When The Narwhal launched two years ago today, co-founder Emma Gilchrist wrote this in her welcome note: “Canadians are hungrier than ever for journalism that looks beneath the surface and holds power to account.”
It was a call to action at a time when environment reporting was being slashed nationwide — even as biodiversity loss and the climate crisis emerged as top concerns for Canadians.
Readers wanted more coverage of the natural world, and they were getting less and less of it from Canadian news organizations that were cutting journalism budgets. But what if there was a solution?
“We started to dream up a publication that would not only fill that gap, but would actually reimagine the way that environmental journalism was done,” The Narwhal’s co-founder Carol Linnitt says.
Reimagine is exactly what Carol and Emma did. In two years, The Narwhal has become a go-to source for captivating, in-depth coverage of energy and the environment.
Yes, we cover the oilsands, but we also speak with the workers who made the switch to solar energy. We report on the damage to our forests, as well as the Indigenous stewards protecting lands for future generations.
That approach has struck a chord. Our audience has quadrupled in size since 2018. We’ve gone from two employees to 10. We’ve published hundreds of stories, been nominated for nearly 30 awards and helped spur change in the communities we cover.
This growth has all been thanks to our readers. We now count more than 1,400 monthly members — including 454 new members who’ve signed up in the past two months! — with donors spanning every province and territory, 27 U.S. states and nine countries. (If you haven’t become a member yet, you can sign up for any amount to help make our journalism possible.)
Put simply: we have proven there is a voracious appetite for ad-free, non-profit journalism about the natural world.
Thanks for joining us on this journey. Here’s to our first two years, and many more to come.
We hope you are staying healthy and safe.
Arik Ligeti
Audience Engagement Editor
By Zoë Yunker
By Larry Pynn
By Natalia Balcerzak
By Sharon J. Riley
By Julien Gignac
Note from a Narwhal
“I am so heartened by the astute, lively, investigative journalism of The Narwhal — and also that it seems most of your journalists are younger women (YAY!). It is so useful to have dependable, trustworthy information as a foundation for applying political pressure.” That’s courtesy of Sally, a brand new monthly member! We’re stoked to have you as part of our Narwhal family, Sally.