The Canadian newspaper, the
Winnipeg Free Press, now is offering a
pay service for its archive - back to 1874, including all the earlier newspapers associated with the
Free Press - this service is through NewspaperARCHIVE. From the
Free Press links, you can buy a subscription (annual, monthly, weekly or one day) or order reprints (cheaper than at NewspaperARCHIVE). This is an interesting development - although, of course, I'm unhappy to see that the
Winnipeg Free Press hasn't made the archives free instead, as other newspaper companies have.
Here is a link to the
Winnipeg Free Press's own
history page. The paper began in 1872. What did happen to those first two years?
Digitized access to the historical
Winnipeg Free Press has been available for quite some time through NewspaperARCHIVE (and NewspaperARCHIVE is available if you're a blue
Godfrey Library subscriber or may be available to you at
Family History Centers run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). I didn't think the coverage at NewspaperARCHIVE was complete; perhaps it will be soon? The
press release I read says the
Winnipeg Free Press site includes
"all Free Press content from 1874 to 2009" and the
Free Press does say that
"additional pages will be added as they become available".The searches look the same but there may be differences in indexing and coverage. I will be trying the
Winnipeg Free Press once at least, I'm sure, looking for my Newdale and other Manitoba people.
Before you pay, be sure to check out the free historical Manitoba newspapers available through
Manitobia.ca though. For the earlier years, you may find what you're looking for there.
Cold North Wind Inc., known on-line as 'Paper of Record', the groundbreaking Canadian newspaper digitizing company which recently 'disappeared' from the Internet, had the
Manitoban from 1870 - 1874 and the
Winnipeg Timesfrom 1879 - 1885. Google bought Paper of Record, but has been very slow at including those digitized newspapers in its
Google News Archive, apparently for both technical and licensing reasons.
On most of the Google News Archives searches now, I see 'Pay-For-View'. In my opinion, it was a very, very sad day for Canadian history when Paper of Record was sold out of the country. It would have been a great acquisition for Library and Archives Canada - another opportunity lost instead.
For more information about accessing the
Winnipeg Free Press digitally or on microfilm, see the University of Manitoba's information
here. Note that this page hasn't been recently updated, however, the information is still correct, if no longer quite complete. Microfilm copies of this and other Canadian newspapers are available at or through most academic or public libraries in Canada. Ask your favourite librarian for details!
Oh, dear - I realized after this was published that I neglected to mention that Ancestry.com also has indexed and digitized versions of some years of the
Winnipeg Free Press. To be honest, I have always found this awkward to use, however, any indexing is good, I do say. Ancestry.com access is available at many larger libraries or by subscription. Again, speak with your favourite librarian.