About ParrySound.com

ParrySound.com

Overview

ParrySound.com is the digital community newspaper for Parry Sound and the West Parry Sound district of Ontario, on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, published by Metroland Media Group. It is the successor website to two print weekly newspapers, the Parry Sound North Star and the Parry Sound Beacon Star, which between them carried local journalism in the district for well over a century. The site describes itself as a trusted source of local news serving readers in Parry Sound and beyond, publishing daily news and information, and the same Parry Sound team also publishes three magazines: Parry Sound Life, Muskoka Life and Algonquin Life. Since September 15, 2023, when Metroland ended print production for its community weeklies, ParrySound.com has been the newspapers' only publishing platform, updated daily.

History

Parry Sound had a weekly newspaper from its earliest decades: a local history of the Beatty family, the town's founders, records a weekly paper, the Northern Advocate, among the institutions of the young lumber settlement. The North Star was publishing by the early 1890s. Its editor William Ireland used a September 1892 editorial — quoted in Adrian Hayes's history of the town — to urge Parry Sound to prepare for the end of the sawmill era by attracting new industries, from a tannery and a furniture factory to a blast furnace and a hydroelectric plant. When William Beatty Jr., the town's founder, died in 1898, the North Star wrote that he had "truly earned the endearing title of 'Governor' which was universally accorded him." Hayes himself began his journalism career at the North Star, writing a local-history column for the paper as a student in 1986 and joining its staff as a reporter in 1991.

The modern shape of the Parry Sound operation owes much to Fred Heidman, who started at the North Star in 1960 as a 16-year-old printer's devil, did almost every job in the building except reporting, and served as the paper's general manager from 1974 until his retirement in 2008. Heidman launched new products including the Fun in the Sun and Fun in the Snow tourist publications and the Sideroads magazine. After the rival Georgian Bay Beacon was sold to the North Star's publisher, Heidman was instrumental in merging the two operations, which produced the Beacon Star as a companion paper published alongside the North Star. He served as president of the Ontario Community Newspapers Association in 2002, received its Silver Quill in 1996, and was inducted into the OCNA Hall of Fame in 2025.

In the papers' final print years, the North Star published on Wednesdays and the Beacon Star on Fridays. An area profile of that period, compiled from the publisher's data, gave the Beacon Star a circulation of 7,200 copies and the North Star 2,500, alongside the seasonal Fun in the Sun publication, whose June edition reached 50,000 copies, and Sideroads & Shorelines, distributed seven times a year at 10,000 copies. Torstar's 2013 annual information form listed both the Parry Sound North Star and the Parry Sound Beacon Star/Lifestyle among Metroland's weekly newspapers. The Ontario Community Newspapers Association's June 2019 market report covered the Beacon Star's market, a total population of 19,330.

Print ended on September 15, 2023, when Metroland filed for protection under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and moved all of its weekly community newspapers online. The change had legal consequences in West Parry Sound: in October 2023 the Township of McKellar passed a resolution, circulated to municipalities across Ontario, pointing out that communities such as the West Parry Sound area could no longer meet provincial publication and notice requirements because the Parry Sound North Star was "no longer being printed in sheet form" and no other local publication fit the statutory definition of a newspaper; the resolution asked the province to amend the Legislation Act, 2006 to recognize digital publications for official notices. ParrySound.com continues as the digital-only continuation of both papers.

Programming and Content

ParrySound.com publishes community journalism for the town and the surrounding West Parry Sound municipalities: town and township council coverage, police and emergency news, court reporting, school news, development and waterfront stories, community and junior sports — Parry Sound is the hometown of hockey legend Bobby Orr — arts and events coverage, obituaries and seasonal cottage-country content for a district whose population swells every summer. Monitoring of the site in October 2026 shows it publishing daily, with locally specific service content such as Parry Sound's October 17, 2026 forecast, which called for a chance of flurries and a morning wind chill of −7 C, alongside regional reporting shared with the neighbouring Muskoka operation — a Lake of Bays police story in the same period — and the Ontario-wide service journalism the Metroland network produces centrally, from lottery coverage to food recalls.

The site's own description notes that the Parry Sound team also publishes three magazines — Algonquin Life, Muskoka Life and Parry Sound Life — lifestyle publications for the region's resident and cottage communities, which continue the magazine tradition the print operation built with Fun in the Sun and Sideroads & Shorelines. Muck Rack, which monitors the outlet, describes parrysound.com as the website for the former weekly newspapers of the area, including the Parry Sound Beacon Star and the Parry Sound North Star, which it characterizes as award-winning publications.

Audience and Reach

The Beacon Star's market, as measured in the Ontario Community Newspapers Association's June 2019 market report, had a total population of 19,330, with a median age of 53.1 and almost half of residents over 55 — the demographic profile of a retirement and cottage-country community. The print circulations recorded for the papers' final years were 7,200 copies for the Friday Beacon Star and 2,500 for the Wednesday North Star, figures published in an area demographics profile drawn from the publisher's data. The digital audience extends well beyond the permanent population: Parry Sound is the gateway to Georgian Bay's 30,000 Islands and one of Ontario's best-known cottage regions, and the seasonal audience was the target of the operation's tourist publications, whose June print run reached 50,000 copies. No current audited traffic figure for parrysound.com is published in the sources used for this profile, and none is asserted here; the site is free to read and is listed by Muck Rack as a verified local digital outlet.

Digital Presence

Parrysound.com is the sole publishing platform for the former North Star and Beacon Star. The site states that it is the website for the former weekly newspapers serving the area, including the Parry Sound Beacon Star and the Parry Sound North Star, published by Metroland Media Group Ltd., a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation, which moved to a digital-only model on September 15, 2023. It publishes daily, offers the Today's Headlines newsletter, and is monitored as a current, verified outlet by Muck Rack, whose listings show fresh content on the domain dated through October 17, 2026. The magazines Parry Sound Life, Muskoka Life and Algonquin Life are published by the same team.

Ownership and Organisation

ParrySound.com is published by Metroland Media Group Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Torstar Corporation. Metroland was formed in February 1981 from the merger of Metrospan Community Newspapers, a Torstar unit, and Inland Publishing Company, and was combined with CityMedia Group in 2006 to form Metroland Media Group; Torstar was acquired by NordStar Capital LP in 2020. Both Parry Sound titles were Metroland weeklies by 2013, when Torstar's annual information form listed them in the group's roster, and neither was among the newspapers transferred in the November 2017 Torstar–Postmedia transaction. On September 15, 2023, Metroland filed under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and ceased print production of its community newspapers, including the North Star and the Beacon Star, a restructuring that cost roughly 60 per cent of the company's jobs, including 68 of its 200 journalists; the Parry Sound operation continued online. Metroland's head office is in Mississauga, Ontario, and the Parry Sound newsroom operation also produces the company's three Life magazines for the region.

Contact and Availability

ParrySound.com is available free of charge online at parrysound.com, where it publishes daily. The print editions of the Parry Sound North Star (Wednesdays) and the Parry Sound Beacon Star (Fridays) ceased on September 15, 2023. The publication serves the town of Parry Sound and the West Parry Sound district of Ontario, on the shore of Georgian Bay, and its magazine stable covers Parry Sound, Muskoka and Algonquin.