It is quite a job to put out a newspaper.

When you read this week’s paper, I will be away on a work trip that has taken me to France and Belgium.

The strange part is that, despite being thousands of kilometres from the Crowsnest Pass, I can still open my laptop, work on stories, build pages and help send another edition of the Pass Herald to press.

We have quite literally gone from wax to Wi-Fi.

The Pass Herald has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up at the paper, playing under my mom’s desk and answering my pretend Fisher-Price telephone with, “Good morning, Pass Herald.”

As I got older, I delivered newspapers to homes, usually with my dad driving me around in his truck. Sometimes he even let me sit in the box and jump out at each stop.

Can you imagine doing that today? My dad would probably go to jail.

In high school, I stuffed flyers for extra money. While attending university, I took a small-business class and spent an entire semester analysing the Pass Herald and looking for ways to make it more profitable.

I officially began working at the paper in early 2000 when it was experiencing some internal issues. Now, 26 years later, I own it.

When I first started working here, the thought of producing a newspaper from Europe would have seemed impossible. Back then, publishing a paper involved an entirely different kind of technology and a tremendous amount of hands-on work.

We typed our stories into a Compugraphic machine, an early phototypesetting system. Instead of displaying a finished page on a computer screen, the machine used a photographic process to produce long columns of type on light-sensitive paper. Those strips had to be developed, proofread, corrected and physically placed on the page.

Corrections were not made with the quick tap of a delete key. Often, a line or an entire section had to be typed and run through the machine again.

We built each newspaper page by hand on large, thick layout sheets. The back of every strip of type went through a waxing machine, which applied a thin layer of wax so it could be positioned, lifted and moved if necessary. Headlines, stories, photographs and advertisements were all measured, carefully lined up and pressed into place.

Advertisements were built by hand, too. Type, borders, logos and artwork all had to be assembled and fitted into the available space.

There was no clicking and dragging. If something did not fit, we cut it, shifted it or ran the type again.

Photographs were another job entirely. Buddy developed every photograph in the lightroom, where each image had to be processed, printed, sized and cropped before it could be placed on a page.

Once every story, photograph and advertisement had been positioned on those thick layout sheets, Buddy would take the completed pages back into the lightroom, photograph each one and produce the full-page negatives needed for printing.

The completed paper would then be placed on the Greyhound bus and sent to the Lethbridge Herald. The printed newspapers came back on the bus the following day, and someone had to be there to collect them.

Then the next stage of work began: getting the paper into readers’ hands.

Even then, we mailed copies to subscribers through Canada Post. We used an old hand-operated machine called a Wing Mailer to address them. Our subscribers’ names and addresses were printed on a long strip of gummed paper that was fed through the machine. We filled its glue pot, positioned each newspaper and pulled the handle. The machine advanced the strip, cut off the next address and pressed it onto the paper.

Each copy had to be labelled one at a time before the newspapers could be counted, sorted, bundled and taken to Canada Post.

The remaining copies were counted and delivered to stores and newspaper outlets, much as they are today.

It was quite a job to put out a newspaper.

Today, I can sit with a laptop in Europe and help produce a paper for readers back home in the Crowsnest Pass. Stories, photographs, advertisements and completed pages can travel across an ocean in seconds.

That is crazy when I stop to think about it.

Technology may make it possible, but it is the people behind the Herald who make it work.

Nicholas has been with us for more than four years and continues to go strong, telling the stories that matter to our communities. Tina is equally talented at proofreading a page and selling an advertisement, two very different jobs that she handles with remarkable skill.

Keiran writes during his off-season and continues to help through part of the summer. John, our longest-serving employee, carries an incredible knowledge of the Crowsnest Pass and has become our newsroom historian.

Nicholay delivers the paper to Sparwood, while his wife, Iryna, contributes stories shaped by her Ukrainian perspective.

Our newest partnership is with McMan Crowsnest Pass and Pincher Creek, whose workers help stuff flyers and distribute the Herald each week.

The partnership began because we wanted to create a meaningful opportunity for inclusion. What we did not expect was how much we would receive in return.

The McMan workers are professional, dependable, hardworking and incredibly kind. Our Wednesday visits have become one of the highlights of the week. The newspapers are delivered, the community benefits and we have built relationships that mean a great deal to us.

We thought we were creating an opportunity. It turns out we were the lucky ones.

Then there are the lovely ladies at Canada Post who continue to help ensure the Herald reaches our readers throughout the Crowsnest Pass and beyond.

A laptop allows me to work from France or Belgium, but it cannot proofread every page, sell an advertisement, write every story, stuff the flyers, label the newspapers or place them in readers’ hands.

That takes people.

From the little girl answering a Fisher-Price phone under her mother’s desk to the publisher producing pages from a laptop in Europe, nearly everything about my life at the Pass Herald has changed.

What has not changed is the teamwork required to put a community newspaper on the street every week.

From wax to Wi-Fi, we are still a tiny group. But boy, oh boy, are we mighty.