About Le Nord

Le Nord

Overview

Le Nord — formally Journal Le Nord — is a French-language weekly newspaper based in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, the regional capital of the Laurentians, north of Montreal. It serves Saint-Jérôme and the surrounding Laurentian municipalities, a territory that its publisher described in 2010 as more than a dozen municipalities, including Sainte-Adèle. The paper is a general-interest regional weekly covering local news, culture, the economy, sports and community life. Its ownership has changed hands three times in the modern era: it was published by the local company Groupe Média-Business inc. until Transcontinental Media acquired it in September 2010; TC Media sold it in September 2017 to Journal Le Nord inc., the company of Sainte-Adèle publisher Josée Pilotte; and in January 2026 the Quebec media group Médialo announced its acquisition of Le Nord, together with its sister paper Accès, le journal des Pays-d'en-Haut. The paper is currently publishing: Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) carries its digital edition, titled Le Nord : votre accès à l'information, from 2017 to the present; its mobile application was updated on 30 September 2025; and Médialo was recruiting sales staff for Journal Le Nord in Saint-Jérôme in 2026. One naming caution matters for readers: the web address lenord.ca, which some directories attach to this newspaper, in fact belongs to a different French-language weekly also called Le Nord, published in Hearst, Ontario. The Saint-Jérôme paper's own website is journallenord.com.

History

The modern Journal Le Nord was published in Saint-Jérôme by Groupe Média-Business inc., a local company owned by François Laferrière that employed fifteen people. In its own company description, the paper presents itself as a Saint-Jérôme local business dating to 1984 and as the leading regional weekly of the Laurentians; that founding date is the company's own account and is given as such here, as no independent founding record was located in the sources consulted. On 14 September 2010, Transcontinental Media announced that it had acquired Le Nord from Groupe Média-Business, folding the Saint-Jérôme weekly into what was then the largest community-newspaper chain in Quebec. TC Media operated the paper for seven years. On 21 September 2017, as Transcontinental was withdrawing from local publishing, TC Media announced the sale of Journal Le Nord and its web property to Journal Le Nord inc., a company led by Josée Pilotte, the publisher and owner of Accès, le journal des Pays-d'en-Haut in Sainte-Adèle. Eight employees transferred to the buyer under the sale, and Transcontinental kept a multi-year agreement to print and distribute the paper. The Pilotte era paired Le Nord with Accès at the northern end of the Laurentians for more than eight years. It ended in early 2026, when Médialo announced the acquisition of both Accès and Le Nord, an announcement recorded in the Quebec government's Laurentides labour-market bulletin of 29 January 2026.

Programming and Content

Le Nord is a general-interest French-language weekly whose coverage, in the description the company gives of itself, spans news, culture, the economy, sports, local personalities and lifestyle in Saint-Jérôme and its surrounding region. Its mobile application describes the paper in the same terms, as a French-language regional weekly of local information for the city of Saint-Jérôme and its environs. As the newspaper of the Laurentians' regional capital — a city of about 80,000 residents in the 2021 census, and the seat of the region's courts, hospital, CÉGEP and municipal administrations — its news pages are anchored in municipal and regional affairs, community organizations, schools, cultural events and minor and amateur sports, the standard beats of a Quebec regional weekly. Its digital edition is published by BAnQ under the title Le Nord : votre accès à l'information, reflecting the paper's integration with its sister title Accès, whose name it echoes, since both papers passed to the same owner in 2017 and were acquired together by Médialo in 2026. The paper also carries the classified advertising, public notices and commercial supplements typical of the free and paid regional-weekly model in the Laurentians' mix of permanent residents, commuters and seasonal visitors.

Audience and Reach

Le Nord's documented circulation figures come from its publishers and are dated. When Transcontinental acquired the paper in September 2010, it reported a weekly circulation of nearly 50,000 copies, distributed in more than twelve municipalities of the Laurentians, including Saint-Jérôme and Sainte-Adèle. In its later company profile, the paper describes a print run of 55,000 copies; that figure is the company's own claim, presented here as such, and no audited circulation figure for the paper was located in the sources consulted. The audience is the French-speaking population of the central Laurentians: Saint-Jérôme itself counted about 80,000 residents at the 2021 census, and the paper's distribution extends beyond the city into the surrounding municipalities of the MRC de La Rivière-du-Nord and toward Sainte-Adèle in the Pays-d'en-Haut. Saint-Jérôme is also a commuter city on the Montreal metropolitan fringe and a service centre for the cottage country to its north, which gives the weekly a readership of both year-round residents and seasonal property owners. Under Médialo the paper forms part of a group that describes a network of about ten local weekly publications and thirteen digital platforms across three regions of Quebec, extending the reach of its content beyond its print distribution.

Digital Presence

The Saint-Jérôme Journal Le Nord's own website is journallenord.com, the address given for the paper in Transcontinental's transaction announcements of 2010 and 2017. Readers should not confuse it with lenord.ca: despite the similar name, that address is the website of Le Nord of Hearst, Ontario, a separate French-language weekly serving the francophone community of northeastern Ontario, whose pages carry Hearst news and a 705-area-code telephone number. This directory's website field for the Saint-Jérôme paper is being corrected to journallenord.com at publication. The paper's digital edition is archived by Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, whose BAnQ Numérique collection carries Le Nord : votre accès à l'information from 2017 to the present, and the Eureka press database likewise lists Journal Le Nord in its online catalogue from 2011 to the present. The paper also has a dedicated mobile application, Journal Le Nord, first released in June 2022 and updated on 30 September 2025, which presents the weekly's local coverage of Saint-Jérôme and its surroundings to phone and tablet readers. Since the January 2026 acquisition, Le Nord's digital presence sits within Médialo's multiplatform operation, which markets integrated print, web and social campaigns to local advertisers across its publications.

Ownership and Organisation

Le Nord has passed through four ownership regimes in its modern history. It was first published by Groupe Média-Business inc. of Saint-Jérôme, owned by François Laferrière, with a staff of fifteen. Transcontinental Media acquired it on 14 September 2010, making it part of TC's Quebec community-newspaper network. TC Media sold the paper on 21 September 2017 to Journal Le Nord inc., led by Josée Pilotte, who also owned Accès, le journal des Pays-d'en-Haut; eight TC employees moved with the title, and Transcontinental continued to print and distribute it under a multi-year agreement. In January 2026, Médialo announced that it had acquired both Accès and Le Nord, as recorded in the Gouvernement du Québec's Laurentides employment bulletin sourced to Médialo on 29 January 2026. Médialo — formerly Groupe Lexis Média — is a local media group headquartered at 407 rue Principale in Saint-Sauveur, in the Laurentians. It describes itself as a team of more than sixty-five employees producing about ten local weekly publications, thirteen digital platforms and several magazines, and the Université Laval's Centre d'études sur les médias ranked it Quebec's second-largest regional weekly group after its July 2023 acquisition of IN Médias. Médialo advertised in 2026 for sales representatives dedicated to Journal Le Nord in Saint-Jérôme, indicating the title continues as a distinct publication within the group.

Contact and Availability

Journal Le Nord is a French-language weekly published in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, for Saint-Jérôme and the surrounding Laurentian municipalities, including Sainte-Adèle. Its website is journallenord.com — not lenord.ca, which belongs to the unrelated Le Nord of Hearst, Ontario — and its digital edition, Le Nord : votre accès à l'information, is archived from 2017 to the present in BAnQ Numérique, the digital collections of Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec; its Journal Le Nord mobile application is available for phone and tablet readers. The paper's publisher since January 2026 is Médialo, headquartered at 407 rue Principale, Saint-Sauveur, Quebec, with the telephone numbers 514 394-7156 and 1 888-767-7156 published on the group's website. Readers should confirm the paper's current Saint-Jérôme newsroom address and publication day against its live masthead at publication time.