Ma Murray, a Kansas native and wife of British Columbia politician and publisher George Matheson Murray, had already made a reputation as the firebrand editor of the Bridge River-Lillooet News in Lillooet, British Columbia, among other publications, when the Murrays came to see the Alaska Highway for themselves in 1940. They decided that Fort St. John, then a boomtown populated mostly by United States Army soldiers, was a good place to start a newspaper, and the weekly Alaska Highway News was born[2] in 1943.[3]
Murray became the "best-known, best-loved and also most cordially disliked person in Fort St. John" for her folksy and outspoken editorials, including attacks on the local power and telephone companies,[2] and her solution to a town water shortage:
There has been a terrible waste of water in this small town. ... We sure as hell need to use less if we are going to have this modern convenience. To head off this catastrophe, only flush for No. 2, curtail bathing to the Saturday night tub, go back to the old washrag which could always remove a lot of B.O. if applied often enough. ...[2]
She frequently ended her editorials "...and that's fer damshur!". Ma Murray also coined the Alaska Highway News' motto: "We're the only newspaper in the world that gives a tinker's damn about the North Peace."[4]
By the turn of the 21st century, the paper had converted to a daily and ownership had passed to Hollinger Inc., the media empire of Conrad Black. Along with several other small British Columbia dailies, the Alaska Highway News was one of the last Hollinger properties to be sold, to Vancouver-based Glacier Ventures International, later called Glacier Media, in 2006. In 2014, the paper merged with another Glacier Media Group outlet, The Dawson Creek Daily News. The paper serves both the Fort St. John and Dawson Creek areas, as well as surrounding areas, including Fort Nelson.[5][6] In March 2016 the frequency of the paper was switched to weekly.[3]
In October 2023, the paper published its final edition.[7][8] The paper's closure has left a news desert in the Peace River region, with local governments left with few alternative means of distributing its public notices as required under British Columbia law.[9]
