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Shopping for back-to-school supplies is in full swing, with kids back in school Wednesday.
In keeping with pandemic trends, parents can choose to shop local.
Susan Gallagher is the owner and self-titled chief happiness maven at Soul Paper in Saskatoon.
The local stationery shop sells a lot more than paper. Colourful planners and wrapping paper stand out among brightly coloured displays throughout the store. Modern and vintage recreations of classic office supplies — everything from handheld staplers in blush pink to themed paper clips — hang on the walls while pens of all shapes, sizes and makes beckon visitors at nearly every corner of the shop.
“There’s just something about paper; it’s like quilters and fabric,” Gallagher said, rubbing her fingers together to feel an imaginary texture. “I’m that way about paper.”
Planners, agendas and other stationery accessories displayed at Soul Paper. (Libby Giesbrecht/650 CKOM)
Susan’s husband, Alex, can often be seen on the floor in a shop apron welcoming guests and offering his expertise on graphics and pens. But make no mistake, the shop is Gallagher’s creation and passion.
She first started the shop to bring joy to those around her, “not just to the people who walk in, but if they’re gift-giving and they’re giving something to someone else. It just brings joy.”
Gallagher said she has wanted to own a paper shop since her late teens and finally saw her opportunity after she was laid off from her Calgary job after working for about 15 years as an interior designer.
“I think I can do this. Let’s give it a try,” Gallagher said. “I realized if I don’t do this, if I don’t try this dream, then I’ll always wonder ‘what if?’ ”
Back-to-school supplies
As the primary purchaser for their shop, Gallagher has her choice in what the shop stocks at any time and said her wish list is about a mile long. It’s why she takes such pride in and feels such a personal connection to every piece she stocks.
“If it’s in the shop, it’s gone through me,” she explained.
It can be hard to compete with big chains like Walmart and Staples during the back-to-school season, though.
“We’re (only) 1,000 square feet,” Gallagher explained. “But I will say the things that we have, first of all, you can have a really good conversation about it. There’s a lot of interaction, there’s a lot of interest there in the person … It’s not just a busy, crazy (scramble).”
The shop offers something for everyone who visits. Parents looking for fun back-to-class options will find unique brands of colourful erasers and vintage four-colour click pens that will make kids excited to crack open their notebooks to write their annual “What I did this summer” composition.
Soul Paper has the notebooks for that, too, in all shapes, sizes, colours, and with or without lines, depending on what suits their customer’s preferences.
Susan Gallagher, owner and purchaser for Saskatoon stationery shop Soul Paper, holds a Traveller’s Notebook, featuring her shop’s custom postal stamp on the page. (Libby Giesbrecht/650 CKOM)
University students resuming lectures and office workers looking to up their stationery game can also benefit from a stroll through the shop, which offers planners galore, as structured (or not) as they please. Bullet journals and Traveller’s Notebooks (popularized for travel in Japan) are available for the creative schedulers.
Shop local
Similar local paper shops, including Tiny Feast in Winnipeg, did not survive the COVID-19 pandemic, but Soul Paper attributes its survival to its “incredible community.”
The push to shop local, coupled with customers who would purchase giftcards that they told Gallagher they would likely never use, went a long way to keeping Soul Paper in business over the past year and a half.
Gallagher also used the pandemic as a chance to spruce up their website by adding more stock to their online shop, and offering free delivery for phone and online orders on Tuesdays and Fridays.
In Gallagher’s opinion, shopping local has a lot of benefits, the biggest being the chance to support the community.
“We are local people and they are local people so I think that makes a difference,” Gallagher said. “A lot of times, I think people don’t understand that small business doesn’t just have a small business in the community — it supports the community.
“It gives to fundraisers, it gives to baseball teams, whereas big companies like Walmart don’t. They might have an initiative for something, but I don’t know if Saskatoon actually sees (the money). When our little business is being supported, then we can support our community.”
Keeping local shops like Soul Paper alive also shapes the city’s infrastructure to keep “the character of our city.”
“If everybody shops at Walmart, that is the landscape we’ll have,” Gallagher said. “We won’t have quaint shops. We won’t have a Broadway.”
