High River and the Times: An Alberta Community and Its Weekly Newspaper, 1905–1966

Frits Pannekoek is the president of Athabasca University, and the author
of A Snug Little Flock: The Social Origins of the Riel Resistance of
1869–70.

High River and the Times pretends to have no thesis or central argument.
It avoids, as the author says, the “murky conceptual swamp of
communications theory.” Rather Paul Voisey, a historian at the
University of Alberta, attempts his interpretation in a traditional
narrative using chronology as the hook on which to hang his facts. But
his conclusion that the weekly—in contrast to the daily—served more
to validate the community’s aspirations than to provide news is hardly
revolutionary, although possibly worth saying.

Voisey does present an excellent account of the business side of the
Times. Historians will find his descriptions of news acquisition,
advertising policies, and newspaper economics extremely useful. And this
serviceable but hardly inspired volume does shed light on the issues
that concerned High River over time, from railways to crop prices to
Hutterites.