It was the late ‘70s, a time in Montreal when fierce competition raged between the city’s then-abundance of daily and weekly papers, each vying to print the biggest scoop or expose and grab the stage. Politicians and Quebec’s rich supply of professional crooks supplied a constant source for investigation. Our paper was, I thought, best at rooting them out.
That is, until the publisher who encouraged us retired, to be replaced by what we saw as a play-it-safe yes man, who rocked-no-boats and kowtowed to advertisers.
Many staff were shocked, then disgusted. Our city editor quit and went to a rival paper, asking me to follow. I did, after first telling the new publisher just what I thought of him. Burning bridges falling down. Then the paper we went to, went out—on strike—stayed there a full year, and then folded. Hello unemployment. With a wife, three kids and a farm on the South Shore to pay for…. I struggled along for months, trying to freelance, and getting closer and closer to bankruptcy. Then one morning I strolled down to our rural route mail-box, opened it, and found a magazine I’d never heard of: Harrowsmith. The label showed it had been put in my box by mistake, but before I could take it to my neighbour, it flopped open, to the want-ads section, and there in front of me were the words: “Wanted: Editor.” I raced indoors, picked up the phone and dialed the number given. James Lawrence answered. We talked. “You’re hired,” he said. “Get down here right away.” I did. And found that Harrowsmith, founded by an idealistic ex-U.S. Peace Corps volunteer and his Canadian wife, was everything we’d fought for in Montreal, and then some: hard-hitting truth, political independence, and as a huge bonus, respect for the environment and the ecological future of our planet. Lawrence understood thorough reporting, and had no problem with the ethics code of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).
And, I found another farm, this one in the actual municipality of Harrowsmith, ON.
Hallelujah! I was home.
Thomas Pawlick was Associate Editor of Harrowsmith magazine from January 1979 to March 1983, where he won five national and international awards, including a Canadian National Magazine Award. He currently lives in Eastern Ontario, where he continues writing. The latest of his nine published books, Surviving the Apocalypse, appeared in 2021.
