Can you believe your favourite student newspaper turns 50 this issue? To celebrate, we scoured the expansive archives and compiled some of the highs and lows of the last 50 years. We also took a stab at guessing some of the happenstances from the next 50, in an attempt to play God/predict the future.
September, 1965: Simon Fraser University first opens its doors. Booooring. Let’s jump over to the good part where we talk about The Peak.
October, 1965: In an attempt to impress his female classmate, a senior at SFU begins a lie that he’s an editor for the school newspaper. Eventually it escalates to him having two options: come clean to his classmate and reveal that the school didn’t have a newspaper, or start one from scratch. Thus, The Peak was born.
February, 1978: The Peak staff travel back in time to ensure the initial group of editors meet/secure the newspaper’s existence in the future.
October, 1989: While taking a shower, The Peak discovers its first grey hair.
May, 1994: In an attempt to raise funds and financial autonomy for itself, The Peak editors host a carwash fundraiser to dismal results.
September, 1995: The Peak is officially accepted as a society on campus on the condition they never host a carwash or wear speedos on campus again.
November, 2008: Radio station CKBW-FM switches to call sign CKPK-FM and rebrands itself as The Peak, ensuring that no mention of The Peak newspaper would ever go without confusion over if someone is referring to the radio station or the publication. (Thanks, Peak.)
September, 2010: New kid/resident bad boy Andrew Petter rides a motorcycle onto Burnaby campus and straight into The Peak’s heart, igniting the greatest will-they-won’t-they love story of all time.
June, 2013: In an attempt to revisit SFU’s activist roots, The Peak changes its page name on Facebook to “The No Enbridge Peak.”
October, 2015: The Peak celebrates 50 years as one of the largest and boldest student newspapers in Canada. They commemorate the occasion with lots of cake that the Editor-in-Chief buys his staff after he finishes editing this article.
January, 2018: The Peak launches its first ever app, which allows the newspaper to be downloaded directly into your cerebral cortex, as well as access to exclusive binary code content.
August, 2035: The Peak editors travel back in time to 1978 to prevent the then-time travelling Peak editors from preventing The Peak from not being born. (Just trust us on this one.)
September, 2041: Humour becomes the first section to be run and edited by a robot. New Humour Editor Ziplex 3000 uses a special algorithm to perfect human humour, and also makes a mean listicle.
