Members of the media welcome the opportunity to cover issues that matter to residents in Northern Saskatchewan, provided you have the time and funding to head north.
Over the past two months, our staff has tried hard to fill the void left by the unexpected passing of our former Northern Advocate reporter, Valerie G. Barnes Connell Jordan, who was stationed in La Ronge and covered events across the region. It’s been a difficult task.
Val wasn’t just a reporter for us. She was a northerner. She was someone we could email to call to see what issues actually mattered to northern residents. Since her death, we’ve tried hard to follow up on stories of interest in the north, but that’s a tough thing to do from a desk in Prince Albert. We miss Val’s feedback on what issues weren’t getting enough media coverage in “the south” as she called Prince Albert.
The biggest challenge for this issue was finding a photo. Normally Val attended so many events we had plenty of pictures worthy of a spot on page 1. That hasn’t been the case this month, and it’s not because the nothing is happening. The north is as active as ever, but we haven’t had the time to get a photographer up there to capture it.
Thankfully we had two organizations come through. The photo on the right, featuring artist Leo Emond hard at work, is typical of what we try to capture about the north. While tragedies like the violence in Pelican Narrows may grab the public’s attention, my experience with northerners is that they mostly want the same things we want further south: fulfilling work and hobbies, time with friends and family, and peace. Thank you to the La Ronge Arts Council for allowing us to run the photo, and showcase a side of the north that often gets overlooked amongst the gruesome headlines.
SUM Theatre was the other organization that came through for us. The Saskatoon-based theatre company put on a great show at Kinsmen Park in Prince Albert. We have plenty of great photos from it, but we wanted something from their time in the north. Thankfully, Mackenzie Dawson and the SUM Theatre crew were more than happy to send us a few from their performance in La Ronge. You can see the one we chose on page 1.
I’m not sure what the future holds for the Northern Advocate. Ideally, we’d like to find a reporter who can replace Val, but that’s not easily done. It’s difficult to find young reporters who are willing to move out of Canada’s large urban centres and into the hinterlands—even for a year or two.
Until that happens, we’ll try and provide the best monthly paper we can from our desks in Prince Albert. If you, as I do, prefer to have reporters living and working in the city or region they cover, there is one thing you can do to help: send us your submissions.
This month we were very grateful to have award-winning author Miriam Korner write an excellent piece for us on a father-son duo who took the lessons learned from re-introducing bison into Northern Saskatchewan and applied them to similar efforts in Alberta. Her story, “Return of the Bison” is on page 13 and 14, and we’re incredibly thankful for it.
You might not be as accomplished a writer as Korner, but don’t let that dissuade you from getting in touch with us. You can email me at jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca. I can’t say I’ll accept every pitch, but as long as you’re polite, I’ll listen.
Who should submit? Local community groups, charities, non-profits, schools, churches, and clubs. If you know of something (or someone) funny, interesting, perplexing, or unusual, please let us know. We’d be happy to look into it.
We also want to hear from people all across the north. Sometimes it’s easier to focus on La Ronge, but the Northern Advocate is a regional paper. We want to cover stories of interest to everyone from La Loche to Stony Rapids to Wollaston Lake, and everywhere in between.
I’m not sure when our next reporter will take up residence in the north. Until then, we hope you’ll stick with us while we figure things out.
Jason Kerr is the editor of the Northern Advocate and the Prince Albert Daily Herald.
