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PETER SPECK
North Shore News Founder
To my surprise, this is my 85th year on the planet, and this is the 55th anniversary of the launch of the North Shore News. How time flies!
The present publisher of the News is Matt Blair, and he has very kindly asked me to write a bit more of the early days of the News.
As some older readers may remember, the newspaper came from my attempts to get going again after my fledgling radiator business went broke and dragged me down with it, age 26, along with my first marriage. It was 1966. I had no money and no credit.
I am a North Shore boy, and all of this took place here. Three years of hard scrabble and unemployment followed. I worked as a labourer in a mill up the coast, dug ditches here, repaired oil stoves, fixed plumbing and did whatever I could to keep body and soul together. I lost a lot of weight. There was time to think.
A new thought came to me. “Ask for advice.” I wish it had come a bit earlier. I saw people in a new light.
started for the North Shore News in 1969
One gem of news was that in the newspaper business one could make a living selling advertising. This fired me up to change careers. I ended up working for West Vancouver’s Lions Gate Times (commission only), and publisher Claude Hoodspith taught me the basis of newspaper advertising sales.
I liked the newspaper business right away. Even when business was slow I could joke that, wherever the new business was going, it was a lot cleaner and drier than the radiator trade and some of the other manual jobs I did in between. “Clean, dry and indoors” was my new comfort in a somewhat barren world.
I got the idea to do a North Shorewide free paper, and took it to Claude. He didn’t want to do it. At the time when the two North Shore papers vied with each other, their total circulation was perhaps 1/3 of the addresses here. I theorized that the circulation revenue didn’t really matter, in this “new day.” It was small change, and awkward to collect.
Our publication was to be resoundingly free – that is, to the readers – and
would be paid for by the advertisers. It was sort of a new idea at the time. That’s what turned out to be the case, and when Claude turned me down I did it on my own.
It took seven years to break even. That was a world of struggle with finance, my inexperience, very long hours of pasteup and typesetting, and of course most daylight hours dedicated to prospecting for advertisers, and typesetting and pasteup done in the evenings, and once a week an all-nighter and a drive to our printer in Abbotsford with the “flats” at about 6 a.m.; a few hours of sleep, and then a truck arrived with the bundled press run.
And for the first few months, I was also the person who delivered some of the bundles to the homes of the carriers (we had about 400 carriers) from Deep Cove to Horseshoe Bay. That process began at an early hour. It doesn’t take long to print a newspaper. It was scary, and exhausting, but when you are on the bottom, there’s no place but “up.” The market received us very kindly. Advertisers were on the
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North Shore News founder Peter Speck celebrates 20 years in the newspaper business in 1989. He sold the paper to Southam that same year. FILE PHOTO
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Digging through 55 years of the News with some helpful experts
ANDY PREST aprest@nsnews.com
A lot has changed in 55 years on the North Shore. A lot has changed in five years.
But then again, a lot has stayed the same.
In 1969, the North Shore News was created, under a different name, with founder Peter Speck forging connections with readers and community partners that remain to this day.
In 2019, we celebrated our 50th anniversary with an absolutely massive special section. It was a big honkin’ unit, and it darn near killed us putting it all together. But it was also incredibly touching to see that all those community partners were still there with us – that’s why the section was so big – and it was a joy to put it all together.
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Congratulations,NorthShoreNews, onbeinga vital partofthe communityfor 55years!
Little did we know that just one year later, the media industry, and nearly every other industry except for the toilet paper and hand sanitizer industries, would get punched in the gut by a global pandemic.
The North Shore News is not the same as it was five years ago, but we’re still standing, as are so many of those community partners, including those that have been here since Day 1.
When it came time to celebrate our 55th anniversary, we brought on one of those cherished community partners to help us dig into the past, tracing a path from where it all started to where we are now.
And we happen to know some expert diggers. The good folks at the North Vancouver District Library stepped up in a huge way, with staff members lending their time and expertise to help us dig through the archives of the North Shore News – libraries are the best places to find those archives these days – and come up with some gems from our past.
In this special section we show you what they found, including covers from all 55 years of our existence, give or take a few stragglers, demonstrating stories both big and small, serious and silly from more than half a century in print.
To do that, three library employees spent the summer scanning through their digital holdings, spinning through the microfilm, and jumping into a new digital collection made in partnership between the North
Shore News and the library. And how did that go?
“It was sometimes tedious, mostly fun,” said library services advisor Nilusha Garbharran. “[It was] eye-opening, particularly as someone who has not grown up on the North Shore, flipping through 55 years of history. It offered a wonderful snapshot of the community and how much growth has occurred. It was also great to see what was relevant at the time through the adverts and classifieds.”
Program and outreach co-ordinator Josh Hamlett, another relative newcomer to the area, said it was a “crash course in North Shore history.” Hamlett also discovered some of the rhythms of the newspaper business.
“I enjoyed watching the news go in cycles,” he said. “It really is noticeable when speed reading headlines this way. Every January there’s a photo of the cold-water plunge.”
The librarians also had to manage some tricky technology, old school and new, as they navigated the archives.
“The 2001-2024 [issues] are newly digitized and not uploaded yet, so those files were on an external hard drive,” said Hamlett. “I had to make promises to our head of collections that I wouldn’t lose the hard drive!”
Communications and events co-ordinator Meghan Crowe said she also had some nervous moments with the technology.
“I got to learn how to use a microfilm reader!” she said. “For a technology that has been around for such a long time, it was new
1457Bellevue Avenue,WestVancouver| 604 925 8333 |
North Vancouver District Public Library staff members Josh Hamlett and Nilusha Garbharran dig through old and new issues of the North Shore News in celebration of the 55th anniversary of the publication. PAUL MCGRATH / NSN
Readers enjoy our ‘crude’ news
main pretty happy, and both they and the readers were gracious with our crude first efforts. Things grew more and more easy as the News began to come to life. It outgrew my rented house, and then its first rented office (a little house off Pemberton Avenue) and “Mother” ended up renting a three-story building on Lonsdale, where it published for years before an arsonist destroyed the lovely building, which had a large garden atrium on the top floor, open to the skies, a real morale booster.
I sold my interest in Mother around 1990, to the Southam corporation. One of my theories of the time was that the decline in paid circulation newspapers was largely due to the onset of national and regional television news programs, but I maintained that there was a large thirst for really localized information, and there is. It turns out that may have also been Southam’s idea at the time, but the winds of change were swooping down. That long standing venerable company was soon overtaken (a story in itself).
I stayed at the News for another 10 years after the deal, but my heart was (I thought) on Pender Island and I spent a lot of time there, developing a retreat/resort facility. The News had many friends and connections. We hosted seminars and instructional courses, and of course, tremendous parties. But the writing was on the wall. Each alteration of ownership of “Mother” brought another head office and their cost cutting review, and soon that resort facility, known as Clam Bay Farm, was living out of my pocket, and the parties were history.
My friend and resort manager died, suddenly and unexpectedly, while playing tennis. This shook me. I put Clam Bay Farm on the market after it became clear to me that, without Karl Begrich, the farm was no longer fun.
A 1973 edition of the North Shore Shopper, which would later become the North Shore News, shows the newspaper’s staff.
For the two years it took to sell, I did Karl’s job, and my own at the News. It was hard, sad work on the Island, and the newspaper business began to shrink. I parted with the News in 2001, at about the same time as the airliners began being hijacked in New York. I sold the Farm in 2004.
It turns out what I really love is living on the North Shore, and I hope to continue living here until the big bell rings.
The North Shore News has had several owners in the years following me, now in the capable hands of the Glacier Media Group. Thank you to Matt and the rest of the North Shore News team for giving me the chance to kick off this 55th anniversary edition. Thanks for reading, and partying, and buying ads, and all the rest. Here’s to 55 years, and many more.
Connections remain for decades
to me. I am sometimes known to be clumsy, and I just kept thinking, ‘This might be one of the last copies of this microfilm, so you better not break anything.”
Digging through the archives was also a little different for Crowe than it was for her colleagues. She grew up on the North Shore, so the headlines hit a little closer to home.
“I was born and raised in the community so I found it super interesting to flip back in time and see how much has changed and at the same time, how much has stayed the same,” she said. “I really enjoyed seeing stories I had forgotten about or featuring people I know. I found myself saying, ‘Hey,
I know them!’ or ‘I remember that’ a lot. It’s like there are these invisible strings tying generation to generation, and it’s all outlined in this community paper.”
That’s such a lovely way to put it: “invisible strings tying generation to generation.”
As this section proves, those invisible strings have never been stronger. Thanks again to our incredible partners, particularly our friends at the library, as well as all of our readers and advertisers who have been with us for any or all of our 55 years.
The strings may be invisible, but those connections are very real.
Andy Prest is the editor of the North Shore News.
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Congratulations NorthShoreNews onyour55thAnniversary!
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North Shore Shopper: Cap College establishes centre for Human Relations Capilano College scores an important first in the community college movement in the province with the establishment of a Centre for Human Relations. The centre “reflects a desire by the college to make its facilities open to as many interested people as possible.”
SEPTEMBER 3 HEADLINE:
Allure of Lynn Canyon Every summer Lynn Canyon calls to the spirit of young locals and visitors alike. The canyon has become a notorious spot over decades, claiming the lives of many
FoundersMr.PaulYuen& Ms.CathyLeewererecentlyhonouredwith the2024AwardforLifetimeAchievementfromBC’sCouncilfor InternationalEducation.
DeeplyconnectedtotheNorthShorecommunity,Bodwellwas foundedin1991.Over30yearslater,itsalumninownumberover 7,000acrossCanadaandtheworld. Discoverustoday!
ThankyoutotheNorthShoreNewsfor 55yearsoftellingimportantlocalstories. LiketheNSNews,Neptunehasbeenoperating inNorthVancouversincethelate1960s.Although manythingshavechangedsincethen,ourshared commitmenttothecommunityhasnot.
Welookforwardtomanymoredecadesofdoing businesshere,together.
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JANUARY 12 HEADLINE: West Vancouver cleaning up after king tide slams shoreline Cleanup is continuing on West Vancouver’s waterfront after king tides
SEPTEMBER 1 HEADLINE: TAGG to combat Communists and ‘left-wing’ elements
The North Vancouver Tax Payers Association for Good Government is looking to recruit members
AUGUST 1 HEADLINE: Summer Boating on the North Shore This summer has been mostly incident free as boaters enjoy the
SEPTEMBER 4 HEADLINE: North Shore Shopper: 80 years on the North Shore
An article with carver Andy Natrall, pictured with a model wooden spear used for hunting. Natrall says “my education goes back 4,000 years. Before the flood the whole world spoke the same language; now look, people can’t understand each other.”
JULY 3 HEADLINE: All Candidates Forum
A roundup of political platform summaries with headlines like “We Will Fight Inflation”, “Roll Back Prices by 25%”, “Let’s End Wasteful Spending”, “Fusion Power is the Answer” and more.
FEBRUARY 19 HEADLINE:
“A cross-country ski film is being shot on Hollyburn Mountain by a local film crew.” Rex Weyler snaps the photo.
JANUARY 5 HEADLINE: New Year, no problem Y2K troubles fail to show
MARCH 19 HEADLINE: William Jeffery, “one of the best carvers in the world!” works on a Totem pole in Ambleside Park. The work depicts the four crests of the Great Northwest: The eagle, the raven, the wolf, and the grizzly. The West Van Real Estate Board is sponsoring the work, which will come to rest in Horseshoe Bay.
MISSION: toenhancethelivesofourneighboursespeciallyourmostvulnerable. VISION: asafe,healthyandstrongcommunity,welcomingallages,abilities andcultures–onewhereeveryonehasaccesstosupport, everyoneisincluded,andwhereeveryonematters. Weprovideservicesforallagesincluding;childcareprograms, SupportedChildDevelopmentProgram,YouthParentProgram, YouthPrograms,TeenClub,SeniorsPrograms,FoodSecurityPrograms, HealthandRecreationPrograms,Volunteeropportunities. Youcandonateonlinethroughourwebsite.
SEPTEMBER 21 HEADLINE: A New Leaf Raise a Reader campaign, and the Libraries Book Buddies
DECEMBER 1 HEADLINE: North Van volunteer rescue team search for missing hiker Team Leader Gerry Brewer provides a story on the thorough but unsuccessful search for a missing hiker on Seymour Mountain. The search “is an example of the wonderful spirit of the many who turned out to participate, and we feel that the public should know about these dedicated men.” 1970
OCTOBER 1 HEADLINE: Scouts Complete Centennial Trail
Two of British Columbia’s biggest centennial projects -- North Vancouver’s Ecological Centre and the Baden-Powell Centennial Trail, will open officially in October 1971.
FEBRUARY 1 HEADLINE:
Floating Span could save $180 Million, say Designers Floating pontoon bridge linking St. Patrick’s Avenue with Clark Drive in Vancouver would “solve transit problems for one-tenth of the cost of a proposed [First Narrows] bridge or tunnel, says naval architect.”
DECEMBER 15 HEADLINE: We have a new name
North Shore Shopper announces name change to North Shore Free Press, a name to “convey more accurately the true scope of the paper.”
JUNE 17 HEADLINE:
Cops turn to web to help bust rioters North Shore police officers called in to help stop looting, vandalism
MARCH 20 HEADLINE:
All pictures!
“Well, not quite all pictures…but there are many more pictures in this issue of the Shopper than we usually carry…There are two reasons for this. One is that we had a typesetting machinery breakdown at the last minute, which made it impossible to set many of the regular features and contributors, and the second is that one we began laying it out we found it looked nice. If you like it, let us know.”
MAY 17 HEADLINE: Voyage of the Orender
A handcarved vessel makes it way to Hawaii to prove the theory that the first Hawaiians were from Haida. A journey of heart and discovery.
SEPTEMBER 5 HEADLINE: Pulling Together
Members of Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nation at the Gathering of the Canoes
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