One of the most interesting aspects of early Prince George history is the ongoing feud between the city\u2019s first two newspapers. On the surface this feud seems to exist only because of the confrontational and opinionated people who edited these newspapers. On deeper inspection it becomes clear that both of Prince George\u2019s founding newspapers argued as surrogates for the local interest groups they represented. They both articulated positions that would benefit their particular interest group, and their reporting and writing was designed to support this end. Despite this, historians of Prince George have done little to explain this ongoing battle, particularly how it was fought through local newspapers. This thesis aims to show that in its early days Prince George was not a unified community, but was instead a competing group of small communities, fighting bitterly among themselves for dominance. Furthermore, this fight was conducted through the local newspapers primarily over the issues of the location of the station and the incorporation and the promotion of Prince George.
This thesis is a study of the public perception of the Arctic through explorers' journals and the modern press in America and Britain. The underlying question of this thesis is what exactly was the role of the press in forming public opinions about Arctic exploration in general? Did newspaper editors in America and Britain simply report what they found interesting based upon their own knowledge of Arctic explorers' journals, or did these editors create that public interest in order to profit from increased sales? From a historical perspective, these reasons relate to the growth of an intellectual and social current that had been gaining strength in the Western world throughout the nineteenth century: the creation of the mythic hero. In essence, the mythical status of Arctic explorers developed in Britain, but was matured and honed in the American press, particularly in the competitive news industry in New York. Here, the creation of the heroic Arctic explorer resulted largely from the vicious competitiveness of the contemporary press.
