About Kenora Miner and News

Kenora Miner and News

The Kenora Miner and News is a weekly newspaper based in Kenora, Ontario, serving the Lake of the Woods region of northwestern Ontario — the lake country where Ontario meets Manitoba, and where the community paper has chronicled life since the railway era. Published free every Thursday and delivered throughout the region, it is one of Canada's oldest continuously published newspapers — in print under various names since 1880, through the Rat Portage era, the daily years, and the modern weekly incarnation. Since 2024 it has been owned by the Klein Group, the Manitoba-based company of Kevin Klein, after Postmedia sold the paper.

Overview

The Miner and News covers Kenora and the surrounding Lake of the Woods region: municipal politics, the courts, the resource economy (forestry, mining, tourism), Indigenous affairs, education, health care, and the community life of northwestern Ontario's largest service centre. Delivered free every Thursday in tabloid format, it reaches households across a vast, sparsely populated region where the community paper remains a primary source of local information. The weekly format — adopted in January 2020 after decades as a daily — reflects the economics of the modern community press: one substantial edition, free to every household, sustained by advertising. The paper is edited by Ryan Stelter, working from the headquarters at 33 Main Street in Kenora (ISSN 0839-4989).

History

The paper's history begins in the summer of 1880, when James Weidman — one of western Canada's pioneering newspapermen — arrived in Rat Portage (as Kenora was then called) and began publishing the Rat Portage Progress as a daily that September. (The paper's founding is conventionally dated to 1881, the first full year of publication.) Weidman sold the publication in 1882; it passed through several owners until John McCrossan bought it and renamed it "The News" in 1887. Weidman returned in the summer of 1891, launching "The Weekly Record" that July and soon moving to semi-weekly publication. In 1897 he sold to Joseph Earngey and a group of local investors, who renamed it the Rat Portage Miner — the "Miner" reflecting the region's mining economy and aspirations. Earngey and his partners acquired "The News" in 1902 from the family of Edward Chapman (its owner from 1895 until his death), merged the two publications, dropped the daily News edition, and created the Rat Portage Miner and News as a twice-weekly.

When the town changed its name in 1905 — Rat Portage becoming Kenora, a portmanteau of Keewatin, Norman, and Rat Portage — the paper became the Kenora Miner and News in March 1906, carrying the new name into the twentieth century. Earngey remained majority owner and manager-editor until his death in 1939 — a 42-year stewardship that carried the paper through the First World War, the Depression, and the town's growth into a regional centre. The paper passed through several owners until Stuart King acquired it in 1952, moving it to six-day-a-week publication and acquiring the competing Daily Reminder in 1960. Bowes Publishers bought the paper in November 1973, renaming it the Daily Miner and News in 1977. The Kenora Enterprise, launched in 1996, was folded into the Daily Miner and News in July 2003.

The modern contraction came in stages, each reflecting the industry's economics. In April 2019 the Miner ceased Tuesday publication, prompting the removal of the word "Daily" from its name — the end of an era for a paper that had published daily, in various forms, for over a century. In January 2020 it moved to weekly publication, amalgamating with the Lake of the Woods Enterprise — the free weekly that had served the region's cottagers and rural readers — consolidating the market into a single Thursday paper. The timing proved auspicious: in 2020, the Miner won its first-ever National Newspaper Award, the industry's highest honour, recognizing the quality of the journalism produced by editor Ryan Stelter's small team even as the publication schedule shrank. The award was a validation of the weekly model's premise: fewer editions, but journalism worthy of the paper's 140-year name.

Coverage and Audience

The Miner and News serves Kenora (population roughly 15,000) and the Lake of the Woods region — the cottagers drawn to the lake's thousands of islands, the tourism operators, the forestry and mining workers, the Indigenous communities of Treaty 3 territory, and the service-centre population that makes Kenora the commercial and administrative hub of northwestern Ontario. The coverage reflects the region's distinctive concerns: the lake itself and its environmental health (water levels, the experimental lakes research, the shoreline development pressures), the resource industries' cycles (the mill, the mines, the forest sector's fortunes), the relationship between the city and the surrounding First Nations (Treaty 3 governance, the social and economic ties), the courts and the social challenges of a northern service centre (addictions, homelessness, the justice system's strains), and the community institutions — the schools, the Lake of the Woods District Hospital, the recreation and culture — that define small-city life. The free Thursday distribution ensures the paper reaches every household, including those who would never subscribe — the democratic logic of the free weekly: the whole community, informed together.

Ownership

Since June 2024, the Miner and News has been owned by the Klein Group Ltd., the Manitoba-based company of Kevin Klein — the former Winnipeg Sun publisher, Winnipeg city councillor, and Manitoba cabinet minister who has been acquiring community newspapers. The transaction was announced May 27, 2024: Postmedia Network Inc. reached a definitive agreement to sell the Winnipeg Sun, the Portage la Prairie Graphic Leader, and the Kenora Miner & News — plus the Winnipeg Press Commercial Print division and all associated digital properties — to the Klein Group, with closing on June 1, 2024.

Postmedia CEO Andrew MacLeod framed the sale as continuity: a local group continuing the tradition of trusted journalism in important markets, with each paper's local team continuing to be supported by Postmedia's national voices and opinions. No job losses were anticipated — non-unionized employees were offered their same jobs with the Klein Group, while unionized employees retained their contracted terms. Klein himself emphasized the mission: "In an age where information is abundant and easily accessible, the role of local journalism is more crucial today than ever before," pledging to preserve the papers' legacy of trusted, community-focused news while the continued Postmedia relationship delivers national perspectives alongside local insights.

The sale ended the paper's decades under corporate chain ownership — Bowes Publishers from 1973, then Postmedia via its newspaper acquisitions — returning the 140-year-old paper to independent regional ownership rooted in western Canada.

Digital Presence

The Miner and News publishes online at kenoraminerandnews.com, extending the weekly print edition with digital news, photo galleries, obituaries, and community content. The website serves the region's dispersed audience — including the cottagers and seasonal residents who follow Kenora news from Toronto, Winnipeg, and the United States for much of the year — and provides the digital advertising inventory that sustains the free-print model. The e-edition replicates the Thursday tabloid for readers who prefer the print experience online. For the Lake of the Woods region, the Miner and News remains what it has been since 1880: the community's paper of record, chronicling the life of northwestern Ontario's lake country through boom and bust, daily and weekly, corporate chain and independent — the oldest continuous voice in the region, still publishing every Thursday.