About Fort Frances Times

Fort Frances Times

The Fort Frances Times is an independently owned weekly newspaper based in Fort Frances, Ontario, published each Wednesday — with a supplemental Daily Bulletin on Tuesdays and Thursdays, giving the border district three editions weekly. It has captured the stories and history of the town of Fort Frances and the Rainy River District for over 127 years, since 1896, making it one of the longest-running businesses in northwestern Ontario — older than the province's highway system, older than the mill's successors, a contemporary of the lumber barons. Locally owned for almost its entire existence — purchased from the Cumming family in 2019 by London Publishing, but continuing as a community-based newspaper and publishing company — it is a member of the Ontario Community Newspapers Association (OCNA) and the Canadian Community Newspapers Association (CCNA), the peer bodies of Canada's community press. Weekly circulation was 2,840 as of June 2022 — the paid core of a readership that spans the district, the households that have taken the Times for generations.

Overview

The Times covers Fort Frances — the border town on the Rainy River facing International Falls, Minnesota, its twin across the water — and the Rainy River District: municipal politics, the courts, the forest industry (the mill town's economic base — the pulp and paper heritage), tourism (the Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods waters, the fishing and boating), Indigenous affairs (the Couchiching First Nation, the Seine River, Lac La Croix, and other Treaty 3 communities), education, health care, and the cross-border life of a community intimately tied to its American neighbour. Published each Wednesday from 116 First Street East, with the Daily Bulletin supplement on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it serves the district's communities from Emo to Rainy River, Stratton to Barwick, the townships and First Nations of the border country. The tagline — "Local News from Across the Rainy River District" — captures the remit.

History

The paper has published since 1896 — through the lumber era's great pine harvests that floated down the Rainy River, the pulp mill's rise as the town's economic engine and largest employer, the border town's growth as the railway and then the highway connected it to the wider world, the tourism transformation as Rainy Lake and the surrounding waters became the draw for anglers across North America. For over 127 years it has been one of the region's longest-running businesses — a continuity few institutions anywhere can match, the paper that reported Fort Frances's first century (the incorporation, the mill's construction, the wars' toll, the postwar prosperity) and is now well into its second. The centennial project — "100 years, 100 stories: The History of the Rainy River District," the archived newspaper articles collected and presented online — testifies to the paper's role as the district's memory: the community's history, told through the paper's own pages.

Locally owned for almost its entire existence, the Times was a Cumming family institution for generations — the family name synonymous with the paper, the paper synonymous with the town — before its 2019 purchase by London Publishing. The ownership change preserved the community-based character: the paper continues as a community-based newspaper and publishing company, rooted in Fort Frances, accountable to the district, the new owners inheriting the Cummings' covenant with the readers. The 1896 founding places it among Ontario's oldest weeklies and among the oldest businesses of any kind in northwestern Ontario.

The Border District

Fort Frances occupies a singular place in Ontario's geography: the town on the Rainy River, facing International Falls, Minnesota, across the water — the two communities sharing a name's origin (the falls), a river, a lake, and a way of life divided by an international border. The Rainy River District stretches from the Lake of the Woods to the Minnesota border, a country of lakes, forests, and farmland where the economy has always mixed the extractive (the forests, the mines beyond) with the agricultural (the river valley's farms) and the touristic (the waters drawing anglers and boaters from across the continent). The Times has chronicled this border country's entire modern history: the lumberjacks and the millhands, the farmers and the fishermen, the bootleggers of the Prohibition era (the border's eternal shadow economy, the whisky running across the river by night), the tourists of the postwar boom, the cross-border families whose lives straddle the line. The paper's 127-year run is the district's autobiography — the weddings and the mill accidents, the council fights and the championship hockey teams, the floods and the bumper crops, the mill's fortunes and the town's resilience — the district's life in full.

Coverage and Audience

The Times serves Fort Frances (roughly 7,500 residents) and the Rainy River District's townships and First Nations: the mill workers and forestry families (the industry that built the town and still defines its economy), the tourism operators (the lodges, the outfitters, the fishing guides serving the walleye anglers), the farmers of the district's agricultural pockets (the Rainy River valley's farmland — the district's surprising agricultural dimension), the cross-border shoppers and workers (the daily flow to and from International Falls — the jobs, the shopping, the family visits), the Couchiching First Nation and neighbouring First Nations communities (the Treaty 3 territory's original peoples). The border-town coverage is distinctive: the International Falls relationship (the twin cities' shared life — the hockey rivalries, the joint celebrations, the families spanning the river), the cross-border economy (the shopping, the employment, the currency fluctuations' local impact), the shared waters of Rainy Lake and the Rainy River (the fishing, the boating, the environmental stewardship, the water-level management), the border infrastructure (the international bridge, the customs, the post-9/11 security changes that reshaped border-town life). The Wednesday weekly and the Tuesday/Thursday Daily Bulletin give readers three touchpoints weekly — the community's news rhythm, the border district's heartbeat.

Ownership

The Times was purchased from the Cumming family in 2019 by London Publishing, continuing as a community-based newspaper and publishing company headquartered at 116 First Street East, Fort Frances — the downtown address that has housed the paper's operations. The local ownership tradition — nearly unbroken since 1896, through the Cumming generations and into the London Publishing era — preserves the paper's community accountability: the owners invested in the district, the paper's fortunes tied to the town's, the editorial decisions made by people who live with their consequences. In an age of chain consolidation and hedge-fund ownership, the Times's local ownership is the exception that proves the community paper's enduring logic: the paper belongs to the place it serves.

Digital Presence

The Fort Frances Times publishes online at fftimes.com — "Local News from Across the Rainy River District" — extending the Wednesday weekly and the Bulletin supplements with digital news, the "100 years, 100 stories" historical archive (the district's history through the paper's own pages), and community content. The website serves the dispersed district audience — the townships, the First Nations, the lake communities — and the former residents following Fort Frances from afar: the expatriates of the border country checking in on home, the cottagers following the district from the cities. For the Rainy River District, the Times remains the community's record: 127 years of Wednesdays (and Tuesday/Thursday Bulletins), the border town's voice since 1896 — one of the longest-running businesses in northwestern Ontario, still publishing, still local, still the district's own paper.