During my high school years I lived in North Vancouver, Canada.  My parents house was a ten minute walk to the school if I took the short- cut through the forest, ravine, across the creek and up a steep hill.  Walking on the roads was twenty minutes.

Although living in Vancouver, we could boast relatively mild weather year round it did rain a lot.  Snow and cold might have stopped me from using the short-cut to go to school, but rain I could handle.  The tree’s shielded it a lot anyway.   The big downside of constant on and off drizzle, light rain and even at times just air that felt you were walking through water it was so heavy with moisture, was the darkness.

The City of Vancouver (and it’s surrounding municipalities of North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster and Richmond) are well known for a high incidence of depression.  I don’t know this for a fact but having lived there for many years I would suspect the constant dull overcast contributes to this fact.

Focusing on the Story – what about Newspapers?

Living so close I went home for lunch everyday.  I would make myself, soup, canned stew, macaroni and occasionally a sandwich (back then I was not big on sandwiches although that’s what I eat for lunch most of the time these days).   After heating up my lunch I would sit at the kitchen table and read the Vancouver Province newspaper.  In those day’s Vancouver had two major daily’s – The Vancouver Sun (afternoon) and the Vancouver Province (morning).   Surprise (and I mean shocking surprise) – they are both still publishing albeit under the same owner.

I was in Vancouver recently and saw a newspaper box with the Province and was taken back to my high school days when I read the paper religiously every day for years.

What struck me most was the fact that although I still read a daily paper every day (the global and mail)  it’s now exclusively the electronic edition.  I have not held a broadsheet in my hands for years (Nexus tablet for me) and have no real desire to do so – except nostalgic reasons such as those triggered by my recent trip.

The shocking part I referred to above,  is the fact that in this day of frequent newspaper bankruptcies and consolidations these two daily papers survive.