About Bella Coola Coast Mountain News

Bella Coola Coast Mountain News

Overview

Bella Coola Coast Mountain News is the community newspaper of the Bella Coola Valley and British Columbia's Central Coast, published by Black Press Media. It serves one of the most remote newspaper markets in the province: a valley reachable by a single steep highway over Heckman Summit or by ferry from Vancouver Island, and a scattering of coastal communities — Bella Bella, Ocean Falls and Klemtu among them — that are accessible only by boat or floatplane. The paper's own front page describes its territory as "Serving the Bella Coola Valley and the Chilcotin," and its reporting is centred on the Nuxalk Nation, whose home the valley is, on the Heiltsuk and Wuikinuxv Nations of the surrounding coast, and on the settler communities of Bella Coola, Hagensborg, Firvale and the Anahim Lake and Nimpo Lake country to the east.

For decades Coast Mountain News appeared in print as a Thursday paper in the valley. That print run is documented in Black Press's public pages archive through the issue of March 28, 2024, and no later print editions appear in the archive. The title continues as a digital news brand: in late November 2025 its own website, coastmountainnews.com, was carrying its coverage of the grizzly bear attack on a school group near Bella Coola, filed by reporter Laísa Condé and distributed across Black Press's network. The paper is produced within Black Press's Cariboo–Central Coast cluster alongside the Williams Lake Tribune — the shared arrangement reflected in this profile's listed website, wltribune.com, the Tribune's domain, through which the Coast Mountain News newsroom operates.

History

No founding date for the paper is documented in the sources consulted, and none is asserted here. What the record shows is a long-lived title: a scholarly book published by UBC Press cites reporting from Coast Mountain News dated 1990, and the Northern BC Archives' catalogue describes an archived copy of the issue of September 25, 2003 as volume 20, number 20, indicating a publication already two decades into a numbered run. A British Columbia media directory of the 1990s lists the paper under the fuller name "Bella Coola Valley Coast Mountain News," published every other Thursday from Box 250 in Hagensborg, with Angela Hall as editor and publisher and a circulation of 1,300 spread across an extraordinary distribution map: Bella Coola, Anahim Lake, Hagensborg, Bella Bella, Ocean Falls, Nimpo Lake, Klemtu, the Chilcotin, Williams Lake, Prince George and Vancouver Island — the geography of mail planes, ferries and freight routes by which a valley newspaper reached readers who had moved away.

The paper later passed into chain ownership. It was held by Glacier Media before July 2010, when Black Press bought ten newspapers from Glacier in a transaction documented in Marc Edge's 2018 study of the two companies' dealings for the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre. Edge's transaction table lists Coast Mountain News as a free weekly for the North Coast with an average edition circulation of 1,200 at the time of the sale. Under Black Press the paper settled into the company's Cariboo cluster, produced in close association with the Williams Lake Tribune, three and a half hours east over Highway 20: by 2021 its staff writer Monica Lamb-Yorski's byline appeared in both titles, and its reader contact addresses ran through the Tribune's domain.

Print continued on Thursdays into 2024. The issue of March 28, 2024 — volume 39, number 7 — carried a cover price of $1.43 plus GST and front-page coverage of the Heiltsuk Nation's concerns over fuel spills. It is the last issue present in Black Press's public archive: systematic checks of the archive for Thursday editions from April 2024 through February 2025 returned no further issues. The print run thus ended, undocumented by any announcement found in the sources consulted, in the same season that Black Press itself passed through creditor protection — it had filed under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act on January 15, 2024, and its sale closed on March 25, 2024, three days before that final archived edition. Reporting under the Coast Mountain News name continued online, as its 2025 coverage attests.

Programming and Content

Coast Mountain News covers the local news of the Bella Coola Valley and the Central Coast: the Central Coast Regional District and valley services, the Nuxalk, Heiltsuk and Wuikinuxv Nations' governance and land questions, the harbour and the commercial and sport fisheries, BC Ferries sailings, the state of Highway 20 — the valley's only road out, subject to rockslides and closures — and the wildfire and flood events that periodically cut the region off. Its November 2025 reporting on the grizzly attack that injured members of an Acwsalcta School group walking near Bella Coola, and on the conservation officers' capture of bears in the days that followed, was filed from the community and carried across the Black Press network and beyond; the Yukon News's account of the attack in its November 26, 2025 edition credited files from Coast Mountain News reporter Laísa Condé.

The March 2024 print editions show the paper's established mix: front-page regional stories such as the Heiltsuk Nation's representations to the United Nations over fuel spills and the Tula Foundation's donation of Calvert Island land to the BC Parks Foundation, written by cluster news staff including Jake Romphf; community advertising and notices; and an open invitation, printed in the paper, for readers to send in breaking news, community events, people of interest and photographs — pet photos and hiking pictures expressly included — for publication in the paper and on its Facebook page. Community institutions anchor the coverage: the Bella Coola Fall Fair, running since the early 1950s; the valley's Festival of the Arts and Music Festival; harbour life around the government wharf; and the schools, volunteer fire departments and health services of the valley and the coastal villages.

Audience and Reach

The paper's audience is small in number and unusually wide in geography. A 1990s provincial media directory put its circulation at 1,300, and Marc Edge's transaction table recorded an average edition circulation of 1,200 at the 2010 sale to Black Press — figures consistent with a valley population of only a few thousand, spread from the head of North Bentinck Arm up the Bella Coola and Dean River valleys and east to the Chilcotin plateau, plus the boat-access communities of the outer coast. In such a market the newspaper's readers are also its sources: its print editions solicited photographs and news tips from readers directly, and its coverage of councils, courts, fisheries openings and ferry disruptions amounts to the region's public record.

News Media Canada's stewardship reports for British Columbia listed Coast Mountain News among Black Press Group's print publications in reports through 2022, the most recent obtained. Since the end of the archived print run in 2024, the paper's reach has been digital: its stories appear on coastmountainnews.com and within the Williams Lake Tribune's site, are distributed through Black Press's aggregation channels, and are picked up by other outlets reporting on the Central Coast — as when its bear-attack coverage was credited by the Yukon News in November 2025 and circulated through Black Press Media's Flipboard magazine. Its reader invitation in 2024 directed submissions to editor Monica Lamb-Yorski at a wltribune.com address, reflecting the shared newsroom through which the title now reaches its audience.

Digital Presence

Coast Mountain News maintains its own website at coastmountainnews.com, the address printed in its editions, where its Bella Coola and Central Coast reporting is published under its own masthead; Black Press's Flipboard presence carried its November 2025 stories, including "4 more grizzly bears captured in Bella Coola" and the reopening of Highway 20, to network readers. Editorially the title works inside Black Press's Cariboo cluster: its contact emails have run through the Williams Lake Tribune's domain, Tribune staff bylines appear on its stories, and its reporting flows into the Tribune's site — the arrangement behind this profile's listed website, wltribune.com. Black Press's public pages archive preserves complete print editions of the paper, including the issues of January 6, 2022, November 23, 2023 and January 18, February 29, March 14 and March 28, 2024, which stand as the documentary record of its final print years. The title also maintains a community presence on Facebook, which its print editions promoted as a channel for reader photographs and news.

Ownership and Organisation

Coast Mountain News is owned by Black Press Media, part of Black Press, the community newspaper group founded by David H. Black in 1975. Black Press acquired the paper from Glacier Media in July 2010 as one of ten titles in that transaction. Black Press filed for protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act on January 15, 2024; its sale to Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group was completed on March 25, 2024, and the company emerged Canadian-controlled under chief executive Glenn Rogers.

Operationally, the paper belongs to Black Press's Cariboo cluster, centred on the Williams Lake Tribune. Its last archived print editions directed news tips and photographs to editor Monica Lamb-Yorski — a journalist whose byline appears across the cluster's titles from at least 2021 — and advertising inquiries to Kathy McLean, both at wltribune.com addresses; staff writer Angie Mindus also filed for the paper in 2022, and its 2025 online reporting from Bella Coola is by Laísa Condé, supplemented by Williams Lake Tribune staff. In its 1990s directory listing the paper was based at Box 250, Hagensborg, British Columbia, V0T 1H0, with telephone 250-982-2696; its 2024 editions carried Publication Mail Agreement number 40007851 and Canada Post registration number 09309. Black Press's British Columbia headquarters and the Williams Lake newsroom remain the organisational home of the title.

Contact and Availability

Coast Mountain News is published online at coastmountainnews.com, with its reporting also carried on the Williams Lake Tribune's site at wltribune.com. Its documented print schedule was weekly on Thursdays, with editions archived by Black Press through March 28, 2024; readers should note that no print editions later than that date appear in the publisher's archive, and current publication is digital. News tips and photographs were directed in the paper's final print editions to the editor at monica.lamb-yorski@wltribune.com; advertising inquiries were directed to Kathy McLean through the same Tribune domain, and an older provincial media listing also recorded a newsroom address of cmnews@caribooadvisor.com. The paper's historical mailing address was Box 250, Hagensborg, British Columbia, V0T 1H0. Current availability, including any print arrangements, can be confirmed through the Williams Lake Tribune office and Black Press Media.