Visit to the Journal-Pioneer

Back in the fall, when I was spending time out at Campbell’s Printing arranging to purchase and the get delivered my Golding Jobber No. 8 letterpress, I had a good opportunity to talk with Bill Campbell about his life as a printer.  Part of Bill’s working life was spent at the Journal-Pioneer newspaper in Summerside, and Bill had many stories to tell about his days there, the people he worked with, and the equipment he used.

This afternoon I found myself in downtown Summerside for a meeting and, after lunch at Samuel’s Coffee House (very highly recommended: espresso, in Summerside — who would have ever thought!), I decided to drop in to the Journal-Pioneer office next door to see if there was any vestigal printing or typesetting equipment around that I might take a look at.

At the front desk I introduced myself and the friendly woman there asked me to wait a moment and then disappeared around a corner. A few seconds later she motioned for me to come around, and I was ushered into the office of Publisher Sandy Rundle with whom I spent a very pleasant 30 minutes swapping newspaper stories and learning more about how production and printing work in the digital age (when I worked in the composing room of the Peterborough Examiner we were still a decidedly analog shop).

Prince Edward Island’s scale can be frustrating, confounding and stiffling; it can also result in happenstance like this, where guy off the street is invited in to chat with the publisher of the daily newspaper.