Debbie Ballard
Recently, the Fort Frances Museum finished up the enormous job of digitizing every edition of the Fort Frances Times, beginning with the 1896 editions.
Those fragile, yellowed copies of the Times no longer are in danger of being lost to time and the elements. The information and stories on those pages now are digitally preserved for researchers, history buffs, casual readers, and those looking to fill gaps in their family tree.
This is a significant accomplishment for the museum. It took two years and a bit of technical know-how to get the job done.
Those old papers are a history of our district. In fact, each week our newspaper records what’s happening in town and thus the history of our area. Things as momentous as flood level waters on Rainy Lake or as routine as the top scorer in a hockey game.
No other individual or organization is responsible for recording the day-to-day and week-to-week events and happenings in a community except a community newspaper. Without a community newspaper and the reporters employed there, that information may or may not be preserved.
Whether it is mundane or momentous, the information is there in the pages of the Times. Things like the building of the Noden Causeway or the hospital, the shutdown of the paper mill, and hail and flood damage from storms (remember that time all routes were cut off except the highway to Duluth?)
There’s the more day-to-day stuff, like municipal and provincial elections, school board meetings, the cute elementary school Christmas concerts, and high school sports (if you don’t think that’s important, talk to any parent with a kid on a team), along with births and the obituaries.
Search the newspaper archives. It’s all there.
The Fort Frances Times has been in existence for 123 years. For each and every one of those years, the paper faithfully has reported on the people, places, and happenings in the district.
If you think recorded history is important, a newspaper by extension is important. If you want to be an informed citizen of your community, read your local paper.
Newspapers do matter. Your community newspaper matters.
Editor’s note: National Newspaper Week 2018 runs Oct. 1-7.
