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A Short History of Western Canada was written by Grant MacEwan.  This book was first published in hardcover under the title \'West To The Sea.\' A Short History of Western Canada
Copyright 1968 McGraw-Hill Company of Canada Limited
163 pages,
ISBN 0-07-077787-X.

The Railways and the Land Rush

The Pioneer Newspapers

In those years prior to radio and television, the newspaper was the settlers' only source of information. It was important for newcomers to the country to know where equipment could be bought and at what prices. It was useful for every one to know what was happening in other parts, and it was reassuring to have an editor who had the courage to speak and write boldly against injustices. Settlers would have agreed with H. L. Mencken, who considered that one of the roles of the press was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. It was a role into which men like Amor de Cosmos, John Robson, Patrick Gammie Laurie, Frank Oliver, and Nicholas Flood Davin fitted perfectly.

Any aspiring editor with the courage to start a newspaper could be assured of a frontier welcome, but preparations for printing were never easy. The earliest western papers were printed on presses brought to the country well in advance of a railroad. This necessitated transporting heavy equipment by cart or canoe and often over great distances.

Victoria, British Columbia, led the way for the entire West, while Winnipeg had the first printing press between the Great Lakes and the mountains. The British Colonist, a small sheet making its first appearance on December 11, 1858, was the brainchild of Amor de Cosmos, who came to Victoria with the first wave of miners making their way to the Fraser River gold fields. Editor de Cosmos fancied a challenge, and no voice rang more clearly than his in support of the union of Vancouver Island and the mainland colony of British Columbia and, later, the entry of British Columbia into Confederation. Although the name was changed slightly, the Colonist was still a journalistic force more than a hundred years after its birth and almost synonymous with the name of the city in which it was published.

On the prairies, the Nor'-Wester, published by partners William Buckingham and William Caldwell, was the undisputed pioneer newspaper. Printed on a press carted from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Fort Garry by the two young Englishmen, its fortunes were mixed indeed. A subscription price of five dollars a year was enough to keep most Red River citizens off the customer list, but all who were able to read, a small percentage of the total population, were anxious to see every issue. The paper appeared on December 28, 1859, and made an impression from the beginning, especially upon the Hudson's Bay Company, whose monopolistic trading practices were the principal objects of editorial attack.

When the Nor'-Wester was taken over by Dr. John Schultz, later Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, the attacks were even more bitter. But the Schultz criticism of the Louis Riel campaign brought him trouble. After Riel set up his provisional government in 1869, he seized the Nor'-Wester and used the equipment to print his own paper, the New Nation, and then to print his manifesto to the citizens of Red River. And for the editor himself, Riel had a nice prison cell in Fort Garry.

The midwestern paper with the longest unbroken record was Winnipeg's Free Press, first published as the Weekly Free Press in 1872. The Winnipeg Tribune, also with a long record of publication, was started in 1889.

The Saskatchewan Herald, published at Battleford by tall, Scottish Patrick Gammie Laurie, was distinctive in many ways. Laurie had worked with the Nor'- Wester and then the Weekly Free Press and knew a considerable amount about frontier problems. His aim, however, was to work for himself. To this end, he had the primitive printing press with which he produced his paper hauled by Red River cart over the long trail from St. Paul to Winnipeg and then the longer trail from Winnipeg to Battleford on the North Saskatchewan River. The initial issue, dated August 25, 1878, gave Laurie the distinction of being the first publisher between Winnipeg and the Rockies.

Laurie, who saw the Cree Indians attack Battleford during the rebellion days of 1885, left some of the best accounts of events at that historic period. He acknowledged the Métis grievances as legitimate, but took a strong stand against the ruthless methods employed by the insurgents.

The next newspaper adventure was made by Frank Oliver, who saw Fort Edmonton as a freighter on the long trail, and then hauled his printing press the thousand miles from Winnipeg to launch the Edmonton Bulletin in 1880. Indeed, he hauled this piece of heavy equipment over the trail not once but twice. On the first trip, he was just more than half way to his destination when the raft being used to ferry the precious press across the North Saskatchewan River capsized, and the press sank to the bottom of the river where it was to remain forever.

Oliver, who became a leading public figure, was not one to accept defeat, and he simply returned to Winnipeg where he obtained another press. On the second trip, the press was delivered successfully, and in the first issue of the Bulletin, appearing on December 6, 1880, the editor reported such news as John Coutts' arrival "with ten carts loaded with bacon from Carlton", and the awarding of a mail contract for the Winnipeg-Edmonton section of the country to Sinclair and McLane.

The Macleod Gazette, started in 1882, and the Calgary Herald, beginning in 1883, deserve special mention. The difficulties encountered by the man behind the Gazette were not entirely unusual. C. E. D. Wood, ex-mounted policeman, placed an order in Toronto for a printing press a full year before the paper appeared. The machine was shipped by Duluth and Bismark, to be forwarded by riverboat to Fort Benton, Montana. Riverboats were unpredictable, however, and with the low water level in the Missouri, part of the boat's freight, including the press, had to be unloaded and left on the riverbank. There, with no protection except that afforded by a tarpaulin, the press remained until high water in the spring, when a Benton-bound boat stopped and picked it up. Finally, Wood's press was delivered at Fort Macleod by ox-drawn freight wagons, bull trains, from Fort Benton. The first issue of the Gazette came off on July 1, 1882, telling about eight pure-bred bulls being brought in for Captain Stewart's ranch and 800 beef steers arriving to furnish beef rations for the Blood and Piegan Indians.

The pioneer editors, many more than mentioned, made notable records from a point of view of service. Some went into politics and became national figures, some remained in journalism, and a few served time in jail. In nearly all instances, the editors were progressive individuals whose influence and guidance in developing communities were valuable indeed.


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