by Joyce Carlson Who would have thought 45 years ago when I wrote reports for my brother’s rep hockey team that it was the start of a career that allowed me to follow my passion?
I have always loved to write. For our grade seven class at Brooks Secondary School, I actually hand wrote the entire paper and we reproduced it on a Gestetner machine. Someone drew a picture of all the class members with a prediction written beside each one. Not provided by me, mine predicted I would be a newspaper editor one day.
It was a humble beginning that my brother’s request began. Each week during the hockey season, I would surreptitiously drop a report in the door slot of the Powell River News office on Marine Avenue.
The next season, my brother talked me into writing a column called Minor Hockey Beat. I said I would, but added I should speak to the editor to see if one was wanted. He did and one day towards the end of the season asked if I would consider taking over from the women’s editor, who was retiring. I did and subsequently filled in for the sports editor when he was away.
When he left I became the sports editor at a time when it was a mostly male position. Nowadays, there are female sports reporters on television and in Stanley Cup final and Super Bowl locker rooms. Along with the sports beat, I inherited the union shop steward position. At my very first bargaining session, as a cheeky 20-something, I told the company owner that some day I wanted to run his newspaper. After a few years as senior reporter, I became assistant publisher and then publisher.
When I started in the business, a linotype machine operated in the commercial printing area, taking large pieces of lead called pigs, melting them down and creating lines of type for business cards and envelopes. At one time, lines of type were used to create each page of the newspaper.
What a difference today when stories and ads are created, pages are put together and sent to the printers in another city, all electronically.
No matter what the method, each week of my career has involved rearranging the 26 letters of the alphabet.
Attending an annual general meeting of BC and Yukon Community Newspapers Association in 1986, I was invited to be part of the board of directors, something I continued for 25 years. Through that association I met the owner/publisher of Gulf Islands Driftwood on Salt Spring Island. He asked me several times to move there to run the paper for him. In 1989, I finally accepted and spent the next six years on the island. I compare those six years to attending university, as both my husband Don and I were born and raised in Powell River.
During that time I served as president of the provincial association and was one of three BC reps on the Canadian Community Newspapers Association (CCNA) board of directors, rising to president in 1994.
On that board you gain an understanding of how difficult it is for a federal government to govern this country with all the diversity among provinces and territories. Around the table, many issues, some of them acrimonious, were debated until consensus was reached.
My years on the board allowed me the opportunity to visit every province and territory in Canada, and helped me appreciate our differences and similarities. Looking back, what I remember most is the beauty of the geography and the warmth of the people. That impression of people has never changed throughout my career.
As my term came to an end 20 years ago, the decision was made to return to Powell River from Salt Spring and start a new newspaper. Naming a paper is as difficult as naming a child. After numerous considerations, we decided on the Powell River Peak.
It’s been a wonderful part of my life and I credit all the Peakers, our readers, businesses and community partners for the pleasure it has brought.
When I came in as CCNA president, my opening address compared life to a bumper car ride. I spoke of how throughout our years on earth we bump into one another; some bumps so soft we barely feel them and others so hard they send us in an entirely different direction.
People in our lives don’t always know their impact on us and we don’t always know the impact we have had on others. At the end, it’s the accumulation of all those bumps that give our lives meaning. My bumps, like yours, include the people I have worked for, the people I’ve worked with, the people I’ve written stories about, the people I love and the people who love me.
Pregnant and married at 16, two babies by 18, my beginning was written off by some people. When I look back at it all, I can say with pride, not bad for a little girl from Cranberry.
Thursday, December 31, is Joyce Carlson’s last day as publisher at Peak Publishing.
