'It's gratifying': Whitehorse Star employees look back as 124-year-old paper prepares final edition
CBC
It was December 1973 when Vince Fedoroff first knocked on the doors at the Whitehorse Star.
"I walked in on the Christmas party. Everybody was whooping it up and having a good time. And I kind of wander in and I go, 'anybody... you got a job?'" he recalled.
The 15-year-old didn't know it at the time, but he was about to embark on a 50-year career with the newspaper.
Fedoroff started sweeping the floors in the press room, then progressed to operating the press, then — despite no formal training — he became the newspaper's photographer, lauded by editor Jim Butler as "the most dedicated and hardest working" shooter he's seen.
Now Fedoroff is one of 11 employees clearing stacks of clippings off their desks ahead of the newspaper's final run.
On Friday, the last edition of the 124-year-old Whitehorse Star — one of the last independently-owned newspapers in Canada — will roll off the press, marking the end of an era in the Yukon capital.
Many of the paper's employees have worked there for decades.
Fedoroff said his role with the Star felt less like a job and more like "volunteering for the community."
"It's gratifying. And what's especially gratifying is going out and doing youth things. When a mom comes up to me and says, 'Wow, my kid was so excited to see that picture in the paper,' and the kids say, 'Hey, it's the photo guy,' ... I mean, that makes you feel good," he said.
Fedoroff said there will be a lot to miss, but he's taking the demise of the paper in stride.
"I mean, I'm doing fine. It's not a whole surprise, really, considering the state of newspapers in the world today," he said.
The Star's owners announced last month it was no longer feasible to carry on business operations. They made it clear their decision to close was final, despite a local fundraising effort to try to save the paper.
Jim Butler, the editor, said the first couple of weeks with no Whitehorse Star on the newsstands will be a very "unreal experience."
"I feel badly for the community because the capital city of the Yukon is about to lose an institution that dawned in 1899 as a tent in northern B.C.," he said.
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