Canada : The Mail Went To The Dogs.

Just a yarn for the Canadians present :

When The Mail Went to the Dogs

From "The Postmark", Canada.

Jim wasn't just any dog. He was a mail dog.
And he was top dog of four who carried Her Majesty's mail through snow up to their collars from Canmore to
Revelstoke B.C. It was the early 1880's and Her Majesty was Queen Victoria.

Jim's story came to light at the tail end of this winter — in an age of ZIP codes, automated post offices and even
an easier life for the door-to-door mailman — when his last owner, W. A. Beavo, of East Burnaby, B.C., came
across an old photo and ancient newspaper clipping.

No sissy, Jim didn't travel over plowed sidewalks or open roads in winter. He made his appointed rounds the
hard way. As an old news story dramatically put it, "the dogs travelled through toilsome passes and rugged
canyons, over steep mountain trails which led along precipitous ledges and over a yawning chasm bridged by a
fallen tree .... where a false step meant instant death."
Jim and his canine cohorts worked under the command of the late F. C. Lang of Golden, B.C. who had the mail
contract from Canmore to Golden City, thence to Farwell (now Revelstoke), a distance of 186 miles. All this
was before Canadian Pacific completed laying its tracks between those points. There is no record extant of how
long it took Frank Lang and his dogs to make a round, but Mr. Beavo surmises that it must have been several
days and that the team was fed and housed en route at railway work gang camps, since the mail-dogs were
evidently a connecting link between end of rail and the camps.

Although Jim and his master had many hairbreadth escapes from accident and even death — to say nothing of
avoiding grizzlies and wildcats which were more numerous then — these hazardous journeys to get the mail
through often had their amusing side. Like one Christmas when Frank and Jim had quite a time of it locating a
resident of Banff who was the recipient of a huge Christmas pudding mailed all the way from London England.

Another story, recorded in the Golden Star of 1885, tells of Senator Robert Green plodding along a completed
portion of the right-of-way near Rogers Pass, and following some distance behind Frank and his dogs, when all
of a sudden Her Majesty's mail carrier vanished from sight. An alarmed Senator Green hastened to investigate
and discovered that
"the genial Frank had inadvertently descended into the yawning chasm of the smokestack of a woodburning
locomotive that was completely buried in snow."

No coddled thoroughbred, Jim was "part Newfoundland and part something else," according to Mr. Beavo. And
he was just as rugged and reliable as the hardiest of his island ancestors. On his retirement in 1890 at a ripe old
age, he was given to Mr. Beavo then aged five, who kept him as a pet for almost two years.
"He got so old and crippled", said Mr. Beavo, "that he finally had to be put out of his misery. Luckily, this
happened when I was away at school so I would not know of his barking out."

Old Jim was buried on the bank of the Columbia River behind the Columbia House (now demolished), a fitting
location for it had been headquarters for the mail-dog team.
Jim's second master and friend is a retired Company locomotive engineer whose career in mountain railroading
just about matches the exploits of his canine pal where adventure and near-disaster were concerned. Mr. Beavo
remembers, among other things, a runaway freight train on the Big Hill at Field; a dining car from a passenger
train being swept down an embankment by a snowslide at Glacier, B.C. and a moving mud slide at Calamity
Curve (east of Beavermouth) which forced an engine and three cars down "very close to the edge of the
Columbia River."

Mr. Beavo is proud of the fact that he was the first engineer to go through Connaught tunnel after its
completion. But, even that was not without misadventure. "Superintendent of construction gave me the O.K. to
go ahead, but some overhead scaffolding had not been cleared .... it knocked off the smokestack of engine 506
and damaged the caboose cupola. I worked the engine for about a week with a barrel tied on for a smokestack."

"AUSTRALIAN STAMP NEWS" April 1971

That a great story Rod. Thanks for sharing.

It amazes me sometimes that people did (and do) work so hard for so little (seemingly) and under so hard of conditions. But I suppose it is all in the eyes of those experiencing that life.

Some would love it and not have it any other way while others would wish to be in a nice chair sipping a nice drink in the warm sun on the beach and not have that any other way too.

It goes beyond just being happy (a biggie anyway) to not only doing what one wants and loves to do but getting a great feeling out of doing things in not always the best conditions or with the best company too I suppose.

I liked the bit of the guy disapearing down the train funnel.
I should imagine in those times, the rank and file had
poorly paid jobs with some boredom.
This job would appeal to the outdoor types.

Remember the "Pony Express" ?...."willing to risk death daily"

Great story rod.

Thanks for sharing.

Dianne

Great story! As late as the mid-1960s, the RCMP were still delivering the mail via dogsled.

I guess it harkens back to a time when people, regsrdless of their station in life, completed their job, no matter how boring or dangerous, with pride.

David

It is kind of hard to reconcile our modern way of life with those who came before us... this kind of story is always fascinating to me. I can't even imagine snow deep enough to bury a locomotive! wow...

-Allen

The Rockies can get huge amounts of snow in places. Jim the Mail Dog would have had hard work making his way along his route. The Revelstoke area routinely gets hit by avalanches due to extreme snow, they had two more fatal avalanches this past winter.

I remember seeing a photo of snow plowing underway on the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana with one bulldozer working away on top of some snow and another one 10 m lower that had dug down to the road. I couldn't find it online, but I found this one - warm enough weather to drive around in the open air without winter clothing, and snow piled up more than twice as high as your car ...



The Wikipedia article says there can be as much as 80 feet / 24 metres of snow to plow in places. Jim the Dog should have received a medal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going-to-the-Sun_Road

Ryan

Great pic, Ryan. Thumbs up.

Very interesting story Rod

One of the specialties that my wife collects is dogs on stamps, among a few other topics, and that also includes "Dog Team" mail covers.

The area I live in is known as the Muskoka / Parry Sound district and, surprisingly enough, there still is a "Dog Team" run done every year from Humphrey to Rosseau. This year commemorated the 26th anniversary of this run.

Sad to say, it is not known if this run will take place next year because the organizer of this event passed away just before the last run was held which was February 20, 2010. There is talk that there 'might' be one more run in honour of this lady but information is not yet available one way or the other.

On the average, there are about 4-5000 covers run every year. mostly less.

For the past several years, I made sure that I got covers from this event. Should they decide to make a last run next year, I will make it a point to get that one as well.Please take note, this is not just for my wife's topical collection, but also for my Muskoka / Parry Sound postal history collection as well

Chimo

Bujutsu

Nice post Rod. I know I have a cover carried on a dog sled from the Yukon, I believe during our centennial in 1967, but I cannot find it. If I do, iI will post an image.

We, in the sunburnt country, (well West anyhows)
can only dream of snow.
I know it wasn't Canada, but the film Jeramiah Johnson
with Robert Redford is one of my all time favs, due in part
with country and the snow.

Well it rarely snows here in Vancouver or go below a temp of 0c, yet we held the 2010 Winter Olympics. You go figure that.

I thought this thread was about Canadian dog stamps but nope...well, I'm posting mine anyway

Welcome Tom,
never be shy... we all love looking at stamps here.

Nice ones too, the bottom left reminds me of the
dog with the blue tongue

Here is your licence to show more

Awesome story about my province.