A community newspaper is more than just a record of the week’s news; it is a collective photo album for the entire region. For nearly a century and a half, our photographers have been on the sidelines of junior hockey games, in the wings of school plays, and at the front lines of every major award ceremony from Chapeau to Quyon. And since 1977 we’ve retained almost all of our photos in dusty binders in a closet.
The result is a massive physical and digital history of the Pontiac—and we’re finally opening the vault.
300,000 Moments in Time
For the past several months, our team has been working through a monumental preservation project. Our archives house more than 150,000 photos in negative format spanning from 1977 to 2003. Beyond that, we have an equal volume of digital photography captured from 2003 through to today.
These photos are a visual history of our neighbors, our families, and our growth as a region.
Bringing the Archives to You
We are currently in the process of scanning these negatives and organizing them into “Way We Were” albums. To make this history as accessible as possible, we are hosting these collections in two places:
- Our Website: A permanent digital home for the high-quality archives.
- Facebook: A community-driven space where these photos can come to life through your interactions.
By bringing these photos to social media, we’re hoping to fill in the blanks. While we have the dates and the events, the community holds the names and the stories.
How You Can Participate
Our goal is to have the majority of these 300,000+ images digitized and uploaded over the next year or two. It is a marathon, not a sprint, but you can help us along the way:
- Follow and Like: Stay tuned to our Facebook page as new albums are released.
- Tag Your Friends: If you see a familiar face from a 1984 hockey tournament or a 1996 graduation, tag them!
- Share the Memories: Help us reconnect people with moments they may have forgotten existed.
Whether you grew up in Shawville, Campbell’s Bay, Fort-Coulonge or any of the “spots in between,” there is a high likelihood that a piece of your history is sitting in our filing cabinets, waiting to be rediscovered.
