Arctic and Sub-Arctic Mail During the Centennial Period

This article deals with the following topics :

1. The Canadian Arctic and the Cold War
2. Arctic Navigation
3. Arctic Research
4. Expeditions
5. Events

1. The Canadian Arctic and the Cold War

a) Alert

Alert is the most northerly, permanently inhabited location in the world, located only 817 kilometres from the geographic North Pole. The station was first settled in the early 1950s as a weather station of the Joint Arctic Weather Station (JAWS) System.

On Sept. 1, 1958, Alert began its operational role as a signals intelligence unit of the Canadian Forces. At that time, it became the Alert Wireless Station and was under the command of the Canadian Army. During the Cold War, Alert was strategically important because of its proximity to the Soviet Union. Alert was the closest point in North America to the northwestern area of the Soviet Union. At its peak, CFS Alert had upwards of 215 personnel posted at any one time. The station became a key asset in global intelligence sharing , with Alert being privy to many secret Soviet communications regarding land-based and sea-based ICBM test launches and many operational military deployments.

Upon the unification of the Canadian military forces, the Alert Wireless Station changed its name to Canadian Forces Station Alert (CFS) on February 1, 1968

The cover below was sent by a member of the armed forces from CFS Alert in 1968:


Alert to Ottawa, February 7, 1968


Return Address: C.F.S. Alert Alert, N.W.T. via Ottawa, Ont.

The most famous civilian resident of the area also used the Alert post office for his communications:


Alert to Northallerton, England, December 12, 1968The Message:



The Alert cachet was stamped on the back of the card:


Alert Cachet stamped on the back of Santa's card


b) Hall Beach (Distant Early Warning Line)





Hall Beach businesses such as "the Bay" benefited from the military presence in the community.


Hall Beach to Yellowknife, January 11 1972

2. Arctic Navigation

a) Icebreakers

Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers assisted maritime traffic move safely and quickly through, or around, ice-covered Canadian waters.

i) CCGS Sir Humphrey Gilbert

The Canadian Coast Guard Ship CCGS Sir Humphrey Gilbert was an icebreaker built in 1959 by Davie Shipbuilding. Ltd., Lauzon, P.Q. The ship was then assigned to the Newfoundland Region to provide servicing of fixed and floating aids to navigation, ice breaker support, and search and rescue in both Newfoundland and Arctic waters. CCGS Sir Humphrey Gilbert was retired in 2001 She was sold to private interests and has been given the name Polar Prince.



A cover mailed from the CCGS Sir Humphrey Gilbert:


The CCGS Sir Humphrey Gilbert handstamp was applied to this letter to Toronto which received the Clyde, N.W.T. MOON cancellation on March 31, 1971


Clyde, N.W.T. (MOON), March 31, 1972

Return Address:



ii) CCGS d'Iberville

CCGS D'Iberville was in service from 1953- 1983.


From CCGD D'Iberville and mailed at Resolute, N.W.T, August 14 1968


b) SS Manhattan Voyages : Canadian Sovereignty over Arctic Waters

The SS Manhattan was an oil tanker owned by the Humble Oil and Refining Company. It was the largest ship in the U.S. merchant fleet and after being converted to an icebreaker it was used to navigate a route through the Northwest Passage in an attempt to determine whether it would be commercially feasible to transport oil from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

i) Northwest Passage Voyage 1969

The Canadian government was not asked permission for the SS Manhattan's voyage. This raised a political problem for the government because Canada considered the waters of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to be internal waters. Canada nevertheless gave unsolicited permission and provided the Canadian icebreaker CCGS John A. Macdonald to escort the vessel.

The SS Manhattan became the first commercial ship to cross the Northwest Passage. The Manhattan crossed the passage from east to west, entering the Arctic's Parry Channel on September 2 1969. One single token barrel of crude oil was loaded at Prudhoe Bay on September 20, 1969, and the ship returned east the next day, arriving in Halifax in November.




The card reads:
"Artist's conception of S.S. Manhattan's maiden voyage to open commercially the Northwest Passage."

Barrow, Alaska, September 25, 1968



SS. Manhattan Maiden Voyage Cachet
Mailed at Resolute, NWT, October 28 1969

The Manhattan was escorted by the Canadian icebreaker CCGS John A. Macdonald and the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker CGC Staten Island.

Handstamps from both icebreakers were applied to this cover, also mailed from Resolute on the eastbound trip, October 28 1969:





ii) SS Manhattan Second Voyage : 1970

A second voyage by the SS Manhattan in April 1970 prompted Secretary of State for External Affairs Mitchell Sharp to inform the House of Commons that Canada had agreed to permit a second voyage of the SS Manhattan. In 1973 the Canadian Government claimed that the waters of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago were internal waters on a historical basis.

In her second voyage, the SS Manhattan spent several months researching navigation through Arctic ice.


SS Manhattan second voyage cachet
Montreal, April 19 1970


 3. Arctic Research

a) Tanquary Fiord Defence Research Board (DRB) Camp

Operation Tanquary was initiated by the DRB in 1962 with the establishment of a research base camp at Tanquary fiord. From thid base, the DRB coordinated a wide-ranging program of scientific research, for which studies were undertaken over much of northern Ellesmere Island. Much of the program focussed on sea ice research, but also included studies in meteorology, oceanography, glaciology, biology, and archeology. Operation Tanquary concluded in 1972.


Harold Serson (1926-1992) was a technical officer for the DRB who established a reputation in remote arctic science operations and logistics.


Mailed out from Tanquary Fiord and cancelled at Resolute on May 14, 1970


Names of researchers H. Serson M. Springate printed on the envelope. The letter was flown out by "D/H Otter RWV Pilot J. Lafrance"


Resolute MOON cancellation, May 14, 1970

b) Hudson Project 1970

The CSS Hudson (now CCGS Hudson) was built in the early 1960s for the Canadian Oceonographic service. She was the largest vessel built at that time specifically designed for research purposes. On November 19, 1969 the Hudson began an 11 month, 58,000 mile cruise, known as "Hudson 70", the first ever to circumnavigate North and South America. More than 122 scientists from many countries obtained valuable chemical data in the Atlantic, physical data in the Chilean fjords, gravity data in the Pacific and geophysical data in the Arctic.

By late August 1970, the Hudson entered the Beaufort Sea where scientists studied the geology of the seafloor. Hudson completed the circumnavigation in October 16, 1970.

Departure : Halifax November 19 1969




"Hudson" 70 cachet


Argentina, January 20 1970




Papete, Tahiti, May 19, 1970

Victoria, August 11, 1970




Resolute, N.W.T., October 1 1970




Arrival, Halifax, October 19, 1970


Souvenir cover signed by Captain David W. Butler and Chief Scientist Dr. Cedric Mann


4. Expeditions

a) The Plaisted Polar Expeditions

Ralph Plaisted from Minnesota lead a snowmobile expedition to the north pole from Eureka, N.W.T., on March 28 1967. A blizzard forced the party to turn around on May 4, 1967, 370 miles from the pole. Plaisted launched a second snow machine expedition to the pole in 1968 which was successful.

1967


Eureka, May 7 1967


Plaisted Expedition 1967 cachet

1968


Eureka, N.W.T., April 22, 1968




Plaisted Expedition 1968 cachet


b) Monzino Expedition to the North Pole 1971

Italian businessman Guido Moninzo led 27 men to the pole in an attempt to recreate Peary's expedition. They left Cape Columbia with dog sleds on April 2 reaching the pole on May 19.


Alert, April 1971


Alert "Next to the Pole" cachet stamped on back of Monzino cover.

c) British Air Force Ellesmere Island Expedition 1967

The British Air Force Mountaineering Association engaged in a climbing expedition on Ellesmere Island in 1967.




Eureka, NWT, Money Order Office Number (MOON) handstamp "55390" June 20 1967


Royal Air Force, Tanquary (Fiord), Ellesmere Island Expedition June 19, 1967

5. Events

a) Dog Sled Mail Runs

i) Cold Lake Mission to Fort Good Hope
"100 Miles by Dog Sled"
Fort Good Hope, April 11 [1968]

ii) Centennial Eastern Dog Run
 

Churchill to Baker Lake, April 1970
Cancelled at Baker Lake, April 20, 1970

b) Boy Scout Jamborees i) Arctic and Northern Scout Jamboree 1968


Yellowknife, August 3 1968


Jamboree Post Office handstamp, August 3, 1968

ii) Northwest Territories Jamboree 1973


Fort Smith, N.W.T., July 3 1973

c) 1970 Royal Visit

Queen Elizabeth, accompanied by Prince Charles and Princess Anne, visited Manitoba and the Northwest Territories in 1970.



Fort Smith, July 6 1970


Bad weather resulted in the cancellation of the visit to Tuktoyaktuk on July 6, 1970

Frobisher Bay, July 7, 1970

Pine Point


Yellowknife, July 8 1970

Prison Censorship

a) Incoming Prison Mail

The card below was mailed to an inmate at the Haney Correctional Institution (HCI), a provincial prison facility in British Columbia. The card was sent from Edmonton on July 14, 1969 and was censored by prison officials. The censor handstamp was initialed and dated July 17, 1969.


Addressed to Box 100, Haney, B.C.





Box 100 Haney : An Undercover Address
An Undercover Address has been defined as "one which fails to show the true destination of the correspondence"(p.5 "Undercover Addresses of World War II ", 3rd edition (2006) Perth). These addresses are designed to conceal the identity of particular addresses. (see below for an American prison undercover address)

Haney Correctional Institution : 1957 - 1975

When HCI opened in 1957 it was hailed as one of the most innovative prisons on the continent. HCI was designed to give vocational training to offenders. In 1970 there were eleven vocational shops in that institution, but ten of them required two or three years apprenticeship training on the outside. Leader of the Opposition Dave Barrett, a former social worker who had worked at HCI, explained in the Legislature that the facility could not provide proper training for prisoners because they were not incarcerated for long enough periods in the provincial facility. He proposed that HCI be closed down as a correctional facility and become a vocational training centre open to all citizens. Barrett became premier in 1972 and HCI was closed in 1975 to become a training center. In 1978 it became part of the Pacific Vocational Institute.

b) Outgoing Prison Mail

Although the cover below was not mailed during the Elizabethan Period it complements the card discussed above. The letter contained a letter written by an inmate at the Mercer Reformatory in Toronto to her mother, and mailed on June 15, 1949. The letter was written on a prison form, dated June 11, 1949, and received the prison censor's circular handstamp. The return address was an undercover address which did not identify that the writer was an inmate at the Mercer Reformatory.


Letter from Mercer Reformatory inmate, Toronto, June 15 1949


Back of letter with stamped Undercover Address


Undercover Address Identity of facility omitted


Correspondence written on prison form and Censored.




c) U.S. Federal Prison Undercover Address

Manuel Noriega is a former general and was the military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989. The 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States removed him from power. Noriega was captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the U.S. Noriega was tried on eights counts of drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering in April 1992. Under Article 85 of the Third Geneva Convention Noriega was still considered a prisoner of war. In Florida he had his own prison cell furnished with electronics and exercise equipment.

His prison sentence ended in September 2007. Noriega remained at the Federal Correctional Institute in Miami pending resolution of extradition requests from France and Panama. In April 2010, Noriega boarded a flight to Paris to face charges of money laundering.

The cover and letter below were sent by General Noriega (POW) to the author on July 29, 2009. The "Undercover Address", P.O. Box 779800, Miami, Fl., printed on the return address label conceals the fact that the correspondence has been sent from the Federal Correctional Institute, Miami.



From "POW" General Manuel Noriega to Ontario, July 29, 2009

Undercover Address:

P.O. Box 770800, Miami Fl.

General Noriega's Autographed Letter

The Canadian Postal Strike of 1968

[This is the first in a series of articles dealing with postal strikes in Canada. The second article dealing with strikes in the 1971 to 1984 period can be found here. The third post dealing with the 1997 strike can be found here.]

Relations between the Canadian government and postal unions were rocky during the Centennial period. In 1968, Canada's postal workers went on a 22 day postal strike from July 18 to August 9.

The following responses to the 1968 strike are considered in this article:

1. Embargo of U.S. mail to Canada
2. Department of National Defence Emergency Canadian mail delivery
3. Private courier service

1. Embargo of U.S. mail to Canada

Canada requested that the U.S. suspend all mail services to Canada during the strike. Mail to Canada was returned to senders by U.S post offices with instructional markings and labels which were created by individual post offices on an ad hoc basis. The covers below illustrate some messages found on embargoed mail.

a) Hawthorne, California


Hawthorne, Calif., to Don Mills, July 29, 1968

A perforated gummed label was affixed to the cover with this message:

RETURN TO SENDER
POSTAL EMBARGO TO CANADA

b) St. Cloud, Minnesota


St. Cloud, Minn., to Victoria, July 29, 1968

The St. Cloud Post Office applied its standard "RETURNED FOR POSTAGE" handstamp and struck out the word "POSTAGE" with a pen and wrote the word "Embargo". The letter was returned to sender and remailed on August 31, 1968. An additional 6c stamp was affixed.


Embargo marking : Modified "Returned For Postage" handstamp


Letter remailed on August 31, 1968

c) Monterey, California


Monterey, Calif., to Victoria, August 8, 1968
The message was stapled to the cover:


d) Portland, Oregon

Portland, Or., to Victoria, July 28, 1968

The Portland post office printed its message on white paper which was taped to the front of the envelope:


The Portland post office explains the Canada has requested the embargo.

e) Des Plaines, Illinois


Des Plains, Ill., to Victoria, August 3, 1968

The Des Plains post office applied the following locally produced handstamp:

RETURN TO SENDER
SERVICE SUSPNDED [sic]


Handstamp was scratched out with a red pencil when letter was remailed

The covers shown above are just a few of the many local instructional markings produced by U.S. post offices during the 1968 Canadian postal strike.

2. Department of National Defence Emergency Canadian mail delivery

The Department of National Defence established an emergency mail delivery system which allowed correspondence to be sent throughout the military without interruption.


D.N.D. handstamp


The above cover was sent via the D.N.D. emergency mail delivery system from D.N.D. headquarters in Ottawa to CFB Rockcliffe, Ottawa, July 22, 1968.

3. Private courier service

a) Juan de Fuca Depatch Carrier Service
The Juan de Fuca Despatch Carrier Service operated between Victoria and Port Angeles, Washington.


Labels without value were printed for the 1968 postal strike

The letter below addressed to Minneapolis was conveyed from Victoria to Port Angeles, Wash., via Juan de Fuca Despatch on July18, 1968. The letter entered the U.S. mail stream at Post Angeles on July 18, 1968.






b) Stern Parcel Service

Stern Parcel Service operated between Vancouver and Bellington, Wahington.


Label with 25 cent face value
The letter below addressed to Seattle was conveyed from Vancouver to Bellingham, Wash., via Stern Parcel Service on August 6, 1968. The letter entered the U.S. mail stream at Bellingham on August 7, 1968.




Bellingham, Wash., August 8 1968

c) Canadian Importers Association, Inc.

The Canadian Importers Association provided international mail service to its members during the 1968 postal strike. The Association transported correspondence from Canada to Buffalo, N.Y., and mailed it in Buffalo for U.S. and other international destinations. Members received international correspondence c/o the Canadian Importers Association, P.O. Box 745, Buffalo, N.Y.

The air mail letter to below was sent by Makin & Ridgway (Canada) Limited, Toronto via the Canadian Importers Association courier service to Stoke-on-Trent, England. The letter entered the U.S. mail stream at Buffalo, N.Y., on August 6 1968.




Canadian Importers Association Inc. Postal Strike handstamp applied to mail transported for its members to Buffalo.

Canadian Military Supervision in Vietnam During the Centennial Period

From 1954 to 1973 Canada served on two international truce commissions in Vietnam:

1. International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam (ICSC)
2.International Commission of Control And Supervision (ICCS) Vietnam 1973.

The two commissions are described in this article and correspondence is shown.

1. International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam (ICSC)

The ICSC was an international body established in 1954 that oversaw the implementation of the Geneva Accords that ended the First Indochina War with the partition of Vietnam. The mandate of the ICSC in Vietnam was to supervise the cease-fires and withdrawal of French troops and to supervise the movement of refugees. Much of the work was done from 1954 to 1955 and Canada had only token representation after 1958. The force comprised troops and officers from Canada, Poland, and India representing the non-communist, communist, and non-aligned blocs respectively. In 1973, the ICSC was replaced by a new body, the International Commission of Control and Supervision.



Postal Services for the ICSC was provided byIndia through its APO No. 56(Army Post Office) , New Delhi. This air mail letter was mailed from Calgary, June 23, 1969 to a Canadian Commision member, c/o APO No. 56, New Delhi, India. The Indian APO forwarded the letter to the "Ministry of External Affairs", New Delhi, and the letter was most likely conveyed to Vietnam by Indian diplomatic pouch.


2.International Commission of Control And Supervision (ICCS) Vietnam 1973

The ICCS was established to monitor the cease-fire in South Vietnam as agreed to at the Paris Peace Conference. The commission consisted personnel from Canada, Hungary, Indonesia and Poland. The Commission arranged the release and exchange of prisoners of war. Canada contributed 240 Canadian Forces personnel and 50 officials from the Department of External Affairs between January 28, 1973 and 31 July 31, 1973. Canada was replaced by Iran. The ICCS operated until 30 April 1975, two years after the Canadians withdrew.

A Canadian Forces Post Office (CFPO 5005) was opened to handle Canadian delegate mail.


CFPO 5005

This air letter below was sent on April 1, 1973 from My Tho, Vietnam by Canadian delegate Col. R.B. Scranton. Col. Scranton describes the difficulty he faces as an ICCS delegate. He writes: "...There is no cease fire here and there seems to be no indication that either side has much intent to try and have one."