Northwest Passage (newspaper)

Last updated
Northwest Passage
Northwest passage april 1969 cover.jpg
Cover of Northwest Passage vol. 1, no.2 (April 10, 1969) issue. Photo showing members of the local "freak" community, including Northwest Passage staffers. Frank Kathman is the tall, mustachioed man in the upper right.
TypeBiweekly newspaper
Format Tabloid/Alternative newspaper
Founder(s)Frank Kathman, Laurence Kee, Michael Carlson
PublisherFrank Kathman
Editor-in-chiefLaurence Kee
Art DirectorMichael Carlson
FoundedMarch 17, 1969;55 years ago (1969-03-17) in Bellingham, Washington
Ceased publicationJune 1986;38 years ago (1986-06)
Headquarters Bellingham, Washington (1969–1977)
Seattle, Washington (1977–1986)
Circulation 6,000 (1972)

The Northwest Passage was a bi-weekly underground newspaper in Bellingham, Washington, which was published from March 17, 1969 to June 1986. The paper was co-founded by Frank Kathman as publisher, Laurence Kee as Managing Editor, and Michael Carlson (now Harman) as Art Director. [1] The newspaper was primarily known for its graphic design content.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Publication history

Frank Kathman had originally been influenced by a college class that he took with Bernard Weiner at Western Washington State College (now University), where the underground press was studied. Later, Kathman and Carlson wrote and designed a recruitment poster that was printed, calling for the founding of the paper. They recruited Kee, who was a reporter for the Bellingham Herald , and the only one of the three with a steady paycheck, so it came down to him to write a check to the Lynden Tribune on March 17, 1969, in order to get the first issue printed. Kee was later fired from the conservative Herald for his involvement with the Passage.[ citation needed ]

The paper was sustained from that point on by personal donations from the community; by sales in a few news boxes and through personal hawking campaigns in Bellingham and Seattle; through subscriptions sold to individuals and university and community libraries all over the country; and through the sale of display advertising — most notably through a deal with Warner Bros. Records. The Tribune later refused to print the Passage, bending to conservative political pressures in the county, and the Passage was moved to the Skagit Valley Herald for further printing. Published in tabloid newspaper format and selling for 25 cents, it was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate and the Liberation News Service, and reported circulation of 6000 copies in 1972. Volunteers set type and did layout.

The Northwest Passage was originally housed in Kee's home on Maplewood Ave, where the bedrooms were converted to graphics layout rooms. Later, when Kee and the paper were evicted from the rented house, the Passage moved to a house in the outlying area, on Yew Street Rd. The next home of the paper was in a taxidermy building on W. Holly St., near the downtown area. Later, the paper moved to offices in the Morgan Block Building in the Fairhaven District of Bellingham, known as "Happy Valley", or the "Southside". "Happy Valley" had been a common name for the area since before the founding of Fairhaven. The Block building, located at 1000 Harris Avenue was owned by the People's Land Trust. [2] It also housed Good Earth Pottery, Fairhaven Music, and the Community Food Co-op, and was a hive of the counterculture from 1969 through the end of the Vietnam War. At the time, Fairhaven was a hippie enclave—a temporary autonomous zone of cooperative enterprise that spawned the community garden program, a cooperative primary school, and a co-op flour mill (it has since become a family-owned business and moved out of Bellingham), all of which are still thriving forty years later. [3] [ when? ][ citation needed ] [4]

Though initially a kind of hippie paper focusing on the counterculture and ending the Vietnam War, under the leadership of Kathman and Kee, and later Chris Condon and others, it quickly became an important source of investigative journalism on political and environmental issues in Bellingham and the Pacific Northwest in general.

During the People's Park riots in Berkeley, California during the summer of 1969, the Passage was chosen as the pool print representative for the national media, and was allowed inside the Park to be "embedded" with the armed National Guard unit that was holding the Park against the siege conducted by thousands of demonstrators who were trying to get the park restored to its former use as a public area. The resulting article by Kee was representative of other reporting by the Passage which was often quoted by other publications and even reprinted by some on occasion.[ citation needed ] Although the editorial and reporting reach of the Passage extended out into the nation and the world, the paper nevertheless retained its local community feeling in Bellingham throughout its existence.[ citation needed ]

Original editor Laurence Kee left the paper to found the Seattle rock band Child, and in Los Angeles played with the Eric Burdon Band and others, before coming back to Bellingham to teach at Western Washington University's Fairhaven College in their "Artist-In-Residence" program.[ citation needed ]

From 1969 to 1977 Northwest Passage was based in Bellingham, relocating in 1977 to Seattle. [5] In Seattle it was produced at 1017 E. Pike Street. After 1981 it was published monthly. [6]

Five articles from Northwest Passage were selected for the book Alternative Papers: Selections from the Alternative Press, 1979 - 1980. [7]

A 1990 Northwest Passage Reunion brought out reflections by Bernard Weiner.

Contributors

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bellingham, Washington</span> City in Washington, United States

Bellingham is the county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies 21 miles (34 km) south of the U.S.–Canada border, between Vancouver, British Columbia, 52 miles (84 km) to the northwest and Seattle (90 miles to the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julius Bloedel</span>

Julius Harold Bloedel was an American businessman and entrepreneur who operated primarily in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada.

Black Press Group Ltd. (BPG) is a Canadian commercial printer and newspaper publisher founded in 1975 by David Holmes Black, who has no relation to Canadian-born media mogul Conrad Black. Based in Surrey, British Columbia, it was previously owned by the publisher of Toronto Star and Black (80.65%).

<i>International Times</i> Underground newspapers

International Times is the name of various underground newspapers, with the original title founded in London in 1966 and running until October 1973. Editors included John "Hoppy" Hopkins, David Mairowitz, Roger Hutchinson, Peter Stansill, Barry Miles, Jim Haynes and playwright Tom McGrath. Jack Moore, avant-garde writer William Levy and Mick Farren, singer of The Deviants, also edited at various periods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground press</span> Publications produced without the official approval of a dominant group

The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant group. In specific recent Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in the United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe, for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance. Other notable examples include the samizdat and bibuła, which operated in the Soviet Union and Poland respectively, during the Cold War.

<i>East Village Other</i> Former underground newspaper in New York City

The East Village Other was an American underground newspaper in New York City, issued biweekly during the 1960s. It was described by The New York Times as "a New York newspaper so countercultural that it made The Village Voice look like a church circular".

The Underground Press Syndicate (UPS), later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS), was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines that operated from 1966 into the late 1970s. As it evolved, the Underground Press Syndicate created an Underground Press Service, and later its own magazine.

<i>Los Angeles Free Press</i> Defunct American underground newspaper

The Los Angeles Free Press, also called the "Freep", is often cited as the first, and certainly was the largest, of the underground newspapers of the 1960s. The Freep was founded in 1964 by Art Kunkin, who served as its publisher until 1971 and continued on as its editor-in-chief through June 1973. The paper closed in 1978. It was unsuccessfully revived a number of times afterward.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington State Route 11</span> Highway in Washington

State Route 11 (SR 11) is a 21.28-mile (34.25 km) long state highway that serves Skagit and Whatcom counties in the U.S. state of Washington. SR 11, known as Chuckanut Drive, begins at an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) north of Burlington and continues northwest through several small towns and the Chuckanut Mountains to the Fairhaven district of Bellingham, where the highway turns east and ends again at I-5.

<i>The Bellingham Herald</i> Main daily newspaper of Bellingham, Washington, U.S.

The Bellingham Herald is a daily newspaper published in Bellingham, Washington, in the United States. It was founded on March 10, 1890, as The Fairhaven Herald and changed its name after Bellingham was incorporated as a city in 1903. The Bellingham Herald is the largest newspaper in Whatcom County, with a weekday circulation of over 10,957. It employs around 60 people. It is owned by The McClatchy Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. X. Larrabee</span> American businessman

Charles Xavier Larrabee was an American businessman and a co-founder of the town of Fairhaven, Washington. Later in life, Larrabee and his wife Frances donated much land for civic purposes, including schools and parks, and were considered stewards of the city of Bellingham.

The Bellingham Public Library is a public library system serving Bellingham, Washington, US. It maintains four libraries, one in the Civic Center of downtown Bellingham, one in Fairhaven, one in Barkley Village, and one in the Cordata neighborhood, inside Bellis Fair Mall. The system is independent of the Whatcom County Library System, serving the entire county, but has a reciprocal borrowing agreement.

<i>Helix</i> (newspaper) United States underground newspaper (1967–1970)

The Helix was an American biweekly newspaper founded in 1967 after a series of organizational meetings held at the Free University of Seattle involving a large and eclectic group including Paul Dorpat, Tom Robbins, Ray Collins, and Lorenzo Milam. A member of both the Underground Press Syndicate and the Liberation News Service, it published a total of 125 issues before folding on June 11, 1970.

<i>Chicago Seed</i> (newspaper)

The Chicago Seed was an underground newspaper published biweekly in Chicago, Illinois from May 1967 to 1974; there were 121 issues published in all. It was notable for its colorful psychedelic graphics and its eclectic, non-doctrinaire radical politics. Important events covered by Seed writers and artists were the trial of the Chicago Eight, Woodstock, and the murder of Fred Hampton. At its peak, the Seed circulated between 30,000 and 40,000 copies, with national distribution.

The history of Bellingham, Washington, as it is now known, begins with the settling of Whatcom County in the mid-to-late 19th century.

<i>Washington Free Press</i> Underground newspaper

The Washington Free Press was a biweekly radical underground newspaper published in Washington, DC, beginning in 1966, when it was founded by representatives of the five colleges in Washington as a community paper for local Movement people. It was an early member of the Underground Press Syndicate. Starting in December, 1967 they shared a three-story house in northwest Washington with the Liberation News Service, the Washington Draft Resistance Union, and a local chapter of the anti-draft group Resistance. A print shop was in the basement, and other activist groups used the space and got their mail there. The paper's original founders and editors included Michael Grossman, Arthur Grosman and former State Department computer programmer William Blum, but the staff went through many changes and by 1969 nobody on the paper was even acquainted with any of the original founders.

<i>Spokane Natural</i> United States underground newspaper (1967–1970)

Spokane Natural was an underground newspaper published biweekly in Spokane, Washington from May 5, 1967, to November 13, 1970, by the Mandala Printshop, and edited by Russ Nobbs. It belonged to the Underground Press Syndicate and the Liberation News Service. The first issue was produced out of a converted barbershop storefront cum bookstore and hangout called the "Hippie Mission" on a cul-de-sac in Spokane, where Russ Nobbs and a visiting friend from the SF Bay area, Ormond Otvos wrote and produced the first 8-page issue on a hand-cranked Spirit duplicator. After several issues of pale blue "Ditto" print on white paper, The Natural moved to colored papers and occasionally colored ink with a Gestetner Mimeograph duplicator. Ultimately, the newspaper was printed on newsprint by sheet fed or web presses by various printers in Spokane, Seattle and Davenport, WA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairhaven and Southern Railroad</span>

The Fairhaven and Southern Railroad and its successor the Seattle and Montana Railroad were railroads in northwest part of the U.S. state of Washington, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They ran roughly south from Blaine, Washington on the U.S.-Canada border. The Fairhaven and Southern operated 1888-1898 and ran to Sedro. It operated from December 1891 as part of the Seattle and Montana Railway, and was merged with that into its successor, the Seattle and Montana Railroad, both of which extended service south to Seattle. The Seattle and Montana operated until 1907 when it merged into the Great Northern Railway Company.

References

  1. "Free University Adding Indian History Course". Bellingham Herald. March 9, 1969. p. 10. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  2. Connel, Joan (November 23, 1978). "Group Buys Land for the Future". Bellingham Herald. p. 4. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  3. "Two Community Groups File Articles of Incorporation". Bellingham Herald. April 3, 1970. p. 12. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  4. Kahn, Dean (November 30, 1986). "Alternative Paper Folds after 17 Years of Writing". The Bellingham Herald. p. 19. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  5. AP. "Crusading newspaper close to going under". The Spokesman-Review Jul. 10, 1984; p. A7
  6. About this newspaper: Northwest Passage, Chronicling America, Library of Congress, retrieved April 16, 2010.
  7. Shore, Elliott; Case, Patricia J.; Daly, Laura, eds. (1982). Alternative Papers: Selections from the Alternative Press, 1979-1980. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. ISBN   0-87722-243-6.
  8. Mendocino Community High School website. Accessed Nov. 6, 2019.
  9. Shevin, Natalia (n.d.). ""We Are Not Superwomen": Navigating Feminism, Identity Politics and a Vision of a Feminist Press". Digitizing American Feminisms.