Valentine’s Edition

Heart & Soul

—by Anna Proctor

Welcome to our snowy February March issue! We used to call this the early spring issue, but I think in these times of extreme weather, we might as well let that one go. Winter is here and furious, and it’s not going away anytime soon! I hope you are all surviving it!

This is the first full issue of our 20^th anniversary year, and we are so proud of that fact. Steve and I, Deb and Hillary put our heart and soul into each and every issue, and send every one out to you with love…that’s 6 issues times 20 years, which is 180 issues full of love, community happenings, spirit, and joy.

In the old print North Simcoe News days, Steve would lay the issue out and upload it to our printer’s site for them to print it out on tabloid sized pages. We used Georgian Printing in Barrie at first and then switched to McLaren Press in Gravenhurst.

Each issue had to be carefully planned out in terms of colour and black and white pages. Colour was more expensive, and we usually only opted for 2 sheets of it, which equalled 8 pages. Sometimes if we had enough colour ads (which we charged extra for) we would splurge and add more colour! Whoohooo!

Once the print run was complete, which was usually 15,000 copies of 24 or 28 pages, depending again on how many ads we had and what we could afford, Steve and Jamie (my son, and author of the Speaking of Wildlife column), would take a run up to Gravenhurst to the printer, and “throw” the paper.

This exercise (and believe me it was an exercise), consisted of heaving bound bundles of 50 papers each into large plastic containers which would then be delivered to Canada Post for mailing. Each container would be marked with a specific number and area they were going to, on little scraps of typed paper which I would have painstakingly figured out and printed at home, previously.

Extra papers were delivered by me throughout businesses in Oro-Medonte that advertised with us. Some folks who lived out of our delivery area would buy subscriptions to “the paper” and these would be mailed individually, using mailing labels that my middle daughter Emily had to type out and affix, along with postage, to large manila envelopes. Did I mention my youngest daughter Laura was our photographer back in those days? “The paper” was a family affair!

This mailing state of affairs lasted until the pandemic, when we decided to switch to fully online…and more of a magazine format. We applaud all of our senior readers who made the switch to reading North Simcoe Life on their tablets and phones and laptops, with aplomb!

Enjoy this latest issue of NS Life! A couple of our regular writers are off traveling, but there are still plenty of local community happenings and updates to keep you entertained, as well as fabulous pictures, and wonderful local businesses to support. Not to mention an awesome contest to enter!

Happy Valentine’s to all of you! This and every issue of NS Life goes to you with love!