The Northern Miner’s history

The Northern Miner was spawned in the silver fields of Cobalt in 1915 by Ben Hughes, a journalist and Ernie Hand, a printer.

They teamed up to launch The Northern Miner, a “Weekly Devoted to the Mining Industry of Northern Ontario.”

At the same time, Richard Pearce, a Toronto journalist who had failed his medical for the army, had been sent north by his editor to cover the booming mining scene. Eventually he met and befriended Hughes and Hand, and when Hughes felt the call to serve Mother England in the Great War in 1916, he sold his majority ownership in the fledgling paper to Pearce.

After the war, Richard’s brother Norm, a captain in the Army, joined the paper in 1920 and brother Jack, a sergeant who became a mine accountant, joined Richard in Cobalt in 1924.

The Pearces completed their purchase of the paper and press when Hand sold them his shares in 1925. The 1920s were a boom time and the mining business prospered. By 1929 the interest in mining was so large and the paper so successful that it had outgrown its Cobalt location. That year it was necessary to move the plant and staff to Toronto.

The three brothers, worked well together, Richard gathering news, Norm polishing editorials and Jack paying the bills and looking after the circulation. Each of the brothers had a son, Richard — Tom; Norman — Dick; Jack — Bill. After the Second World War, the three sons worked with their fathers for about six years together.

With Richard’s retirement in 1952 at age 60, his shares were sold to Norman and nephew Dick (Norm’s son). By 1955 Dick was the largest shareholder with 44.7% of the company and by 1958 he owned over 50%. By 1988 he had purchased the remaining shares and became sole owner of Northern Miner Press and Norgraphics. The following year he sold the two businesses to The Southam Business Information and Communications Group Inc., a subsidiary of Southam Inc.

Ironically, today, The Northern Miner is owned by Hollinger Canadian Newspapers, a subsidiary of Hollinger Inc., which had its origins in the Porcupine gold camp area of Northern Ontario. It owned the Hollinger Mine in Timmins, a mine that produced $566-million worth of bullion before it closed in 1968.