La Ronge newspaper, the Northerner, closing after 41 years

The La Ronge Northerner, a weekly newspaper that's been a part of northern Saskatchewan life for four decades, is closing.

The paper is part of the Glacier Media Group. According to the company's website, ithas a circulation of 1,383 copies.

Many of its readers are in La Ronge, nearby Air Ronge and reserves within the Lac La Ronge Indian Band.

Karen Robertson's father,Vern Brooks, started the paper in 1974.

Robertson told CBC News that her family had recently moved to La Ronge when he launched the tabloid.

Brooks started off training community members on radio broadcasting, but soon caught the newspaper bug.

"Dad decided he wanted to go into business for himself and dragged the family along," Robertson said, recalling how her mother did a lot work behind a typewriter in the early days of the paper.

"I think it was important for him to have a place where local people, northerners, could see themselves and their own lives represented," Robertson said of her father's vision for the paper. "They could write letters and talk about issues that were important to them."

She remembered the first issues cost 15 cents, and the publication had amassed some 500 regular subscribers by 1975.

Robertson said her father ended up selling the paper sometime in late 1970s or early 1980s.

Thepaper winds up operations this month.

"It's just too bad that a nice local newspaper like The Northerner isn't going to be there to tell the [local] stories," she said.