Saskatchewan Herald – Northwest Territories (Saskatchewan), Patrick Gammie-Laurie, 1878

Patrick Gammie-Laurie (1833-1903) began his career as a printer's apprentice in Toronto and later briefly worked for The Nor’Wester in Fort Garry. In June 1878, he set out for Battleford after being expelled from Fort Garry for refusing to print a publication by Louis Riel’s provisional government. With no railroad in existence at the time, he led an ox cart on a seventy-two-day trek by foot to transport his press to the Battleford area. In August 1878, Gammie-Laurie published the Saskatchewan Herald, the first newspaper in what is now Saskatchewan. The Herald ceased publication in 1903.

A strong supporter of the North-West Mounted Police and an advocate for British imperialism, Gammie-Laurie believed the west should be modeled on British customs and institutions. His editorials, often slanted against Indigenous and Métis people, aimed to establish Battleford as a settlement exclusively for white Anglo-Saxon settlers. 

By 1885, the arrival of the railway spurred the growth of additional newspapers in the region. When Saskatchewan became a province in 1905, it had fifty-two different newspapers in print.