The Vanderhoof Omineca Express newspaper, The Caledonia Courier and The Advertiser are usually printed every week at our press room in Williams Lake. Due to the wildfires over the past three weeks we had to change the print location of these publications. Editions were printed in our Vancouver press room.
The papers were then flown up to Prince George. We had to arrange transfer of the papers from the airport to Vanderhoof. The flyers had to then be manually stuffed into the paper along with mailing labels having to be individually attached to each paper by hand.
With the evacuation order lifted, we expect to be able to return to printing in Williams Lake again this week. It has been a challenging a time, but we got through it, crunched deadlines and all! Our thoughts continue to be with employees and their families at our sister papers especially in Williams Lake, 100 Mile House and Ashcroft. We trust they will remain safe.
Special thanks to two staff on our direct team in the Black Press office in 100 Mile House. I work with these Black Press employees every week. Even with the disruption to the workflow Evan still got the advertising design and placement done, and our papers were still sent to press on time. Deb shared the one particular stress she endured; not having contact with her son for several hours, knowing that he had lost his home in the Ashcroft fire.