It's been quite the road for newspapers, the quintessential news outlet and gold standard of communication that can trace its routes back to Ancient Rome when announcements would be carved on stone.
Newspapers, which were birthed on the printing press in the 17th century, the bigger brother to its predecessor, the political pamphlet, connected people. Informed people.
Changed people.
In an era defined by social status, suppression and schisms carving through society, where any sense of control or hope for the working-class - the "everyday Joe" - was quickly snuffed by a widening wealthy elite, having a few pieces of paper to help carry their voices would have a groundbreaking, life changing impact.
By the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution would usher in what many historians refer to as the "Golden Age" of newspapers. No radios or TVs to compete with, it was the only way of having a semblance of the outside world, something that is nowadays taken for granted with breaking news being just a mouse click or Tweet away.
Fleet Street, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times and other acclaimed daily papers were conceived during the Golden Age; the last two, with expansion into the digital world, are still highly celebrated and widely read by millions of readers each day.
But what about community papers, the little brother that sits in the shadow of their prominent counterparts?
Wait - are they really in the shadows? Or does it just seem that way to city-dwellers who have big name daily papers to rely upon?
For residents of a diminutive town or smaller city, the local weekly paper is, well, everything.
"There's something about turning the pages," said Fred Bradshaw, MLA for Carrot River Valley in Saskatchewan. "I love reading the local news and actually holding the paper in my hand."
Bradshaw's electoral district is comprised of many rural towns and hamlets, one of which is Hudson Bay, a town in the east-central part of the province.
Established as a fur-trading post in the late 1700s, the small city of 1,500 expanded during the railways and forestry boom and deflated after that. But no matter the fluctuating figures (many are returning due to a recent coal discovery), one thing has remained a constant: having its beloved local paper, the Hudson Bay Post-Review, to read every Thursday morning.
Founded in 1955 after a period of fleeting smaller papers, for just a dollar an issue, Hudson Bay residents can open its pages and instantly connect to their community.
"You have upcoming town events that you'd otherwise have no clue about," Bradshaw explained, emphasizing why community papers, although smaller in pages and staff, aren't inferior in their impact compared to dailys.
"They let you know what's going on in the city around you by promoting people and businesses," he added, touching on the advertising aspect of papers aside from their editorial content. "There might be some big sale happening at a local mom and pop shop but you have to pick up the paper to know that."
Bradshaw knows a thing or two about keeping close to his community. A true prairie boy, he worked on the oil rigs and farmed growing up and has called Carrot River home since 1960.
Those small town roots haven't wilted away since he became involved in politics. In fact, not only do they hold true, but having that inclination to read the weekly community newspaper has benefitted him as a politician.
"Oh definitely, yes," Bradshaw responded emphatically, when asked if the local paper serves him well in his career. "It keeps my pulse on the community, on the people I'm serving; what their interests are, what they're concerned about."
And what about the other end of the spectrum: the everyday people Bradshaw is serving?
"It would have been 1956," Alphonse Dereshkevich answered.
"That's when I took out my first subscription with the paper."
At 74, Dereshkevich is a life-long resident of Hudson Bay; he's never left, nor has any plans to. Married, raised a family (two of his children still live in town), he can recall many events that unfolded in Hudson Bay throughout the years but one which he remembers with absolute certainty is the day he walked into the Hudson Bay Post-Review office, at 17 years old, and subscribed to the paper.
"I know it was that year because I had been working on the railroad at that time," he said. "The paper started a year before that."
Dereshkevich picks up his paper at the local post office every week, to flip through the same pages he has for nearly 60 years.
So what makes people, like Dereshkevich, so loyal to their local newspaper? What sets those publications apart from the bigger ones, like the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix or the Regina Leader-Post?
The answer isn't dripping in theology and a philosophical, drawn-out analysis that only a professor at Harvard could disentangle.
In fact, it's simple.
"It's where I get my news," Dereshkevich said.
"I read it to know what's going on here."
Nothing more, nothing less.
"We have a lot of loyal readers like that," Pilon said, when asked about Dereshkevich. "Some have moved away but they still read the paper."
Sherry Pilon is the manager and publisher of the Post-Review in Hudson Bay. After starting as a secretary at the paper in the early '90s, Pilon took over the reins in 2000 and hasn't looked back since; well, sometimes she does, with nostalgia.
"Everything was done by hand back then," she chuckled. "Cut and paste. It was all manual. So, it's a lot easier nowadays."
The paper is usually a dozen-or-so pages of content, which, Pilon, proudly boasts, separates them from larger publications.
"We're all local news. You'll hardly find anything else," she said, alluding to the bigger newspapers that carry national and global affairs as well.
Not only does the paper have loyal readers in its arensal but loyal contributors. Gene Hauta has been associated with the paper since the 1970s, as its resident sports columnist, but has since branched out as a general assignment reporter too.
Nelly Ferlenko, correspondent for the Prairie River News section of the paper, has kept that role since the late 1960s.
"Most of our staff and contributors have been with us for the long haul," Pilon said.
Why the loyalty? Because still, even after 150 years of headlines, by-lines and gripping editorials, there's still something special about seeing your name, your town, your school mentioned among the news.
It's recognition; a sense of accomplishment, a validation of your life, and that achievement is magnified when it's covered by the local paper.
"We really are the community," Pilon said.
The Post-Review is the "Keeper of Hudson Bay's history," she said. They have a compilation of "year in the papers" that acts as history books for the town, but they also connect to the city on a more philanthropic, out-reaching level. They print programs for the local minor hockey teams and support numerous organizations in the area, so when Pilon emphasizes the paper's importance to Hudson Bay, it's easy to see why many of its readers and residents believe it to be somewhat of a keystone to the town.
But despite its impact, Pilon admits that the paper has pushed through some daunting times in recent years, in order to bring the town of Hudson Bay their local news.
"When I started in 1994, we had over eight people on staff," Pilon recalled. "We had correspondence, papers were hand-deliverednow we're down to two people."
Like a domino effect, as people began to migrate out of town, Hudson Bay's economy took a dip too. The mill closed, some stores went belly up and because of that, not only did the newspaper's readership decline but so did advertising revenues.
"Less people and business meant less stuff to advertise," Pilon said.
Oddly enough, she did notice that something remained unchanged.
"Our subscriptions. They didn't really decline," she said, mentioning again that even though some people may move away from Hudson Bay, they still feel an inherent connection to the area and a curiosity in its news.
However, things are looking up for the paper. The mill has re-opened and because of people slowly trickling back to the area, thanks to Saskatchewan's booming economy, advertising revenue is starting to perk up.
Still, many community newspapers in Saskatchewan have a foreboding concern looming over their heads.
"It would probably put us out of business; we wouldn't be able to afford it," Pilon said about the provincial government's proposed multi-material recycling program. The current model will impose multi-million dollar costs for publishers, an environmental stewardship program that would seek to reduce packaging amounts by charging a fee to newspapers for their recycling.
The problem, Steve Nixon, executive director for the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association (SWNA), said is that "newspapers aren't packaging, they're the product."
Calling the community newspaper industry "fragile", Nixon said if the fees are significant, the newspapers' role will be compromised and jobs will be lost.
"We don't believe that the Government of Saskatchewan wants that on its hands."
However, MLA Fred Bradshaw, who sat in on the meetings when the new recycling program was being discussed, stated there are currently no fees for recycling papers and that they're looking at a variety of options to address the issue.
If there are fees in the end, Bradshaw said they wouldn't be detrimental to small community papers.
"They wouldn't be that big of a fee; it'd be a minute amount," he said, adding it's been proposed that the tax be a lesser amount for smaller papers.
Whatever form the recycling program takes, Nixon hopes the value and importance of local papers, as both a news outlet and employer, isn't overlooked.
"This is a very critical issue for [community papers]," he said.
The late journalist and social critic H. L. Mencken, acclaimed writer for The Baltimore Sun, once said, "As I look over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other enterprise. It is really the life of kings."
Community papers, in their monarchical garb of local content, keeping up with the community beat and history of their respective towns, are not so dissimilar to present-day monarchies; they may be a figurehead due to the enormous impact of the digital age, but their importance to society is measured in their influence.
The Hudson Bay Post-Review is a perfect example of this.
But, will the king be overthrown?
