About The Beacon

While printed newspapers are slowly disappearing from the Canadian landscape, The Beacon has been printing 10 times a year since April 1, 1978.

It was the brainchild of founder Tom Harmes when he was the head of Eastern Passage’s Rate Payers Association. He started off sending information to residents through the school system but quickly realized that the volume of information was too much for local schools to manage.

The Beacon emerged from a typewriter in Harmes’ basement, with hand drawn ads, and the legal-sized document was printed on a Gestetner. (Those of us who are old enough, remember the delicious smell of freshly printed Gestetner paper copies.) Elsie Johnston won a $10 prize for designing the lighthouse graphic.

The Beacon migrated to a tabloid in 1980 and has remained a tabloid ever since, even though the current newspaper trend is to replace the printed word with online versions.

Because we know that Gen Z and millennials read papers on their smart phones, while baby boomers prefer the printed version, The Beacon does put a PDF of the paper online as well.

Interestingly, in an era of vanishing newspapers, the remaining community newspapers in Canada are flourishing. According to the German headquartered Statistica, a global data and business intelligence operating in 13 locations worldwide and employing around 1,100 professionals, Community newspaper circulation in Canada increased year over year in eight out of 13 provinces and territories (2022 data).

“This is good news for those seeking local information, which ranks as the main reason for reading community papers. Local news is key in keeping communities informed, and better represents these communities and their inhabitants than larger national outlets,” reports Statistica.

The Beacon provides its paper free and, as a not-for-profit organization, it has always run on support of its volunteers, including eight or nine editors over the past 46 years, Board members and contributing writers. A paper that is community-based, covering community events, and highlighting local businesses and groups, The Beacon relies on revenue from local advertisers, donations from residents and modest fund-raisers to continue to print.

For advertisers, the paper’s beauty is it covers Cow Bay, Eastern Passage and Shearwater, the very people you want coming into your salon to get a hair cut, frequenting your local restaurant to eat, or popping into your shop to buy flowers on a regular basis.

You will notice that this Beacon sports a refreshed “look”, and the content has broadened to include more local flavour over the past few months. While we went to a four-column format, we increased the size of the font for ease of reading.

We will continue to evolve over time, always sticking to our roots of local stories about local people and events, but we need you to come along with us.

We appreciate your support, and trust that you will continue to place ads in The Beacon. If you haven’t taken out an ad recently, consider doing so. If you ever thought that you might want to write a column on gardening, music, or food, let us know.

Contact The Beacon at editor@easternpassagebeacon.com for more information on rates and layout options or if you want to write a column or be a “roving reporter”.