Eda and Robert James Shaw Shaw Call.

12. ROBERT JAMES SHAW: BY HORSE, SLEIGH OR TRUCK, HE DELIVERS

“Robert James Shaw, 75, of Bloomfield, says he could just about drive his thirty miles mail delivery route blindfolded by now. No wonder. Shaw, who is Canada’s longest serving rural mailman, has been delivering mail to his friends and neighbors in western Prince Edward Island almost every working day for more than 54 years. Like the route, his cargo of letters, newspapers and magazines is usually predictable. But there have been exceptions. About seven years ago, Shaw delivered an innocent-looking package that turned out to be a bomb. Someone alerted the RCMP, who detonated it on the shore. And one day, he had a registered parcel for a Campbellton woman containing the ashes of her sister. “I’d known them both pretty well,” Shaw says. “I did feel a bit strange.” Before he bought his first car in 1949, he covered his route with a horse and wagon or sleigh. In summer, his wife, Ada, drove the mail while he was busy with farm chores. In winter, the roads were sometimes so bad, he didn’t get home before dark. Shaw, whose route includes Bloomfield, Campbellton, Cape Wolfe, Burton and Brockton, renewed his contract with Canada Post last spring. And he has no plans to retire soon. “I like to keep going,” he says, “I think sitting around is the worst thing you can do.” ”‘0‘

101 Atlantic Insight, Vol.5, No. 3, March, 1983, p.54.

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