The Haliburton Highlands Newspaper Digitization Project

Background

Local newspapers are one of the few enduring witnesses to the growth and development of any community; they represent the voice of the people and are a gateway to understanding our history.

The Haliburton Highlands has been home numerous publications since 1874. There have been fires, bankruptcies, rough starts, failed mergers, and changes in both ownerships and locations.

The two mainstays have been the Echo and the Times. Haliburton County Echo began in 1874 as the Minden Herald. Since then, it’s been published as the Minden Echo; the Minden Echo & Haliburton County Recorder; Haliburton County News; and, finally, the Haliburton County Echo.

The Minden Times began as the Minden Progress in 1963, was renamed the County Progress and then The Times. It was purchased by the owners of the Echo in 2001. With this change, the Times focused on news from the west side of the County (Algonquin Highlands and Minden Hills) and the Echo on the east side (Dysart et al and Highlands East). Both included news significant to the County as a whole.

Each of these papers has additionally produced supplements, magazines and special editions for myriad community events and anniversaries.

Over the years other newspapers and partnerships have come and gone under various mastheads including Highlands Express, Highlands Communicator, County Connections, County Voice, Cardiff Courier, and the Highlands Courier. In 2011, the county-wide Highlander was created and continues to be published.

Over time, thousands of independent community newspapers across Canada have been bought up by syndicates. Unfortunately, many of these have folded, leaving numerous small towns across Ontario – and the country, with no source for local news. 

In 2025, we are fortunate to have three non-syndicated newspapers that continue to tell the stories of the Haliburton Highlands: the Haliburton County Echo. the Minden Times, and The Highlander.

For a more extensive history of newspapers in the Haliburton Highlands read Steve Hill's paper on this subject. 

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The Project

In 2023, former Echo and Times editor, Martha Perkins, and former Fleming College dean, Barb Bolin, began talking about preserving our newspaper history. They looked at other community digitization projects and spoke to the local organizations and individuals that hold the existing collections. Interest is ‘doing something’ was high.

They approached the U-Links Centre for Community-Based Research to become the lead organization, and the U-Links Management Committee felt the creation of a digital newspaper archive was a natural extension of the U-Links mandate which includes a collection of 32 years of community-based research on myriad projects. U-Links agreed to be the lead organization. The pair were also successful in getting support from the publishers of existing local newspapers.

Start-up funds were sought and gratefully received from Martha Perkins, Len Pizzey, the Rotary Club of Haliburton, and Canoe FM; and the HCDC Local Initiative Program.

Barb and Martha also invited community champions to serve on a thinktank to oversee the project.

This group consists of:

Barb Bolin - Former Dean of Fleming College, Haliburton School of Art and Design

Jim Blake - Co-Chair, U-Links Centre for Community Based Research

Andrea Brown - CEO/Chief Librarian Haliburton County

Adele Espina - Chair, Haliburton Highlands Genealogy Group  Chair, Stanhope Heritage Museum

Steve Hill - Former Curator, Haliburton Highlands Museum (retired January 2024)

Carol Moffatt - Stanhope Heritage Museum founder and committee member. Former Algonquin

Highlands Mayor and County Warden

Tom Whillans - Professor Emeritus, Trent University; U-Links Management Committee

Ted Brandon - Project Co-ordinator

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Advisors include:

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Robert Wong  Minden Hills Cultural Centre

Karen Suurtamm Trent University Archivist

Dwayne Collins Trent University Innovation Librarian

Martha Perkins Supporter and donor

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The start-up funds provided for the hiring of a Project Co-ordinator to ascertain the project scope and options. This work included an inventory of newspaper archives; determining the scope of digitization; researching similar projects in other communities; identifying options for digitization; and developing a budget.

We found that there are 130,000 pages of the above-named newspapers sitting in the archives of newspaper publishers that needed to be scanned, digitized and uploaded into an on-line archive. There were also approximately 1400 editions of more recent papers that had already been digitized by the publishers that need to be uploaded to the archive. We created an on-line searchable newspaper archive on the Internet Archive (a free service used by institutions around the world).

We contracted with an Ontario company, MES Hybrid Document Systems to undertake the scanning and uploading of the digitized newspapers.

Next Steps

With the Newspaper Archive in a searchable on-line data base. The next step is to find as many of the missing papers as we can to add them to the collection.

The Haliburton County Library and the Haliburton Highlands Genealogy Group are collaborating on this collection effort.

Please help fill in the gaps!!  CLICK To see how you can help.

Donors and contributors to the

Haliburton Highlands Digitization Project

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Donors and Funders

Martha Perkins

Len & Kit Pizzey

Rotary Club of Haliburton

Rotary Club of Minden

Barb Bolin

Jim Blake

Carol Moffatt & Tony Aymong

The Haliburton Echo and Minden Times

Haliburton County Development Corporation

Andrew & Anne Hodgson

Chris & Marie Hodgson

Greg & Sandra Bishop

Ted & Lorry Brandon

Emmerson Lumber

In memory of Leopoldina Dobrzensky

Canoe FM Community Radio Station

Anonymous

Haliburton & District Lions Club

Committee Members

Barb Bolin - Chair

Jim Blake

Andrea Brown

Adele Espina

Steve Hill

Carol Moffatt

Tom Whillans

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Project Co-ordinator

Ted Brandon

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Advisors

Dwayne Collins - Trent University Innovation Librarian

Martha Perkins - Supporter and donor

Karen Suurtamm  - Trent University Archivist

Robert Wong - Cultural Program Coordinator

Minden Hills Cultural Centre

Community Partners

County Voice

Haliburton County Community Co-operative

The Haliburton County Echo and Minden Times

Haliburton County Development Corporation

Haliburton County Library

Haliburton Highlands Genealogy Group

Haliburton Highlands Museum

The Highlander

The Highlands Express

Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives

Minden Hills Cultural Centre

Trent University Library & Archives

U-Links Centre for Community-Based Research