The Northerner. Editor: Gray Scrimgeour, # Douglas Street, Victoria, B.C. V8V 2P1

Transcription

1 The Northerner Number 92 Winter-Spring 2014 Newsletter of the Northern Canada Study Group NWT Yukon Labrador Early Manitoba, Northern Ontario, & BC A Study Group of the Postal History Society of Canada Editor: Gray Scrimgeour, # Douglas Street, Victoria, B.C. V8V 2P1 gray@scrimgeour.ca May and warmer weather has arrived. I now have enough material to complete another issue, with a little bit to spare for No. 93. There are quite a few picture post cards this issue, but there also is some good postal history material. Please remember to send scans (300 dpi in colour) and writeups to me at: gray@scrimgeour.ca. Here s a Gowen, Sutton Co. Ltd.card (unused) showing the Regina Hotel in Whitehorse. This is one of the less common Gowen, Sutton cards. Thanks to John Cheramy for this submission.

2 2798 Item Two Gowen, Sutton Yukon Real Photo Cards. John Cheramy has supplied these two views both Gowen, Sutton cards. The upper card (unused, not listed in Elder) shows Beaver Creek Lodge, Mile 1202, Alaska HiWay. Beaver Creek in just across the Alaska/Yukon border. The lower card (mailed at Watson Lake on October 10, 1957) is a view entitled White Pass & Yukon Railroad. I couldn t find it in Elder, either.

3 2799 Item Registered Envelope Fort Providence, N.W.T Here is a scarce use at Fort Providence of the Canadian Registered Envelope. It was mailed June 4, 1934 with the Original No. 85 shown at the upper left corner. It transited Fort McMurray the next day and was in Edmonton on June 9. The flap of the envelope bears the 10 impressions to pay for registration; postage was paid with a 3 Medallion stamp.

4 2800 Item Exercise Eskimo. This cover a Knights of Columbus/War Services envelope was mailed at Field Post Office (F.P.O.) 1212 at PM / FE 15, 1945 by someone participating in Operation Eskimo. Operation Eskimo was part of the Winter Warfare Programme, a series of large-scale midwinter exercises designed to test the Canadian army and its equipment under bitter winter conditions. Operation Eskimo was held in January and February 1945 under Dry-Cold conditions (intense cold and low humidity, with stable snow). About 1,750 personnel and 569 vehicles participated. The main exercise was to advance 183 miles north from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and then withdraw by the same route. The route included some territory in Prince Albert National Park. The terrain was undulating plain, with lakes and muskeg. Although troops had begun assembling in Prince Albert as early as early November 1944, Eskimo started on January 16, 1945 Eskimo ended with a march-past in Prince Albert on February 20, 1945.

5 2801 The photo at the bottom of the previous page shows one of the participating vehicles in the military parade held in Prince Albert on February 20. There were books written on the exercise. An article can be found online using Google: Hugh A. Halliday, Recapturing the North. Exercises Eskimo, Polar Bear and Lemming, 1945, Canadian Military History, Volume 6, Number 2, Autumn 1997, pp Item L J. De Nobele Import Winnipeg I am starting a new post card project. Don Kaye has lent me his collection of picture post cards produced by Louis De Nobele of Winnipeg. De Nobele s cards are nicely printed collotypes. They appear to be numbered between 1 and 60. A few numbers are used more than once. The lowest numbers (1 to 34) are Winnipeg views; 44 and 45 also have Winnipeg views. Cards also show scenes in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Captions usually are printed in a white strip at the bottom of a card (a few cards have the white strip with the caption at the right side). Used cards are mostly dated 1905 to Louis Joseph De Nobele was born in Belgium about In 1904, he came to Winnipeg, where he was in the firm De Nobele Florists. He died in Do any of you have any De Nobele cards? Louis J. De Nobele Item $3 Yukon Law Stamp on Document. Alex Price sent this item. Do any of you have family material as interesting as this? Alex writes: On my Father s side, the Prices kept just about everything, chief of which is the grandfather clock in my front hall which, after much research with clock nuts in England, was built in 1779 but keeps pounding away and chiming out the hours except when I forget to wind it. On my Mother s side, the Macdonalds, kept virtually nothing, and when I think of their years in Dawson, where my Grandfather Charles Macdonald was clerk of the Territorial Court of the Yukon territory, and what they could have kept, I choke. For example, in one of their years, my Grandmother with my Mother had to go out, in this case to Toronto. They took the steamer Sara (Sarah?) down the Yukon to the mouth, then steamer to San Francisco. Strangely, they coaled up on Vancouver Island, then on to SF avoiding Vancouver. Apparently they got a better railway rate from SF to Toronto than from Vancouver to Toronto. Not a word of this trip in the Macdonald leavings. My Father dragged it out of my Mother with difficulty. I know that I have passed odds and ends along to you over the years, can t remember any of them. However I have attached a legal document signed by my Grandfather which I don t think I sent. This document [shown on the next page] has the $3 stamp, which Ian Mowat once told me is rare as such. I will hold him to it.

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7 2803 Item Coppermine Registered Cover from the St. Roch. Kevin O Reilly sent in this report of a large registered cover sent from Coppermine, NWT on September 3, 1936 (10 for registration, 3 for first ounce, 2 for each additional ounce for a two extra ounces = 17 ). It was sent by Constable Johnny R. Cheetham, who served on board the RCMP vessel St. Roch in The large envelope may have contained cash or papers and was mailed at one of the few post office points on the ship s travels. At this point, the St. Roch was on her third trip to the North ( ); she would overwinter at Cambridge Bay. This adds one more to the list of St. Roch covers. I think that now makes eight known. See Ian Mowat s article The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Schooner St. Roch in a recent issue of the PHSC Journal [Issue 153, Spring 2013, p. 45f.]

8 2804 Item Cameron Bay, NWT Registered Cover. Kevin O Reilly writes, Cameron Bay was located on Great Bear Lake and registered covers are difficult to find. This one shows the latest recorded use of the first registration box proofed in April The cover is rated at the second weight step (3 first ounce, 2 for each additional ounce, plus 10 for registration).

9 2805 Item Eastern Arctic Patrol Registered Cover. This overpaid philatelic cover owned by Kevin shows the earliest recorded Eastern Arctic Patrol R1 registration marking, used on board the Nascopie the day after the ship departed Montreal at the beginning of the 1936 trip. The cover was despatched to the recipient when the ship reached Churchill on August 12, 1936 and sent by train to Winnipeg and onward by air. Item Godhavn, Greenland and Bache Peninsula, NWT Cover and Letter. Here is an interesting cover and enclosure from Kevin, mailed during the 1931 Eastern Arctic Patrol. The cover was prepared and sent by Major L.T. Burwash, Officer in Charge of the 1931 Eastern Arctic Patrol in response to a request for a souvenir from a collector. Burwash wrote the letter just before the Beothic arrived at Gohavn, Greenland, had some Greenland Pakke-Porto (parcel stamps) affixed and cancelled, and then forwarded the item to the next stop of the ship at the RCMP

10 2806 detachment at Bache Peninsula, NWT, which was reached on August 11, The cover then had some Canadian postage added and was cancelled there. Note that the indicia from the previous year were probably not changed (mail from Bache Peninsular was postmarked on August 14, 1930) in error or in haste, but the cover was forwarded on from North Sydney when the Beothic returned from the North. Note that there was no postal rate for letters from Greenland to Canada so the 3 kr and 10 ore stamps were affixed as souvenirs only.

11 2807 Item Herschel Island, Yukon Registered Cover. Commercial covers from Herschel Island are difficult to find. Kevin O Reilly reported this registered cover (3 first class, 10 for registration) from Herschel Island that is commercial mail to the Bank of Montreal in Vancouver. It bears the Herschel Island R1 registration box that reads N.W.T. in error. The cover may have been sent by a member of the RCMP stationed at the Herschel Island detachment. Given the short transit time to Fort McMurray of only eight days, it may have been carried by air to Aklavik and onward. The second registration box was proofed in December 1929 and has the correct Yukon designation. This marking has never been recorded used. If any readers have one, they are encouraged to report it in this newsletter. The cover has backstamps applied at Fort McMurray (September 29) and Vancouver (October 9). Item Incoming Registered Cover from Tunisia to Dawson, Yukon Kevin also sent in this interesting registered incoming cover from Metlaoui, Tunisia to Dawson bearing 1 franc and 90 centimes in postage (on the next page). If any of the readers know the correct registration rate for period mail from Tunisia to Canada, please advise. When the item was received in Dawson, it was backstamped with Z3 (proofed on Feb. 10, 1921). This is the first reported of this date stamp, which appears to have been prepared for use on registered mail. Do any of the readers have other examples of the Dawson Z3 date stamp?

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13 2809 Item Hootlinqua, Yukon Post Card via Lake Bennett to Switzerland. Kevin O Reilly writes that this post card was sent from someone associated with the Northwest Mounted Police detachment at Hootlinqua, Yukon, about 100 km north of present day Whitehorse, at the junction of the Teslin and Yukon Rivers. The NWMP set up detachments along the Yukon River at strategic locations to monitor river traffic. The Hootlinqua detachment operated from 1898 to 1905 and was then reopened in 1909 for the gold rush to nearby Livingstone Creek. The post card was carried by dog team from Hootlinqua to Lake Bennett, B.C., site of the nearest post office. The post card was short paid by 1 for the UPU post card rate to Switzerland. The T-in-circle and the 5 are probably Canadian marks. The 1d due mark is British, as is the partial hexagonal strike. The manuscript 10 (centimes) was applied in Switzerland, and was paid using a Swiss postage due stamp cancelled at Lausanne on January 16, Thanks to Bob Heasman for the interpretation of the due marks.

14 2810 Item Registered Incoming Cover to Dawson, Yukon with T Here is a philatelic registered incoming cover to Dawson, Yukon from Lourdes du Blanc Sablon, Quebec on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence, the last office [going east] in Canada at that time. It was carried by dog team to Quebec City. The cover was sent by S. Tanner Green, a well known collector in Quebec who worked for the Post Office Department. For our purposes, perhaps the most interesting aspect is the receiver strike of the Dawson registration marking T4 on the back. It was proofed on March 31, 1926 and this is the first reported use. The cover was likely returned under cover to Green.

15 2811 Item Eastern Arctic Patrol Cover Carried from Cartwright, Labrador to Montreal by Balbo Flight. This cover [Submitted by Kevin] was mailed on board the Eastern Arctic Patrol vessel Nascopie while it was at Cartwright, Labrador on July 12, By coincidence, the Italian aviator Italo Balbo had a mass flight from Rome to Chicago in the summer of 1933 and had landed his armada of 25 amphibious airplanes at Cartwright. The aviators left Cartwright the next day to fly to Shediac, New Brunswick and on to Montreal the following day (July 14, 1933). A small packet of 96 letters was despatched from the Nascopie to Montreal care of the aviators at no cost to the government [Library and Archives Canada. Record Group 3, Post Office Department, Volume 2664, File 2664/1. Letter from T.V. Sandys Wunsch, Inspector, In Charge of the Eastern Arctic Subdivision, RCMP to Officer Commanding, G Division, RCMP. October 16, 1933.]. Note the typewritten and handwritten certification on the back as the item was received at the Hudson s Bay Company St. Lawrence District Office in Montreal on July 15, 1933.

16 2812 Item Incoming Cover to Discovery, BC and Forwarded to Caribou Crossing and Whitehorse, Kevin O Reilly writes that his well traveled cover is date stamped and forwarded as follows: Meaford, Ontario September 23, 1901 Atlin, BC October 9 and 12, 1901 Discovery, BC October 13 and 15 forwarded to Caribou YT (a non-post office point) Forwarded at Caribou to Whitehorse Whitehorse, Yukon October 22 and November 1, 1901 (returned to sender) Vancouver, BC November 13, 1901 Meaford, Ontario November 18, Discovery was a small mining town about 12 km east of Atlin in northern BC. Atlin was reached via a steamer service from present day Carcross through Tagish Lake and then across a short narrow gage railway from Taku to Scotia Bay (built in 1898 and acquired by the White Pass and the Yukon Route in July 1900) on Atlin Lake. This cover shows the close relationship between these northern BC locations and the Yukon.

17 2813 Item Atlin Post Card, John Cheramy supplied this post card, a real photo entitled The First Gold Prospectors in Atlin, B.C. It was mailed at Carcross on August 21, There is no indication of the name of the publisher or photographer. Item Indian Dogs. Here s another card from John. It s an unused card, AZO squares. No publisher. Entitled Indian Dogs Packed. Yukon, Canada. It s the first of a group of cards not listed by Elder.

18 2814 Item Three Yukon Ship Cards. These three cards from John were made from photographs taken in July 1947 by Fred Young, Chief Engineer of the S.S. Casca. According to writing on the back, they were printed by Flos Studio.

19 2815 Item Northern Indian Shop, Whitehorse. These three unused real photocards (VELOX squares) all show interior views of the Northern Indian Shop.

20 Item Two Gowen, Sutton Yukon Cards Tutshi and Yukon. There two cards supplied by John are listed in Ken Elder s catalogue, on page 204. They are: 10. West Taku Arm Steamer Tutshi White Pass & Yukon Route. and 11. Steamer Yukon on Yukon River above Arctic Circle. Both are unused, hand-coloured cards. 2816

21 2817 Item Two More Northern Real Photo Cards. Here are two more cards from John. The card on the left (AZO triangle, unused) is of Jack, Mascot of the Yucon Contingent. It is a photo by V. Brown, about whom I can find no information. The card on the right is from Mile 201 of the Alaska Highway (Trutch, B.C.). It was mailed to Los Angeles air mail at Fort St. John, B.C. on March 20, We are here now Wed. 19 th. The mile post means 201 miles from Dawson Creek. The Hi Way is wonderful. The scenery is breath taking. That s fairly early for what sounds like sightseeing on the highway. However, more probably the travellers were returning from work in Alaska not sightseeing.

22 2818 Item Two Northern Curt Teich Postcards. John Cheramy supplied these coloured printed cards both products of Curt Teich & Co., Chicago. The upper card (No. R-48329) is entitled Steel Bridge, Scene on White Pass & Yukon Route. It is unused. The lower card (No. R also unused is entitled White Pass & Yukon Route. Steamer Dawson near Dawson. Both are listed on p. 261 of Elder.

23 2819 Item Three Collotypes from Zaccarelli s Store, Dawson. John Cheramy supplied these three cards, No. 332, No. 316, and No. 118 published by Zaccarelli. All three were mailed September 4, 1907 in Dawson; all three came from different printers.

24 2820 Item Cribb s Drug & Stationery Store and Cribb s Drug Store Cards. The post card enterprises of W.M. Cribbs consume pp in Ken Elder s catalogue. Here are a half dozen Cribbs cards. The first two are crude collotypes printed by Photogelatine Engraving Co. Ltd. of Ottawa (see p. 66 of Elder): A Clean Up Dawson, Y.T. and Gold Room in center Bear Creek, Dawson, Y.T. Both cards say Pub. by Cribb s Drug & Stationery Store, Dawson, Y.T. Neither is used.

25 2821 Here is another card published by Cribb s Drug and Stationery Store. It s titled Looking South from Dome Road, Showing Yukon River and Mouth of Klondyke River Dawson, Y.T. It is numbered 113,358 and litho printed by the Valentine-Black Co. of Toronto. The last three Cribbs cards are collotypes labeled Published for Cribbs Drug Store and printed in Germany (see pp.68, Elder). The first shows Front Street, Dawson, Y.T.

26 2822 Here are two more unused Cribbs Drug Store cards: Ground Sluicing, Dawson, Y.T. (not listed in Elder) and Thawing Ground with Water, Dawson, Y.T. Both unused.

27 2823 Item Fort Garry to Benson, Minnesota, I recently purchased this unusual cover online. It is a 6 Small Queen cover postmarked at FORT GARRY/MANITOBA on June 22, I has a PEMBINA, DAK. transit mark (same day) on the front, and is addressed to Major F.M. Thornton, St. Paul & PP R.R. Thornton was the register of deeds and Benson s first railway station agent. He built the town s first grain elevator. He owned a hardware store and a lumber yard. He was a warden of Christ Church in Benson. He was was identified with the building of the old St. Paul & Pacific Railroad [the SP & P; gs] and later became one of the prominent and influential residents of Benson, Minnesota. According to Montana, Its Story and Biography (ed. by Tom Stout; online): Frank M. Thornton was born in Belfast, Ireland, in He was five years of age when his mother brought him to New York City and later she took up a homestead on Lake Harriet, in what is now the City of Minneapolis. Frank M. Thornton therefore grew up on the Minnesota frontier, and lived on his mother's homestead until the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861 he became captain of a regiment of infantry of Ohio troops, and was all through the war, a gallant and hard fighting soldier. He came out with the rank of major. About 1869 he cast in his lot with the new community of Benson, Minnesota. For half a century that town has had the greater part of its civic and business enterprise centered in the Thornton family. Frank M. Thornton was interested in the hardware, elevator, and grain business, established the old Bank of Benson, serving as its cashier and later as its president, holding that office at the time of his death in He lent his influence and means in every way to the substantial upbuilding of Benson, showing himself a man of progress when the community needed a forward push and also conservative as a safeguard to undue speculation and over-hasty development.

28 2824 Item Card Sent by Agnes Deans Cameron This post card was written at Edmonton by Agnes Deans Cameron, on October 18, Cameron ( ) and her niece Jessie Cameron Brown had journeyed to the mouth of the Mackenzie River. They were the first white women to each the Arctic Ocean overland. They had just returned to Edmonton. On October 17, Cameron wrote, Well, girlie, we re back this far, from our trip to the rim of the Arctic. Write me at Winnipeg, care of Dr. Popham. There is a long entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol. 14) about Cameron. She was a teacher, starting work in Comox, B.C. in She returned to Victoria the next year, and in 1894 became Principal of South Park School (3 blocks north of our home). She was often controversial, and in 1906 was stripped of her teaching certificate and suspended. Her book about the trip north, The new north, was published in I read this book over three decades ago, and am thrilled to have this card.

29 2825 Item Early Saskatoon Mail, Hal Kellett recently bought this cover written by Rev. John N. Lake ( the Father of Sasaktoon ) to his wife in Toronto. It is postmarked with the RPO C.P.R.West of Winnipeg/B EAST/ MY 26/84 (supposedly the earliest reported date for R430.12). It has a Toronto receiver on the back, MY 30/84. Hal thinks the letter was written in Saskatoon, went to Moose Jaw, and then went east on the train. There is no Saskatoon cancel, only the fancy cork. John Lake was elected Commissioner of the Temperance Colony Society in Toronto to create an alcohol-free colony in Saskatchewan. The Society was deeded 213,000 acres of a tract of land along the North Saskatchewan River by the Federal Government. The land's north boundary was at Clark's Ferry. Lake left Toronto on June 22, 1882 with two partners W.S. Hill and George W. Grant and a surveyor, Frank Blake. They came by train as far west as the rails would take them (Moosomin, Assa.) arriving there on July 4, They spent three weeks getting to Clark's Ferry, the site of present day Clarksboro, Sask. They travelled south to Moose Woods, where they met a tribe of Indians whose leader was Chief Whitecap. In the summer of 1882, Lake, with the help of Chief Whitecap, identified the present-day location of the Saskatoon townsite. Lake and his companions left the Saskatoon location in late summer 1882 and returned to Toronto. Lake left Toronto again in 1883 and travelled to Medicine Hat, where he arranged for building materials to be sent down river to Saskatoon. He then left Medicine Hat and arrived in Saskatoon on July 20, On August 18, 1883, he officially founded Saskatoon. On September , Lake left Saskatoon for Moose Jaw and home in Toronto. In 1884 [day and month unknown presently] he left Toronto again for Saskatoon and spent about a month in the colony arranging matters. He left Saskatoon about June 1, 1884 for Toronto. So it seems Lake was in Saskatoon when he sent this cover back to his wife in Toronto. The writing on the front says, All Letters received May This probably was added by Lake after the letter was written and enclosed in the envelope (to let his wife know that her letters were received by him). At this time, when there was no Saskatoon post office, the mails went to Moose over the Moose Jaw Trail by pony and cart.

30 2826 Item Stewart, B.C.: a Post Card and a Cover. John Cheramy provided this image of a real-photo post card entitled View of Stewart Whart & Vadso & Princes May. May It was postmarked in Stewart on June 14, 1910 with the town s broken circle. Here s a cover from Hyder, Alaska (right across the B.C.-Alaska border from Stewart) both towns at the head of the Portland Canal. It was posted (registered) at Stewart on October 7, 1927, and reached Vancouver on October 12. That s it for this issue. Best regards, Gray.