Timmins Public Library

The Porcupine Advance was the first newspaper that served the Porcupine Camp, Town of Timmins, and surrounding areas. It was founded in 1912 by George Lake. The paper was published originally on a weekly basis every Thursday, and later twice a week, until it ceased publication in July of 1950. There were an estimated 2000 issues of the newspaper published in its 38 years of operation. Bound editions of the newspaper have been archived at the Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre (325 Second Avenue, Timmins), while a microfilmed reproduction is available for use by the public and staff members at the Timmins Public Library. (Note: There are no issues from 1913, 1914, and June of 1915 in existence, as the original plates from those years had been destroyed.) The Porcupine Advance Printers continues to operate today, and is still in the Lake family.

In the early 2000s, a group of volunteers spent over 10 years creating a comprehensive, hand-written index to The Porcupine Advance, on approximately 53,000 - 3" x 5" - cards. These cards are housed in the Reference Department of the Timmins Public Library. Currently, the information contained on each index card is being entered into the Our Ontario database, and is a work in progress. At this point, The Porcupine Advance is available as searchable PDF pages. Many indexed articles will link with a corresponding page; however, there are still parts of the index being connected online. If you need assistance in you search, you can email the Timmins Public Library Reference Department at refdesk@timmins.ca. If you want to reach us by phone or mail, our contact information is available at here. Please do not use the Comments section to ask for articles.

Note: At this time, we do not have an index for The Daily Press (est'd. 1933), although there is a full collection of the newspaper on microfilm at the Timmins Public Library. Queries pertaining to that publication will require knowing the approximate month and year for the information sought.

The history of the Timmins Public Library itself can be viewed here.

Page Last Updated: January 08, 2019.