About Tofino-Ucluelet Westerly News

Tofino-Ucluelet Westerly News

Overview

The Tofino-Ucluelet Westerly News is the community newspaper of record for the two neighbouring communities of Tofino and Ucluelet, on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Published every Wednesday by Black Press Ltd., it is the only newspaper serving the Long Beach area of the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District, a coastline of surf beaches, fishing harbours, Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations communities and Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. Its masthead states the simple formula that has defined the paper for four decades: "The Westerly News is published every Wednesday by Black Press Ltd."

The paper covers the full civic life of two small but busy municipalities — district councils, regional district business, schools, fisheries, tourism, search and rescue, arts and sports — alongside letters, opinion columns and a strong photographic tradition that draws on its own archive of west coast history. It appears in print each Wednesday, sold and distributed through local outlets in both communities, and online at westerlynews.ca, where readers can subscribe and read the week's coverage between editions.

History

The Westerly News is not the first newspaper on this coast, and the paper itself told the longer story when it marked its 40th anniversary in 2024. According to the paper's anniversary history, drawing on the book Paper Trails, the first newspaper on the west coast was the Westcoaster, first published in Tofino in 1957. In 1958 George Simpson bought the paper, moved it to Ucluelet and renamed it the Tofino-Ucluelet Progress. Around 1974 it was purchased by Phil Hood, who later sold it to J.D. Hamilton. When Hamilton ran into financial trouble, the paper closed — and the Westerly News was started by Fitzpatrick and Perrin, with assistance from Hood, to fill the gap.

The founding years were handmade by modern standards. Teresa Bird, the paper's publisher in 2025, recalled working on the holiday edition in 1985, developing photographs and selling Christmas advertising while her baby slept outside the darkroom, with colleagues drawing ad graphics freehand and laying out copy with wax. The Westerly News passed in time to larger media companies, and Black Press purchased it in 2015, bringing the paper into the country's largest community newspaper group while keeping its Wednesday publication cycle, its name and its two-community mandate intact.

Programming and Content

A typical edition mixes hard civic coverage with the texture of coast life. Municipal and regional government reporting is a staple: editions in early 2026 carried Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District public hearing notices on its 2026–2030 draft financial plan and an official community plan amendment, the kind of statutory advertising that marks the paper as the region's publication of record. In March 2026 the front pages followed the Ucluelet Chamber of Commerce, whose entire board resigned with a call for "new blood." The chamber, in existence since 1947, had seen a full slate of twelve board members dwindle to eight and then, effectively, to none, and the paper reported the special meeting called to rally the business community — including its role in hosting two major events on Ucluelet's calendar, the annual Edge to Edge Marathon and the biennial VI360 yacht race, which draw visitors and money to the town.

Opinion and community voice occupy a large share of the paper. Its letters pages run under the heading "Voices," with a Sunday 2 p.m. deadline and a 300-word limit, and its columnists range over everything from time and calendars to mental health and men's support services. A January 2026 column by regional editor Thom Barker mused on dogs' indifference to clocks and calendars, while another Westerly contributor used the same season's pages to ask "What's up with this whole social media thing?", weighing highlight reels, FOMO and phone habits for a small-town readership. Letters must be signed and include the writer's hometown and a daytime phone number — the paper states its rules plainly: "State a fact, state a source."

The paper also functions as a civic bulletin board. Its almanac pages print the contact details for the area's provincial and federal representatives — in 2026, MLA Josie Osborne for Mid Island-Pacific Rim and MP Gord Johns for Courtenay-Alberni — along with regional district directors and school trustees, so that readers in two municipalities, several First Nations communities and the unincorporated Long Beach area can find their representatives in one place. Public hearing notices, district announcements and school district business appear as a matter of routine. A recurring "History Photo" feature republishes images from the paper's own files — an August 2025 edition, for example, revisited the August 1992 opening of Ucluelet Seafood Processors' surimi plant, when four boats a day were each landing 45 tonnes of hake. Local government contacts for both municipalities, the regional district, School District 70, the area's MLA and MP are printed for readers as a standing service.

Audience and Reach

The Westerly News serves two small year-round communities whose populations swell dramatically with visitors: surfers, storm-watchers and national park tourists. Its distribution model reflects that geography. A notice in its pages lists where readers find the paper every Wednesday in Tofino — LA Grocery, Gaia Grocery, the Tofino Co-op, the Co-op Gas Bar and Tofino Pharmacy among the outlets — with distribution in Ucluelet as well. For readers farther away, the paper is sold by subscription: its August 2025 masthead lists annual rates of $78 in the local area, $91 elsewhere in British Columbia, $104 across Canada and $130 in the United States, a rate card that hints at how many former residents and coast devotees keep a paid link to the two towns.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital home is westerlynews.ca, where subscriptions are sold and stories are published online, and its print editions are preserved in Black Press's digital pages archive, which holds complete Wednesday editions running through the winter and spring of 2026 — including the issues of January 7, January 14 and March 4, 2026. That archive trail, together with the paper's own anniversary coverage, confirms an unbroken weekly publishing record into 2026, in print and online.

Ownership and Organisation

The Westerly News is published by Black Press Ltd., the community newspaper group founded in 1975 by David H. Black. Black Press filed for protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act on January 15, 2024, and completed its sale to Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group on March 25, 2024, emerging from CCAA Canadian-controlled, with Glenn Rogers as chief executive officer. Within that group, the Westerly News operates from the mid-Island Black Press office in Port Alberni: its 2025 masthead gives a mailing address of 4918 Napier Street, Port Alberni, and names Teresa Bird as publisher and Andrew Bailey as editor. The paper is a member of the National NewsMedia Council, the independent body that handles complaints about journalistic practice and ethics.

Contact and Availability

The Westerly News publishes every Wednesday in print and continuously online at westerlynews.ca. Its newsroom can be reached by phone at 250-726-7029, and its editor, Andrew Bailey, at Andrew.Bailey@WesterlyNews.ca; reader complaints and letters go to editor@westerlynews.ca, and classified advertising enquiries to classifieds@westerlynews.ca, with a Monday 10 a.m. deadline. Subscriptions are handled at 250-723-6399 or through the subscribe page on its website. Display advertising deadlines fall on Thursdays at 2 p.m. for the following week's edition.