BC Outdoors Goes Back to its Roots

70 Years of BC Outdoors

Seventy years ago in January, the Cariboo Digest was launched. At 25 cents an issue, and with features on The Bella Coola Highway, Grubstakes and A Review of Cariboo Mining, the 32-page magazine was a small endeavour, printed quarterly in Quesnel, and edited by A. Sahonovitch. The Cariboo Digest had a wide focus, touching on politics, agriculture, personal stories and local news. By the end of the year, it had expanded to the Cariboo and Northern BC Digest, filled 74 pages, and by the end of 1946 it was over 100 pages.

In August of 1967, under editor Art Downs, the magazine changed its name to BC Outdoors, and the name we know today was beginning to take shape. While there were still stories about local personalities and community history, it was beginning to lean heavily towards articles about hunting and fishing. It remained for the most part unchanged until the Spring of 2000, when BC Outdoors, which was owned by OP Publishing at the time, thought it best that the fishing and hunting be split with the offering of BC Outdoors Sport Fishing and BC Outdoors Hunting and Shooting as separate magazines. In its dual format, and through the 2000s, BC Outdoors saw two or three editors at the helm and in the fall of 2007, Mike Mitchell, with his wealth of fishing experience, stepped into the role and has continued to bringing the readers insightful and entertaining editorial ever since.

BC Outdoors, with its history of change, is changing once again. This time back to its roots, back to what made this magazine the most read outdoor magazine in the west. With our new ownership, and the creation of Outdoor Group Media, we have put the fishing magazine and hunting magazine back together, back where it belongs, in one big magazine.

We look forward to bringing you, the readers, 70 more years of great fishing and hunting news and outdoors stories each and every issue. With readers in BC and all over the world, we want to make sure that the amazing beauty and bounty this province has to offer is accurately represented and responsibly discussed. Whether it be tips on how to catch steelhead or a discussion about how best to butcher your harvest, from fly-tying tutorials to conservation and allocation information, BC Outdoors has it all. You’ve been a part of it for seven decades, and we hope you stick around for many more!