About North Simcoe Springwater News

North Simcoe Springwater News

Overview

The North Simcoe Springwater News is an independent, locally owned community newspaper based in Elmvale, Ontario, serving the Township of Springwater and the wider north Simcoe County area. From its Elmvale base the paper covers Springwater's villages and hamlets — Elmvale itself, Minesing, Anten Mills, Midhurst, Hillsdale and Phelpston among them — and its reporting and community pages reach into the neighbouring municipalities of Midland, Penetanguishene and Tiny Township. It publishes in print and online at springwaternews.ca, carrying municipal politics, local sports, community columns, school and library news, recipes, faith and seniors coverage, and the submitted notices of clubs and churches that form the connective tissue of rural community journalism. The Ontario Community Newspapers Association's member directory lists the North Simcoe Springwater News with a circulation of 20,000 and no publishing group — the mark of a genuinely independent paper — and the paper has described itself, in its own words, as "Your Locally Owned Community Newspaper." Its editor is Kari Belcourt, whose reporting anchors its municipal coverage, including the paper's sustained attention to the 2026 municipal election in Springwater.

History

The paper's roots run back to Elmvale's historic newspaper, The Lance — fondly remembered, in the paper's own telling, as "The Glance." The Elmvale Lance was already chronicling village life in the 1940s: the Springwater Sports Heritage project compiled its history of the Elmvale Lions Club and the campaign for a local arena from Lance clippings dating from 1946 to 1949. The modern paper carried the Springwater News name before expanding its identity to the North Simcoe Springwater News, a change made under owner Linda Marchant-Belcourt. A tribute published by Springwater Sports Heritage in January 2026, announcing her sudden passing, credited her directly: she was "the recent owner of the Springwater News, which she grew to become the North Simcoe Springwater News," and called her "an architect of our community's voice." The paper's longevity under its Springwater name is visible in its own numbering: its edition of March 4, 2021 was Edition 594. The paper has also written about its place in the wider world of weekly journalism: in its own account of a national honour, its editor described applying for a scholarship to attend the conference of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors in South Dakota and winning the award, insisting that "the community really won this award, not me." Following Marchant-Belcourt's death, the paper continued publishing into 2026 under editor Kari Belcourt, with a print edition documented as recently as March 12, 2026 and online coverage continuing through that year's municipal election season.

Programming and Content

Municipal government is the paper's central beat. Its politics coverage follows Springwater Township council in close detail — its July 2026 reporting, for example, described a council meeting consumed by an integrity commissioner's report and disputes over transparency and media access, and its editor has written extensively on the township's fight over the Barrie boundary adjustment, including an analysis headlined "A Township Held Hostage by a Boundary Adjustment?" Election coverage is a particular commitment: the paper hosted attention on a series of three Springwater all-candidates meetings in the 2026 campaign, reporting on the first, held at Elmvale Community Hall on September 17, 2026, which drew approximately 200 residents. Sitting councillors contribute regular community-update columns, including Ward 1 councillor Matt Garwood and Ward 4 councillor Anita Moore, whose column has covered heritage sites such as Fort Willow on the Nine Mile Portage route. Sports coverage centres on the Elmvale Harvesters hockey club and local baseball, while the paper's softer pages are heavily community-written: a Tiny Township community page, library columns from the Penetanguishene Public Library, a seniors outreach page, recipes from dietitian Joanne Nijhuis, Annie Warner Donnelly's long-running "Building a Life" column, local-history features — such as a March 2026 account of the Thompson Trophy's curling history — and letters to the editor. The editor's own "Editor's Choice" features range across local food, landscape and small-town life, giving the paper a distinctive editorial voice alongside its submitted material.

Audience and Reach

The paper's audience is the population of Springwater Township — roughly twenty-four thousand people spread across a large rural township — together with readers in the surrounding north Simcoe communities its pages touch, including Midland, Penetanguishene and Tiny Township; in its July 2026 election coverage the paper addressed itself explicitly to residents of all four municipalities. The Ontario Community Newspapers Association's current member directory lists the North Simcoe Springwater News with a circulation of 20,000 and records no publishing group for it, consistent with its independent, locally owned status; no independently audited circulation figure is published, so that number is best read as the association's listing for the edition. The paper's reach is reinforced by the roles it plays in community institutions: Springwater Sports Heritage partnered with the paper and its late owner on preserving and publicizing local athletic history, councillors use its columns to communicate with constituents, and libraries, clubs and churches across the area route their news through its pages. Journalist directories such as Muck Rack index its output and its contributors, extending its stories' visibility beyond the township. For a small independent, the paper's footprint is best measured in penetration rather than scale: it aims to be read in most households in the community it names.

Digital Presence

The paper publishes online at springwaternews.ca, the website recorded for this profile, where its print content appears in web form organized by theme — politics, sports, community pages, columns and features. The site was actively publishing through 2026: stories indexed from it include the September 2026 all-candidates meeting report, July 2026 politics coverage, sports columns dated July 29, 2026 and community pages from June 2026. Muck Rack's journalist database tracks the paper's articles and the profiles of its contributors, including Brenda Stanley, one of its regular writers. The digital edition mirrors the print paper's structure, with standing sections for councillor columns, the Tiny community page, library contributions and recipe and lifestyle features, making the website a working archive of the paper's recent editions as well as a news source. Like many independent Ontario papers, the North Simcoe Springwater News uses its site to extend the life of print stories rather than to run a separate digital newsroom; the same small team produces both, and the site's steady 2026 publication record is direct evidence that the paper remained in active operation through that year.

Ownership and Organisation

The North Simcoe Springwater News is independently owned and operated in Elmvale; the Ontario Community Newspapers Association lists it without a publishing group, and its masthead has carried the description "Your Locally Owned Community Newspaper." Its recent ownership is associated with Linda Marchant-Belcourt, whom Springwater Sports Heritage described in January 2026 as the paper's recent owner and the person who grew the Springwater News into the North Simcoe Springwater News; her sudden passing was announced that month. Day-to-day editorial leadership rests with editor Kari Belcourt, whose byline appears across the paper's 2025 and 2026 municipal coverage and who writes its Editor's Choice features. Around that core, the paper runs on the classic independent-weekly model of a small staff plus a wide contributor base: regular writers include Brenda Stanley, Brian Keyes and Dennis Gannon; columnists include Annie Warner Donnelly and dietitian Joanne Nijhuis; sitting councillors file their own community updates; and libraries, clubs and community organizations submit material directly. The paper is a member of the Ontario Community Newspapers Association, in whose Central Region directory it appears, and its connection to the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors — an organization of grassroots weekly editors — reflects the professional networks through which its editors have sought training and recognition.

Contact and Availability

The North Simcoe Springwater News is published from Elmvale, Ontario, and is available in print in the Springwater and north Simcoe area and online at springwaternews.ca. A general contact email, info@springwaternews.ca, is listed for the paper in the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors' membership directory, and its 2021 print editions carried the telephone number 705-322-2249; readers should confirm current contact details on the paper's website, as small papers' listings change. The paper appears in the Ontario Community Newspapers Association's Find A Member directory under Elmvale in the Central Region, with a listed circulation of 20,000. Community organizations, libraries and municipal councillors across Springwater, Tiny Township, Midland and Penetanguishene publish through its pages, and residents can reach its newsroom through the website for story tips, submissions and advertising.