The Invermere Valley Echo, as it is now known, has gone through a series of iterations through the years, starting in September, 1953 as ‘The Valley Echo’.

While the first editions of the newspaper are missing, there is a copy of Volume 1, no. 43 found in The Windermere Valley Museum archives.

In that edition, dated June 30, 1954, news topics range from the headline story of ‘Jumbo Pass to be Surveyed’, to ‘Bears are a nuisance in Spillimacheen’. It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. Other tidbits include who had come to town to visit and who was getting married.

There was another version of the paper after ‘The Valley Echo’, called ‘The Columbia Valley Echo’ that lasted a brief year.

Then on Friday, August 24, 1956, the first edition of ‘The Lake Windermere Valley Echo’ was printed. (Later, in 1975, ‘Lake Windemere’ was dropped from the title to become ‘The Valley Echo’.) Inside the pages of that first Lake Windermere Valley Echo edition, there was a guest editorial written by The Columbia Valley Echo’s Earle Gray.

“The Columbia Valley Echo is no more. But our year’s hard effort, sacrifice and financial loss is not in vain,” wrote Gray. “With this issue of the Lake Windermere Valley Echo, the Columbia Valley once more has a home town paper. We are contented.”

That sums it up nicely.

We too, are content, for we know the community will continue to be well-served by The Columbia Valley Pioneer.

What started as a competing newspaper merged into a joint operation between two newpaper chains, with the majority of staff working for both newspapers. Together, the team has built hundreds of newspapers, created thousands of ads, taken hundreds of thousands of pictures, written stories on every topic possible and covered the broad Columbia Valley community within both newspapers’ pages.

We assure you, our dear readers, we will continue to provide you the news you need to know, the arts and entertainment coverage you value, along with sports, features and more.

On behalf of all of us here at The Invermere Valley Echo, both past and present, thank you for reading.