About Port Dover Maple Leaf

Port Dover Maple Leaf

Overview

The Port Dover Maple Leaf is an independently owned, family-run community weekly newspaper serving Port Dover and the surrounding area in Norfolk County, on the north shore of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario. Published every Wednesday from its office at 351 Main Street in Port Dover, it describes its own mission in its masthead as being "a community newspaper devoted to the interests of Port Dover & area."

The Maple Leaf is one of Ontario's older community newspapers and one of its more unusual survivors: a paper that has been in the hands of a single local family for generations. The late Stan Morris, who joined the paper's staff in 1948 and was still writing stories and proofreading every issue until his death in December 2021, embodied that continuity. His son Paul Morris is the paper's editor and publisher today, working alongside a small staff and a roster of local contributors.

History

The Maple Leaf's origins reach deep into the nineteenth century. A directory of Ontario newspapers dates the paper's founding to 1873, and surviving newspaper clippings confirm that it was publishing by January 1889, when its Friday editions were recording Port Dover railway news — the storm damage to the Hamilton & North-Western Railway engine house, the South Norfolk Railway's transfer to new operators — for researchers who later mined its pages for transportation history. In that era the paper published on Fridays; the modern Maple Leaf is a Wednesday publication.

For most of the twentieth century the Maple Leaf was the Morris family's paper. Samuel Stanford "Stan" Morris joined the staff of his family's newspaper in 1948, beginning a tenure that lasted more than seven decades. His obituary, published after his death at home in Port Dover on December 21, 2021, at the age of 90, records that he witnessed local history first-hand and shared those stories in the newspaper all his adult life, remaining active — writing stories and proofreading every issue — until his death. Stan Morris was deeply involved in Port Dover's civic life through service groups and local committees, work that brought him numerous awards over his lifetime, including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

The family's stewardship passed to the next generation. Paul Morris, Stan's son, is listed as editor and publisher in the paper's masthead, and other members of the family, including Celina Morris, appear among its contributors. The paper marked its continuity through the Morris era in small ways as well: when longtime Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett retired in 2022 after 27 years of writing a weekly column for the paper, he recalled that he had first approached the Maple Leaf because his own grandfather, Tobe Barrett, had written a column as a "farmer-politician" when he was the area's MP — and that it was Stan Morris who agreed to run the younger Barrett's column.

The paper's longevity has also made it a source of record for others. Genealogists and railway historians have mined its nineteenth-century pages for the Hamilton & North-Western Railway clipping files, and its modern reporting is cited as a reference in reference works on Norfolk County services such as the Ride Norfolk transit system.

Programming and Content

The Maple Leaf covers the life of a Lake Erie port community: Norfolk County and Port Dover news, municipal affairs, community events, sports, obituaries and the arts. Its pages carry the record of events large and small, from charity fundraisers such as the Norfolk Haldimand Community Hospice's Hike for Hospice — which drew more than 340 walkers to Lions Silver Lake Park in June 2026 and raised over $56,000 — to seasonal traditions like Port Dover's New Year's Day Polar Bear Dip.

Arts coverage is a distinctive strength, anchored by the Lighthouse Festival, Port Dover's professional summer theatre. Maple Leaf writers review the festival's productions in depth; contributor Donna McMillan's reviews have covered world premieres and season openers at the festival, including its 2026 summer season productions The Beaver Club and Secret Service, and the paper's theatre writing is republished by the festival itself. The connection runs deeper than reviews: Port Dover Maple Leaf Publishing also produces the Lighthouse Festival Theatre's program, issued six times through the season — a sideline that makes the newspaper a working part of the town's cultural infrastructure.

The paper's character is equally visible in how it handles occasions of local significance. Its edition of Wednesday, September 14, 2022 — published days after the death of Queen Elizabeth II — devoted its front pages to the Queen's life and legacy, gathering her words on courage, children, leadership and reflection alongside a statement from the county's mayor, an approach that treated a national event through the lens of a small community's own attachment to her. A Halloween feature on Port Dover's ghost lore, from the "Lady in Black" said to haunt the east pier to stories attached to the town's old tavern and hardware store, was likewise picked up and republished by the Lighthouse Festival.

The paper also serves as a platform for local voices. Its contributor roster in recent mastheads has included Elizabeth Schuyler, Bev Snow, Joan Benvenuti, Donna McMillan, Todd Dewell, David Judd, Jan Dean, Susan Graci, Jocelynn Blacker, Celina Morris, Earl Hartlen and Dawn Tassone. For 27 years, until 2022, it carried a weekly column by the area's provincial representative, Toby Barrett, continuing a tradition of parliamentarians writing for the paper that stretched back to his grandfather's era. The Maple Leaf's masthead has carried a "Funded by the Government of Canada" acknowledgement, reflecting the federal support programs available to Canadian community newspapers.

Audience and Reach

The Maple Leaf is a paid community weekly delivered in the Port Dover area, including by Canada Post; its masthead in September 2022 listed a one-year local delivery subscription by Canada Post at $52.50. Its readership is concentrated in Port Dover — a community of several thousand people within Norfolk County — and the surrounding rural area, where the paper competes for attention with regional media from Simcoe and the larger centres while remaining the only newspaper devoted specifically to Port Dover itself.

No independently audited circulation figure for the paper is published, and none is claimed here. Its significance to its audience is instead visible in the roles it plays: chronicler of the town's obituaries and milestones, reviewer of its theatre season, publisher of its festival program, and keeper of a local historical record that researchers were already citing in the nineteenth century.

Digital Presence

The paper publishes online at portdovermapleleaf.com, where its stories and obituaries appear; media-monitoring services index its articles under the bylines of Paul Morris and contributors such as Donna McMillan, with items dated through 2025 and 2026. Its theatre reviews are also republished on the Lighthouse Festival's website, extending the paper's arts coverage to the festival's own audience.

Ownership and Organisation

The Port Dover Maple Leaf is an independent, family-owned newspaper, published by Port Dover Maple Leaf Publishing from 351 Main Street in Port Dover. Paul Morris serves as editor and publisher, the second generation of his family to lead the paper in the modern era after his father Stan's 73 years on staff. The operation is small and locally staffed, relying on a mix of family members, staff and community contributors.

Contact and Availability

The Port Dover Maple Leaf is published every Wednesday from 351 Main Street, Port Dover, Ontario N0A 1N0, and can be reached by telephone at 519-583-0112. News can be sent to news@portdovermapleleaf.com, and the paper's website is www.portdovermapleleaf.com. Advertising for the Lighthouse Festival Theatre program is handled through the paper's office, with enquiries directed to todd@portdovermapleleaf.com.