator (B166) newsmagazine, the Catholic Northwest Review (B170) and the Northwest Baptist (B175). A year later the first newspaper devoted to labour interests, the Industrial News (B183), appeared on the scene, as, in 1889, did the first specialinterest French newspaper, the Agriculteur of St. Boniface (B037). This period also saw a marked increase in the numbers of ethnic newspapers published in Manitoba.

Ethnic newspapers present a mixture of traits. Like the rural weekly, they serve a specific community, but, like the regional special-interest paper, their "community" may be widely dispersed. In Manitoba most ethnic newspapers (87%) have therefore been published in Winnipeg, taking advantage of its central location and communications network. At the same time, however, they are not exactly "Winnipeg" newspapers. The first full-fledged ethnic paper, the Icelandic Framfari (C040), appeared at Riverton (Lundi) in 1877, but the centre of activity soon moved to Winnipeg. Icelanders being the principal ethnic minority in Manitoba at the time, there was a great deal of Icelandic newspaper activity. The Liefur (C041) of 1883 was quickly followed by Heimskringla (C042) in 1886, Logberg (C045) in 1888, and Oldin (C046) in 1891. Other northern European minorities were also growing. In 1887 the Skandinaviske Canadiensaren (C107) appeared in the Swedish community, later being joined by Sions Vaktare (C108) in 1892; in 1889 the German Nordwestern (6017) was first published. These papers are remarkable for one particular trait: their l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgements
• PART I INTRODUCTION
• PART II NEWSPAPER LISTS
• PART III BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEXES