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Requiem for the Arrow Lakes News
The Arrow Lakes News is dead. Long live the Arrow Lakes News!

Greg Nesteroff
Jul 17, 20256 min read


Fake news, 1890: The $10,000 wedding proposal
A Kootenay teacher was once offered a small fortune by a bride-to-be in Minnesota, sight unseen. Who was he and what happened?

Greg Nesteroff
Sep 13, 20218 min read


The former home of the Nelson Daily News
Before the Nelson Daily News moved to 266 Baker St., it was in the building now home to Jackson’s Hole.

Greg Nesteroff
Dec 28, 20195 min read


Little-known Nelson heritage buildings: The Economist office
On the heels of discovering that the last office of the Nelson Tribune (and probably the Nelson Ledge and Lowery’s Claim) is still...

Greg Nesteroff
Dec 28, 20195 min read


Little-known Nelson heritage buildings: The Johnstone Block
A recent post looked at the last home of the Nelson Tribune , which, much to my surprise, is still standing on Baker Street. Tracking the various locations of The Tribune and its rival paper, The Miner , is not easy. The Miner was founded by John Houston and partners Charles Ink and Gesner Allen in 1890. Through 1892, The Miner was at 14 East Baker Street, although we don’t know exactly where that was. Houston, Ink, and Allen also had their real estate office in this buil

Greg Nesteroff
Nov 29, 20196 min read


Little-known Nelson heritage buildings: The Tribune’s last home
Here’s a story left out of Kootenay News — my exhibit at Touchstones Nelson on the history of Nelson’s newspapers — for lack of space....

Greg Nesteroff
Nov 13, 201911 min read


Wandering printing presses of West Kootenay
During West Kootenay’s mining boom of the 1890s, newspapers popped up like Starbucks franchises. But lugging a printing press into a remote area was no small chore. Consequently, many presses churned out several titles before being retired. In 1962, during land clearing for a resort at Trout Lake, a bulldozer unearthed a hand-cranked press, seen above in the Nelson Daily News on June 23 of that year. The caption read in part: [T]his ancient Washington hand press … appeared f

Greg Nesteroff
Apr 7, 201911 min read


The Nelson Independent
A copy of a short-lived and long-lost Nelson newspaper has surfaced: it’s the Sept. 20, 1913 edition of The Independent, whose existence...

Greg Nesteroff
Feb 16, 20196 min read


Pioneer women of West Kootenay: Ralphia Weir Stitt McLean Borrow
I’m not sure who the first woman to work for a West Kootenay/Boundary newspaper was, but one early example was Harriet Haire Smith, a daughter of C. Dell Smith, proprietor of the Ymir Mirror . The paper’s Jan. 30, 1904 edition noted: “Miss Smith of the Mirror business staff is visiting her friend, Miss Adie at Waneta.” I presume she was Dell’s daughter, but can’t say for sure. At the time, Harriet was not yet 16. The family moved to Victoria after the newspaper folded a few

Greg Nesteroff
Dec 15, 20188 min read


Robert T. Lowery’s last newspaper folds
The first newspaper Robert Thornton Lowery was involved in — and the last still in business — is folding after 139 years. This cartoon,...

Greg Nesteroff
Jun 26, 20182 min read


Sandon Paystreak envelope sells for $241
A neat item sold this afternoon on eBay for $192 US (which is $241 Cdn): an envelope from the Sandon Paystreak newspaper. It was...

Greg Nesteroff
Feb 18, 20182 min read
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