Help the West Parry Sound District Museum Digitize the North Star Newspaper Archives!

Thanks to the generosity of our community, we have begun digitizing the North Star archives, but in order to make the entire collection digitally available, we need your help! This initiative requires us to raise $150,000.00, which is an awfully big goal, but every dollar counts! As we raise more funds in support of this project, we will gradually digitize more issues of the newspaper.

This is an ongoing initiative that individuals can make a donation to all year round. Help preserve our areas history by lending your support to this important project!

The Importance of Digitizing the Newspapers

The digitization of the newspapers, will do more than just preserve the original copies. This project will allow you to experience the West Parry Sound District's history like never before, immersing yourself in the past with informative articles that cover a wide array of topics, such as world wars, local & world events, birth & death announcements, and so much more! The newspapers provide a glimpse of what society was like at the time, allowing individuals to recall memories of days gone by, or in a lot of cases, provide researchers with snapshot of what life used to be like.

They are also one of the best resources for doing genealogical research!

Have you been trying to find out information on your family's history? Searching endlessly to find that obituary or birth announcement? Researching a family member who fought in the First & Second World War? Or maybe you heard about a relative that did something great for the community and want to know more?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, this is project to support. By gaining access to 109 years of our district's past, you have the potential to further your family history research. Newspapers hold a wealth of information on community members, such as birth & death announcements, marriage & anniversary announcements, special notes detailing the daily happenings of the towns people, graduation announcements, and more. Having all this information at your fingertips gives you greater potential to discover more about your family & who you are. Oh! and did we mention the digitized newspapers will be searchable! That means if you are searching for John & Jane Doe's marriage, all you have to do is plug in the name and hit find!

Ways To Donate

*Donations over $25.00 will be eligible for a charitable tax reciept.

Digitized North Star Newspapers

To date, the Museum has digitized the following years of the North Star archives:

1879
1884
1895
1896
1914
1915
1916

How to access the digitized North Star Newspapers Archives

Give the Museum a call or email collections@museumontowerhill.com to book an appointment to view the digitized files

Breakdown

This initiative is critical to the preservation of the newspapers and our district's history. Please help us ensure future generations can discover the past by making a contribution to this important project.

Did you know that it costs $1.00 to scan 1 page of the newspaper. That means that if a newspaper has 8 pages, it will cost roughly $8.00 to get the whole issue digitized. But what about if the newspaper is really old and in poor condition? If repairs need to be done to the pages of the newspaper before it can be scanned, the cost becomes $4.00 per page, which means it could cost $32.00 to digitize an 8 page issue.

Each issue of the North Star varies in page length. The earlier issues (1879 - 1969) have roughly 8 pages per issues, although some of the later issues (1970 - 2005) have upwards of 12 pages.

Help us preserve 109 years of our district's heritage & donate today!