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

Transcription

1 The Northerner Number 93 Summer 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 Greetings members, and other postal historians. Summer is winding down, so it s time to prepare a Northerner. I did not receive many submissions over the summer, so many of the items in this issue are my own material many of them are recent purchases. Please send me 300 dpi colour scans of your new covers for the next issue. Souvenir of the Alaska Highway. For the cover page, here s a litho card I have not seen before. John Cheramy has supplied this view. The map of the highway goes north from Edmonton to Fairbanks. There is no publisher s name on the card.

2 2828 Item Lake Harbour 1934 This cover has been shown in black and white (Item 1250, p. 1733) but it is worth repeating in colour. It s owned by John Pollard. It was posted at Lake Harbour on August 22, 1934 and carried south in the Nascopie. No backstamps. Item Alexandra Fiord 1961 Here s a philatelic cover from a post office seldom seen: Alexandria Fiord, on the east coast of Ellesmere Island. The circle datestamp reads AM / March 30 / [I certainly don t think there d have been a PM dispatch there on March 30.]

3 2829 Item Klondike Advertising from Seattle Here s a Klondike advertising cover I had not seen previously. It was mailed to Ferndale, Washington by the Law Office of Allen & Allen, Seattle on November 30, The Ferndale postmark is November 1 an error for December 1. Note that Seattle supplies the best. It is the Outfitting port for gold fields.

4 2830 Item Old Crow 1957 and Here are two covers from Old Crow, Yukon. The upper cover has a return address of: Cat. [Capt.?] R.R. Gordon, RCMP, Old Crow, YT. and was postmarked at Fort Yukon, Alaska on January 14, Until the Old Crow post office opened in 1959, mail was collected at the RCMP post and then flown to Fairbanks via Fort Yukon. Such mail was franked with US postage stamps. The lower cover was mailed to Box 246, Whitehorse on 5 /6/ 65 and readdressed to General Delivery. Note the General Delivery / Whitehorse, Y.T. box. Item XXXX. P/Cs from Cheramy 4 of them. In Scans for 92 file

5 2831 Item Cover to Regina, N.W.T This cover is early mail to Regina. It was mailed on May 2, 1883 at Glencoe, Illinois addressed to Rev. John Anderson, Regina, Manitoba [sic], N.W.T. The best part of this cover is its backstamp: REGINA, N.W.T. May 6, Response (or lack thereof) to Item L.J. De Nobele picture post cards. No one has written me about these picture post cards. I have watched for them since May, and have been able to buy only one card (a variety) that was not in Don Kaye s album. Please let me know if you have any of these cards.

6 2832 Item Yellowknife and Port Radium covers September 16, I purchased these two related covers from Yellowknife and Port Radium at a recent bourse here in Victoria. Apparently the addressee wanted N.W.T. postmarks, and sent these covers to himself. He probably returned to Manitoba before before his Port Radium cover was delivered in Yellowknife used Dawson Jan 13/1913 Japanese Bazaar. Pub. Dawson, Y.T. Canada Litho

7 2833 Item Yellowknife Sub. No and This AR (Acknowledgment of Receipt for registered mail) card was used on April 3, 1956 at Yellowknife s Sub Post Office No. 1 to accompany a registered letter to Archie Manderville, Yellowknife. It was accepted by Manderville on April 14 and stamped with Yellowknife s MOTO on April 14. It would then have been returned to the sender.

8 2834 This picture post card showing the C shaft headframe of the Giant Yellowknife Mines Ltd. was mailed to Hong Kong at Yellowknife Sub No. 1 on August 2, The writer was continuing on to a camp when the weather improved.

9 2835 Item Three Yukon Real-Photo Picture Post Cards. I had not seen any of these cards before I bought them at our recent bourse. I couldn t find any of them in Ken Elder s catalogue, probably because they were published too recently. The first is a card showing Water Front, Mayo, Y.T. It was copyrighted by G.A. McIntyre. The second card is Dedman D-175: Whitehorse from the Airport. It s on Kodak Paper.

10 2836 My third card shows the Palace Grand Theatre, Historic Site, Dawson, Yukon. None of the cards were used. Item England to Manitowaning, Ontario via Winnipeg This cover was mailed to Manitowaning, Manitoulin Island at Manchester, England on July 5, It bears a Winnipeg backstamp dated July 20 and a faint receiver dated July 28. The seller suggested that the dispatch through Winnipeg was because a postal clerk mistook Manitowaning for Manitoba. However, I have another cover from Britain to Northern Ontario that also transited Winnipeg. It also went by closed bag from Britain to Winnipeg, which was the sorting

11 2837 point for all mail for western Canada. The postal clerk probably bagged this letter as directed for Algoma, Northern Ontario a scarce destination from Manchester. Item Manitowaning to Clifford, Canada West This stampless envelope (PAID 5 cents) was mailed to Rev. James Smithurst, Treasurer of Minto, Clifford P.O., Wellington County, C.W. (Canada West; i.e., Ontario) at Manitowaning. There is a pale red strike of the MANITOWANING - LAKE HURON broken circle postmark at the lower left of the envelope dated 1864 / JY 25. The date should have been JA because the letter was written Jan y 10 th and there is a February 12, 1865 Penetanguishene transit mark and a February 14, 1865 Elora receiver. The enclosed letter tells us that Rev. J.W. Sims had accepted the Indian Mission in Manitoulin Island at the special request of Dr. O Mara, who had spent many years there. Sims was busy learning Ojibway. He wishes to know what taxes are owing on a lot that he owns in Minto. The addressee Rev. John Smithurst ( ) had retired from his ministry at the Red River Colony. He arrived from England in Rupert s Land in September 1839, and was sent in 1840 to the Indian mission near Grand Rapids (St. Andrews), where he served as a missionary of the English Church Mission Society. He resigned in 1851 and returned to England, but ended his days in Elora, C.W. His correspondence was found in an Elora-area antique store by the late Ron Kitchen, and has now been dispersed. The Smithurst Red River correspondence fills a big gap the postal history of Rupert s Land. It provides examples of mail carried by the Hudson s Bay Company expresses in the period before there was governmental mail service. The letters, of course, bear no signs of postage having been paid. It was all carried by the HBC by favour. The next item is an example.

12 2838 Item Fort Frances to Smithurst, Red River This favour cover to Rev. John Smithurst, Indian Village, Red River was written at Fort Frances [on Rainy Lake] on September 20, 1845 by HBC Chief Trader Nicol Finlayson. Finlayson s letter was folded and placed inside a folded sheet of paper.

13 2839 Item Two Yukon Real Photo Cards. John Cheramy supplied this scan of an unused AZO real photo post card showing the Caribou Hotel, Carcross. John also owns this unused Gowen & Sutton card entitled Yukon Dog Team.

14 2840 Item Yellowknife Aerial View. John also supplied this aerial view of Yellowknife, NWT. The card is on CKC paper, and is unused. Item Cover to Pond Inlet Cover to Rev. J.H. Turner, Pond Inlet, Baffin Land with a Montreal return address on the back. The Nascopie oval is dated Jul 14, 1936 and the Quebec machine cancel one day later.

15 2841 Item Belcher Islands, Keewatin District, N.W.T and Belcher Islands are in the southeastern portion of Hudson Bay. The upper envelope was addressed by Josie Unarluk, with syllabics on the reverse giving the address to the Minister, On the Islands. This cover to Norwich, Ontario was carried by small airplane to Great Whale River, Quebec and the south by Wheeler Air Lines to Val D Or (11 V/1960) and Normétal (13 MY/1960). The lower Belcher Islands cover was mailed at the Hudson s Bay Co. post on Tukarak Island in Hudson Bay. It entered the regular mail stream at Great Whale River, Quebec on May 5, 1964.

16 2842 Item To Manitoba House, N.W.T Here s September 7, 1875 cover from London, England to Manitoba House, located on the west side of Lake Manitoba, approximately 25 miles north of the Manitoba border then. That places Manitoba House in the unorganized North West Territories. Postage was 4½d. The cover travelled to Boston by ship, and then to Montreal (September 20). Next it went to Fort Garry via Windsor, Ontario and St. Paul. There was a trail to Oak Point, Manitoba (on the east side of Lake Manitoba just south of the northern border of Manitoba). The cover went from Oak Point to Manitoba House by boat. The addressee, Isaac Cowie, is described by the Manitoba Archives as follows: Isaac Cowie ( ) was born 18 November 1848 in Lerwick, Scotland. Cowie entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1867 and began work as an apprentice clerk at Fort Ellice from , and then Qu'appelle, Little Forks from In 1873, Cowie became a clerk and served in that capacity in Manitoba House from , the English River District from and at Fort McMurray from From , Cowie served as junior chief trader at Fort McMurray, with the exception of when he was on furlough. Cowie served as junior chief trader for General Charges in the Norway House District, and Ile a la Crosse in the English River District from Isaac Cowie retired from the Hudson's Bay Company on 21 June He pursued private business ventures and served as secretary of the Board of Trade in Edmonton from From , Cowie was a land agent and writer in Winnipeg. He published a book entitled "The Company of Adventurers: A Narrative of Seven Years in the Service of the Hudson's Bay Company During " in Cowie married Jane Sinclair on 29 July They had eight children: Margaret Cecelia Euphemia, Jean Sinclair, Ruby Beresford, John Colin, William Cecil, Jessie McFarlane, Mary Frances, and Victor Isaac. Isaac Cowie died on 18 May 1917.

17 2843 Item Two Fort Norman Covers 1932 and Fort Norman, on the Mackenzie River, is a supply point for Great Bear Lake. The upper cover mailed at Fort Norman on October 1, 1932, probably originated at Echo Bay at Great Bear Lake. The lower cover from the H.B.Co. post at Fort Franklin (at the west end of Great Bear Lake) was posted at Fort Norman on September 22, There was no post office at Fort Franklin until 1966.

18 2844 Item Craig Harbour, N.W.T. Registered, This registered cover was sent from Craig Harbour by Dr. Douglas Leachman to Guy Potter in Ottawa. Leechman was the Dominion Anthropologist at the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa. Guy R.L. Potter ( ) was employed with the Forestry Branch of the Department of the Interior. He held various positions with the National Film Society of Canada. Leachman concluded the letter with: We have been fighting our way through heavy ice to get here per ard ad Harbour.

19 2845 Item Location of APO 3432 and the 93 rd Engineer Regiment. APO 343; and APO 933. Bob McKain has sent us this article related to the building of the Alaska Highway. Location of APO 3432 and the 93rd Engineer Regiment (Building the ALCAN Highway) APO rd Engineer General Service Regiment (Colored) (46 Officers and 1,250 Men) APO 933 (APO 933 established 1 April 1942 at Squanga Lake, YT; Milepost 850) (Transferred to Carcross, YT on 10 September 1942) (Last day as a Finance Branch: 01 February 1943) (Ceased operation on ALCAN Highway effective 1 February 1943) (APO discontinued on 30 June 1945) The first two companies of the 93 rd Engineers docked in narrow harbor at Skagway on 16 April 1942, with the remaining troops arriving nine days later. The 93 rd then arrived at Carcross by train from Skagway on 5 May. As the 93 rd hadn't received its heavy equipment, the troops literally started work with picks and shovels to cut a 70-mile access trail for use of the 340 th Engineers from Carcross eastward toward the Teslin River. The 93 rd went from Carcross to Tagish, where the headquarters of the 93 rd were moved from Tagish by 04 June, to Jakes Corner to Teslin and the river. After the clearing crews of the 93 rd broke through to the banks of the Teslin on 17 June, part of the 93 rd doubled back and improved the road they had just built. Another part of the Regiment boarded barges and traveled down Teslin Lake to Morley Bay, where they set up camp and started improving the road just completed by the white 340 th Regiment to Watson Lake. Companies A and B spent October and November building barracks and rest stops for truckers, while Company C patrolled portions of the highway looking for truckers in distress. The day after Christmas, the 93 rd started moving by rail from the Yukon to Skagway, where they boarded the Army transport ship David W. Branch for the Chilkoot Barracks at Haines, Alaska (APO 937). It is believed that APO 3432 was the transition APO used by the 93 rd Engineers between their mission as APO 933 and the later APOs they were assigned to after leaving the highway construction mission. The entire Regiment left by ship on 27 February 1943 for Cold Bay in the upper Aleutian Islands to participate in the spring campaign to push the Japanese out of the Aleutians. [Illustrations following.] References 1. Numbered Army & Air Force Post Office Locations - Volume 1 - BPOs, PRSs, & Regular APOs , Russ Carter, Copyright by the Military Postal History Society 2001 (used with permission). 2. Military Postmarks of Territorial Alaska, Richard W. Helbock, PhD, Copyright 1977 (used with permission). 3. Northwest Epic - The Building of the Alaska Highway, Heath Twitchell, ISBN , Alaska Highway Expeditionary Force A Roadbuilder's Story, Milton Duesenberg, ISBN , 1994.

20 2846 Type 1 postmark as used by the 93 rd Engineers, dated 21 June 1942 from Squanga Lake. (27 Jan 1943 with the B.1(20097)* censor is the current LKU with an APO 933 return address). Return address of APO 3432 is reported from February 1943 (using an APO 933 postmarking device). 10 Feb 43 B.1(20097)*(APO Current reported EKU with APO 3432 Return address) (APO 933 postmark type) * The B.1(20097) censor marking was used by both APO 933 and the transition APO 3432.

21 Feb 43 APO 3432 Current LKU with APO 3432 Return address. (APO 933 postmark type). 93 rd Engineer Unit locations reported after ALCAN Highway work (from reported covers): APO 980 Adak Island, Alaska Companies A, B, and C (4 Oct 43 3 Apr 44) APO 944 Fort Randall, Cold Bay, Alaska Companies B, C, and H/S (7 Feb Apr 44) 3 April 1943 from Company B, 93 rd Engineers when located at Adak, Alaska (APO 980).

22 Mar 43 from C Company, 93 rd Engineers located at Fort Randall, Cold Bay, Alaska (APO 944). Bob has done extensive research on APO 3433 (18 th Engineer Regiment) and APO 3552 (95 th Engineer Regiment) and hopes to report on them in further issues of The Northerner. Copies of scans or info regarding the above three APOs would be appreciated. You can write him at: 57-vette@comcast.net. Item Tavane, N.W.T As a prelude to the next item about 1931 Eastern Arctic covers, here s a first flight cover from Tavane (a non-post office outpost of Chesterfield Inlet) flown into Tavane, and from Tavane to Chesterfield Inlet. It then was flown from Chesterfield Inlet (departing August 7, 1931) to Fort Churchill as the first official air mail from Chesterfield to Churchill. The pilot for this first flight was Flight Lt. A.F. Sandy Macdonald of the RCAF. The cover includes a letter typed by Macdonald (next page).

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24 2850 Item Eastern Arctic, I have owned this first cover for many years. It s a rather tattered envelope containing a six-page letter, written June 13, 1931 at Dundas Harbour, North Devon Island, N.W.T. The cover was postmarked on August 19 when the S.S. Beothic arrived at Dundas Harbour. Over half the back of the cover is missing, but there is an Ottawa machine cancel dated September 23, The letter was written by an RCMP officer of the Dundas detachment to his sister in New Brunswick. This cover is a prelude to several more Eastern Arctic covers from the same period.

25 2851 When the Beothic carried the mail of the Eastern Arctic Patrol, from 1926 to 1931, there were no special markings known from this mail. Covers from the Eastern Arctic Patrols are uncommon. Kevin O Reilly showed one recently in Item 2051 a cover with Greenland stamps postmarked when the Beothic arrived at Bache Peninsula on August 11, Kevin s cover bears the Bache date of August 14, 1930, probably because the date was not changed from the previous, 1930 visit of the Beothic. The 1931 Eastern Arctic Patrol left North Sydney, Nova Scotia on July 30 in the S.S. Beothic. Major L.T. Burwash was the Officer in Charge. Kevin O Reilly kindly supplied the Beothic dates for both 1930 and 1931 (see the next page). The 1932 itinerary is in his NWT book. In 1931, the Beothic returned to North Sydney on September 17 after travelling 7,000 miles in 49 days. Notice the visit days for: Bache Peninsula August 11 Dundas Harbour August Pond s Inlet August 21 Chesterfield Inlet September 5 7 Recently, Kevin purchased a Bache Peninsula cover and I purchased three Eastern Arctic covers to Massachusetts (all shown below). They are postmarked: Dundas Harbour August 19, 1931 (Ottawa September 23, 1931) Pond s Inlet December 22, 1931 (no backstamp) Chesterfield Inlet April 13, 1931 (Ottawa May 11, 1931) Bache Peninsula August 12, 1932 St. John s September 29, 1933) They are all addressed to the same person, and all seemingly prepared by him in the same format. The Dundas Harbour cover has an Ottawa transit postmark dated September 23, 1931 [see my RCMP cover above same date in Ottawa]. It was brought south in the Beothic in 1931 and forwarded to Ottawa from North Sydney. Its August 19 postmark suggests that it might have been at Dundas Harbour before the Beothic arrived in My RCMP cover written at Dundas in June also is postmarked August 19 three days before the arrival of the Beothic. However, the postmark dates probably should have been August 22 the day the Beothic arrived. The Pond s Inlet cover has no other postmarks. It probably stayed behind after the Beothic departed from Pond s Inlet, and was brought out in It lacks any Ottawa backstamp. The Chesterfield Inlet cover could not have come south in the Beothic in It was postmarked in Chesterfield Inlet in April and arrived in Ottawa in May. It could have been brought out by dogteam, or perhaps by an RCAF flight before the August flight recorded by Item Flight Lieutenant Macdonald wrote, We have no schedule for this service but carry mail when we fly our supplies and films in and out, approximately every two weeks. Kevin writes, I think most of them were sent under cover in early 1931 to postmasters in the NWT. My 1932 Bache cover was probably taken up as mail during the 1931 EAP and not returned given that the Beothic arrived there on August 11 at 11:30 am and left at 4 pm. The cover was probably postmarked in 1932 in anticipation of the Ungava reaching Bache but of course was then taken down to Craig Harbour by dog team in April The cover was then taken out in September 1933 when the Nascopie stopped at Craig Harbour.

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27 2853 The Dundas Harbour cover above has a weak postmark (August 19, 1931). Note the Ottawa transit postmark (September 23, 1931). The cover from Pond s Inlet (dated December 22, 1931 in purple) has no other date stamps. Probably brought out of the north by the Nascopie in 1932.

28 2854 The Chesterfield Inlet cover (April 13, 1931) has an Ottawa backstamp dated May 11, This definitely was not brought south in a ship. Here is the front of Kevin s cover from Bache Peninsula (August 12, 1932). The reverse is shown on the next page.

29 2855 Note the Nascopie box postmark dated September 7, 1933 (applied while the ship was in port at Craig Harbour) and the St. John s, Newfoundland September 28, 1933 backstamp. The clipping at the right reports the first messages from Bache Peninsula in three years. Item Winnipeg Klondike advertising Bill Pawluk owns this Klondike advertising cover sent to Toronto by the Kilgour Rimer, Co., Ltd. of Winnipeg on April 15, Note that Mining outfits can be purchased in Winnipeg as cheaply as anywhere I can t recall seeing any other Winnipeg Klondike advertising covers. The reverse of the cover is at the top of the next page.

30 2856 Item Queen s Hotel, Calgary Klondike Advertising This advertising cover from the Queen s Hotel was mailed to Toronto on June 6, Notice the Headquarters for Klondyke Tourists at the lower left. There weren t many tourists in This is the only Calgary cover Bill knows of related to the Klondike gold rush. That s it for Issue #93. The next issue is started, but it still has lots of room for new reports: Yukon, N.W.T. and Labrador, and early Prairies and Northern Ontario and Quebec. Gray