Our collection of BC Historical Newspapers brings a lot of traffic to our website—and it feeds a lot of our blog posts, too! We get lost flipping through the pages of time, but the papers always find a way to bring us back to the present.

For instance, the way newspapers were totally the precursor to Facebook.

The Abbotsford Post, July 1, 1910.

And there’s the way something written conversationally really can be impossible to read. Honestly, we have no idea where or what the motherlode is, or to whom it belongs.

The Bennett Sun, August 5, 1899.

Reading Rooms and Circulating Libraries! We just can’t get enough of them in the RBSC Bookplates digital collection.

The Cariboo Sentinel, October 14, 1865.

Paying for school: it’s a real pickle now, too. We all know one of those entrepreneurial Doris-types.

Preston Review, November 24, 1933

Newspaper ads, foreshadowing texting since the 1910s. No idea what this is supposed to stand for, but we definitely LOL’ed when we saw it.

The Hedley Gazette, August 29, 1912

Before The Magic School Bus there was the family meat market.

Queen Charlotte Islander, April 25, 1914.

A now-ancient predecessor to live tweeting.

Nelson Daily Miner, January 20, 1901

When scrapbooking meets graphic design in the news world: the result sure feels like a graphic novel.

The Grand Forks Sun and Kettle Valley Orchardist, April 27, 1923

And, finally, those things you just don’t get to do anymore, like shopping for an upholstered chaise while waiting for your embalming to be finished.

The Boundary Creek Times, March 8, 1899