Mary Tourtel was created in 1920, at a time when the "Express" was in competition with "The Daily Mail" and its then popular comic strip "Teddy Tail", as well as the strip "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred" in "The Daily Mirror". The then news editor of the "Express", Herbert Tourtel, was approached with the task of producing a new comic strip to rival those of the "Mail" and "Mirror" and immediately thought of his wife Mary, already an established author and artist. Rupert Bear was the result and was first published as a nameless character in a strip titled "Little Lost Bear" on
Prince Rupert Daily News larger deal that saw Glacier Media sell several of its British Columbia papers, mostly weeklies, to Black. Former Black executive Don Kendall bought Glacier dailies in Cranbrook and Kimberley as part of the same deal, remarking that Black "wasn't as interested in some titles – Cranbrook, Kimberley, Nelson, and Prince Rupert – but Glacier was only selling the papers as a block." Black did purchase the "Nelson Daily News" and "Prince Rupert Daily News" in 2010, and ended up closing them days later. It already owned competing weeklies in both markets, the "Nelson Star" and "The Northern View". Rick O'Connor,