The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-17
ARCTIC POSTAL
 ROUTE IS GLOOMY Longest and Most DeSoIate in . the World HORSE, DEER AND DOG USED News May Be Late But People Do Not Mind If 1t Is Six Months
 old-Mal Inside
 Circle.
HORSE, DEER AND DOG USED
Special correspondence of the Washington


 Post.
 Victoria, B. C.-The annual mail for Arctic Circle points within the Dominion of Canada has just been dispatched via Edmonton. Letters only are carried and these are limited to one ounce in weight as the entire bulk of the packet when 1t leaves Edmonton must come within 300 pounds.
 Registered letters have the preference, although they are not assured of delivery if late, and other letters are taken in the order of the dates of mailing. The route is not only the longest mail circuit in the world but far and away the most desolate and most difficult.
 For the two-cent stamp which decorates the corner of the envelope the letter will be carried in some cases from the ex- tremes of South Africa, Australia, or India, and it will most probably be nec- essary to have the carriers go five or six hundred miles into a frozen, forbiddng wilderness, the government expendng upon the redemption of the contract of the stamp very many thousand times what it receives, while the carrier must fight single handed with savage nature. His
 
 intrusted to him are at all times in the hazard.
 This is the first year in which the post office department of Canada has assumed the delivery of mail in the extreme north. the Hudson Bay company heretofore car rying messages to and from the arctic and sub-arctic country. Increases in the numbers of trappers, missionaries, pros- pectors, settler and policemen in the ex- treme north explain the taking over of responsibility by the postmaster general of Canada.
 Far Within the Circle.
 The mail is divided into two packets at Edmonton, one for points between Lac la Bche and Fort Resolution and the other for the struggling outposts of empire as far as Fort Macpherson, the most north erly depot even of the Hudson Bay com pany, 150 miles within the Arctic Circle. where the year is divided into a single day and night.
 The Lac la Biche mail goes by horse only 120 miles out of Edmonton. Thence forward the dog and deer are the car- rier's subordinates. Deliveries are made at Fort McMurray Fort Chippewan, Smiths Landing, Fort Resolution, Hay River, Fort Providence, Fort Simpson, Fort Wrigley, Fort Norman, Fort Good Hope, and Fort Macpherson. From Ed monton to Fort Macpherson is 1900 miles and the mail arrives at the fort in April if 1t has no exceptional delays
 Besides the packets just dispatched, ther are several other packets going to the northland within the next week or so. so that all the posts will receive at least yearly mail. There is a mail made up at Prince Albert that goes as far as the head of Reindeer Lake, at the edge of the great Barren Lands.
 The York factory packet runs to the far north via Lake Winnipeg and the Nell son river. The Moose packet is made up at Matawa and goes via Abitibi river.
 The carriers for the east and west shores of the great bay sometimes meet at the southern ports on the shores of the bay, the meetings being made the occa- sion of short but hearty jolihcations Then each passes on his way.
 Everything News Up There.
 Although letters for the winter packets are limited to an ounce in weight there may be much news compressed by the judicious. Very thin paper as a rule is used and cross written.
 Everything is news to the people of the Barren Lands, and the same may be said of the gerater number of the forts. It doesn't matter if the news Is late. It is read In sequence, and so what's the dlf- ference if it did happen six months or a. year earlier? The clock is simply turned back.
 Newspapers and packages are carried to the north on the annual steamers of the Hudson Bay company up to the Mackenzie river in the summer. Of course, letters are also carried. but the newspapers convey the tdings of the world and are treasured as fine jewels. The war in Manchuria, the revolution in Russia the great disasters of the last six or ten months, all will be news to the northland when other parts of the world have forgotten them. And the people of the north claim a distinct advantage, even over the people of supposedly more favored lands. They never have to wade through a mass of uninteresting and n- decisive matter for the facts of the story. The main facts are all they get, and un- less they are so fortunate as to have a large consignment of papers they are en- abled to settle all details as their wishes and maginations ordain.