routes for as long as he could remember. Father Wendell had admiration for these early mail deliverers:

They would go on the worst of days. They never missed a day. They had a long way to go: Hughie MacDonald had all of St. Margarets and Naufrage and parts of Bear River and Hermitage. Allan MacKinnon had Fortune and St. Charles, and the Line of the Lot as we called it. You’d see them coming in the horse and sleigh. My God, today nobody would do it. Snowing, you could barley see them coming. They had great devotion, great loyalty. {14)

Allan MacKinnon began delivering the mail on June 30th, 1926. Hughie Joseph MacDonald was a mail carrier for 31 years, beginning on June 30th 1938 and finishing on May 1St 1969. On his first trip in 1938. he had only one letter to deliver, and for his first month of work, received a check of $33.00 for payment of his services. Hughie Joseph also kept track of what he used to deliver the mail over the years: (15)

1938: Bicycle

1944: Indian Cycle

1951: Hudson Motor Bike

1952: Plymouth Car

1957: Last trip made with a horse

Hughie Joseph also remembered that rural mail service to Naufrage Harbor only began in 1938 when he started his mail route. Before that all of the mailboxes were located at the ‘big bn‘dge’ near Naufrage.

That same year, in 1938, the number of householders listed under

the rural mail routes was: (16)

Armdale, No.1 52 (English) 1 (French) Armdale, No.2 48 (English) 27 (French) Midgell, No.1 53 (English)

St. Peters Bay, No.1 46 (English) St. Peters Bay, No.2 76 (English) St. Peters Bay, No.3 71 (English) St. Peters Bay, No.4 30 (English)

Glendon MacKinnon of St. Peters bay also recalls delivering the mail. He had to meet the train coming from Souris in the morning and take the mail to the post office. Three days every week there would be an extra train go though, which he would also meet. In the evening he would take the mail that had come into the post office during that day and meet the train with the mail to be delivered. (17)

Some of the locations of these early post offices are still quite W611 known. The Post Office in Selkirk that Hughie Joseph would have worked

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