Michael Atkins has owned Northern Life newspaper
since September 1973. On the occasion of this, the 30th anniversary
of his purchase of the company, he has written a series of columns
recalling some of the adventures of those years. The first column
described how it came to pass that he came to Sudbury at all. This
week a look at the first five years.
The first five years in the saddle at Northern
Life is a blur. I’ve never worked so hard or had so much fun as we
packed into that time period. We faced imminent bankruptcy
regularly, separated by brief periods of time when the Sudbury Star
was either on strike or was threatening to be on strike, and we’d
make enough money to go for another run. All of this we endured
with good cheer and blind faith.
What we lacked in business skills we made up for
in sheer gall and enthusiasm. Our big break came when Silverman’s a
big department store in Sudbury at the time decided to throw their
support behind us. I remember the day I made my big presentation to
them. I walked over to Silverman’s from our office and I was a
little early. I strolled through the store and decided it wouldn’t
hurt my case to make a modest purchase. I bought a sweater. I was
at the cash register when Peter Silverman, the proprietor, came
onto the floor and beckoned me to his office. I left the credit
card with the cashier and joined Peter and his senior staff. In the
middle of our discussions there was a knock on Peter’s door. It was
the cashier. She was extremely upset and explained sheepishly that
the credit card company had demanded that she tear up the credit
card on the spot, which it was clear from the shards of plastic in
her hand she had done, albeit with reluctance.
This was not good. I shifted uncomfortably in my
chair watching my newspaper go down the drain and decided the best
defence was a good offence.
I looked Peter straight in the eye and said that
if this is how he treated preferred customers I wasn’t sure we
should do business at all.
Peter, bless his heart, was mortified. He
castigated the cashier, apologized for her behaviour and offered to
sign the contract on the spot.
I could not believe this reversal of fortune and
to this day thank that poor woman for her timely intervention. I’m
sure we would have done some business with Silverman’s without the
incident, but my guess is it would have been at a lower rate and
I’m not sure it would have happened in time to save our
bacon.
As for the card, well, when you run out of your
line of credit, what is a boy to do? One thing you should not do is
buy a sweater you can’t afford.
After three years in business we had not figured
out how to make money, but were very pleased we weren’t losing
much. This lead one of our partners to insist we buy a failing
weekly in Thunder Bay as it appeared we were in danger of making
money in Sudbury within the year. This we did, and not many years
later we found ourselves with papers in Nipigon, Terrace Bay,
Ignace, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Sturgeon Falls and for a time North
Bay. Eventually, we figured it out and started to make money. In
1977 two things happened. Inco announced huge layoffs and the
Steelworkers went on strike not long after. It was a grim time. A
group of us began meeting in our pigeon-invested boardroom on Cedar
Street looking at ways to work together to help mitigate the
troubling times. What emerged was an economic self-help group
co-chaired by myself and Elmer McVey, then president of the Sudbury
Labour Council. We dubbed it Sudbury 2001. The idea was to bring
together the important interest groups and encourage them to take
responsibility for our economic future. Before long we had the
support of the president of the chamber of commerce, The president
of Laurentian University, the president of Cambrian College, the
president of the Steelworkers, the president of Mine Mill, senior
executives from both Falconbridge and Inco, the regional chair, the
mayor of Sudbury, and the ex-officio participation of local MPs and
MPPs.
Our promise to one another was to leave our
politics at the door, and against all odds we did.
In the spring of 1978 we had a huge conference at
Laurentian University and set ourselves the task of taking
responsibility for a sustainable economic future. It was an
extraordinary time and involved an astonishing group of
people.
Scratch someone who has lived in Sudbury for 25
years and the chances are they remember those days.
Although the Sudbury 2001 group worked on
numerous specific job creation projects—ask one of those old timers
about goats if you want a little fun—the lasting legacy is that it
began a tradition of working together in Sudbury that has spawned
any number of initiatives over the years. It was without question
one of the most rewarding periods of time in my life.
Michael Atkins has owned Northern Life
newspaper since September 1973. On the occasion of this, the 30th
anniversary of his purchase of the company, he has written a series
of columns recalling some of the adventures of those years. The
first column
can be found here.