Peterborough Currents releases its first-ever print magazine

For over five years, Peterborough Currents has delivered in-depth and community-centred journalism on the internet. Now we’re putting ink to paper. This spring, we’re celebrating our fifth birthday by releasing our first-ever print magazine.

The Peterborough Currents Magazine is now available for free (or pay-what-you-can) at various local businesses, including Take Cover Books (59 Hunter St E), The Food Shop (374 Water St), and Dreams of Beans Café (141 Charlotte St).

The magazine features the same insightful reporting and empathetic storytelling that Currents publishes on its website. But the new print format encourages a slower and more reflective reading experience free from the distracting clutter of the internet.

The magazine’s cover story dives deep into a pressing issue that is too often overlooked in Peterborough and Ontario: the housing challenges faced by people with developmental disabilities. “Ontario’s supportive housing waitlist is longer than ever, putting highly vulnerable people in increasingly desperate situations,” Currents reporter Brett Throop writes in the feature article. But Throop’s story doesn’t just focus on problems. He also examines solutions. He visits a home in Peterborough’s west end where four women with developmental disabilities have lived stably and safely for over a decade. And he follows a group of local families as they found their own non-profit and fundraise to build a duplex for their daughters with disabilities.

The magazine’s second feature article is by Currents’ arts and community reporter, Alex Karn. In “Mikey and Corm’s Sober Song,” Karn traces the careers of two beloved local musicians: Michael Cloud Duguay and Cormac Culkeen. The two friends came up together in the “small, freaky incubator” that was Peterborough’s late-2000s music scene, but their careers and friendship were derailed by struggles with alcohol use. Karn’s article tells the story of how quitting drinking brought the two musicians back to Peterborough — and back to their friendship.

A variety of shorter articles, arts reviews, and community photos round out the 36-page magazine.

Peterborough Currents remains a digital-first news outlet. But we hope our magazine offers you a new and more thoughtful way to engage with your community. Please send us your feedback! Funding permitting, we’d love to produce more issues of the magazine, but it’s a big investment so we would first need to hear from our community that it’s something you value.

As you may be aware, Peterborough Currents is releasing this magazine at a bittersweet time in our news outlet’s history. A key piece of our funding has dried up, and we’re uncertain how much journalism we’ll be able to produce for you going forward. But we’re committed to finding a way.

For magazine readers who wish to make a donation to support our independent local journalism, we suggest a price of $10 to help cover the printing costs. (Click here to donate.) But that’s just a suggestion. For those unable to make a donation, please enjoy the magazine anyway! Our 400+ recurring donors enable us to provide our journalism free of charge to everyone and anyone who is curious about their community.

Thank you to our advertisers!

Our magazine was made possible in-part by the 14 local organizations that purchased advertisements. We appreciate their support for independent local journalism. Thanks to:

Thanks to the Canadian Periodical Fund, as well!

This first issue of the Peterborough Currents Magazine was also funded in-part through the Business Innovation Stream of the Canadian Periodical Fund. We appreciate the support from the Government of Canada.

But most of all, thanks to our donors!

We had help from the federal government and our advertisers to cover printing costs and graphic design costs. But the most expensive part of making this magazine was producing the journalism itself. That’s where our audience comes in. Over 400 community members make recurring donations to Peterborough Currents, and that reliable revenue is what enables our journalism. In this era of misinformation, isolation, and lack of trust, local journalism is more important than ever. So thank you to our donors, who are increasing access to local news for thousands of Peterborough citizens.

Not a supporter yet? Here’s where you can sign up.