Postal service of Manitoba, the North-West provinces and British Columbia--Summary of progress since Confederation.
When Sir Adams Archibald, the first lieutenant governor of the newly-formed province of Manitoba, reached Winnipeg in the summer of 1870 for the purpose of taking over his government, he made a survey of the administrative system which he found there.
The postal arrangements were very simple.[313] There were but four post offices in the province, and three mail routes. The principal route, that upon which the settlement depended for its communication with the outer world, ran down the Red River from Pembina, on the border, to Winnipeg. The second followed the river down as far as St. Andrew's; and the third connected the town of Portage La Prairie with Winnipeg, by a weekly-courier service along the Assiniboine river. The mails on the other two routes were carried twice each week.
The carriage of the mails between Pembina and Winnipeg was originally a private enterprise, but was afterwards assumed by the government of Assiniboia. There was a postage charge of one penny on all letters and of one-halfpenny on all newspapers, passing in and out of the territory, in addition to the postage due for conveyance between Pembina and the place of origin or destination.
The system in the settlement was not recognized by the United States government, and letters were not considered as regularly posted until they were deposited in Pembina post office. Consequently the only postage stamps were those of the United States, which were sold in the post offices of the settlement.
The letters and newspapers passing between Winnipeg and Pembina during the month of August 1870 were counted, and it was found that within that period, there were 1018 letters and 196 newspapers sent from Winnipeg to Pembina, and 960 letters and 1375 newspapers passed into the settlement.
The opportunity afforded by the extension of the United States postal service into the northern parts of Minnesota was a great boon to the inhabitants of the isolated settlement. Until that time, the only communication between the Red River and the world outside was by means of the semi-annual packets, by which the Hudson's Bay Company maintained its communication with its posts, which were scattered over its vast territories.[314]
Once in each year a vessel sailed from the Thames for York Factory on the western shore of Hudson's Bay bringing the goods used for barter with the Indians, and carrying back to London the peltries which were the produce of the previous year's trade. To meet this vessel, a brigade of dog-sleighs set out from fort Garry about December 10, when, the ice having formed and the snow fallen, travelling was easy. The first stopping place was at Norway House, at the northern end of lake Winnipeg. The distance, about 350 miles, was travelled in eight days.
Here the contents of the packet were separated, one portion being detained for the posts in the west, and the other for York Factory. The couriers with the mails from the ship in Hudson's Bay connected at Norway House with those from Red River, and after mails had been exchanged, each returned to his point of departure. The mail from England reached fort Garry in February.
The other means of communication was by the packet which was despatched overland in the winter to Montreal. The courier returned to the settlement in the spring, travelling by canoes from Lachine up the Ottawa river and along the Mattawin to lake Nipissing, thence down the French river to Georgian Bay. Crossing the bay and lakes Huron and Superior, the travellers entered the Kaministiquia at fort William, and passing by alternate water stretches and portages into the Winnipeg river, they made their way by canoe to lake Winnipeg, and landed at the outlet of the Red River, eighteen miles north of fort Garry. This journey occupied about six weeks.
The extent of the isolation of the settlement during the early period is thus vividly described:--[315]
"Thus matters went on during the first forty years of our existence as a settlement. We were kept in blissful ignorance of all that transpired abroad until about eight months after actual occurrence. Our easy-going and self-satisfied gentry received their yearly fyles of newspapers about a twelvemonth after the date of the last publication, and read them with avidity, patiently wading through the whole in a manner which did no violence to chronology. Wars were undertaken and completed--protocolling was at an end and peace signed, long before we could hear that a musket had been shouldered or a cannon fired."
The Hudson's Bay packets were placed at the service of the settlers, but not quite without reserve. The company, which employed the packets primarily for the conduct of their business, did not intend that they should be used against their interests. They had a monopoly of the fur-trade, which they proposed to hold, as far as possible, intact.
There were a number of traders in the settlement, who bought on their own account, and made use of such means of transport as they were able to discover, to get their furs out of the country.
To prevent the operations of these interlopers, the company had recourse to a measure which was vastly unpopular in the settlement. The governor of Assiniboia, in a proclamation, dated December 20, 1844, directed that all letters intended to be despatched by the winter express, must be left at his office on or before the 1st of January. Every letter must bear the writer's name, and if the writer was not one of those who had lodged a declaration against trafficking in furs, he was obliged to deposit the letter open, to be closed at the governor's office.[316]
This obnoxious order remained in force until 1848.
This arbitrary measure on the part of the company excited intense feelings among the settlers, and disposed them to hail with satisfaction the approach of the lines of the American postal service towards the company's southern borders. In 1853, when the American government established a post office at fort Ripley, a number of the settlers in the Red River settlement formed a post office at fort Garry, and opened a monthly communication with the post office in Minnesota.[317] At the same time a post office was also opened in the settlement of St.
Andrews, fourteen miles further down the Red River. In 1857, the United States postal service was extended to the company's border, at Pembina, and the infant system in the settlement was connected with this office.
The relation of dependence, which the Red River settlement was beginning to assume towards the United States, attracted attention in Canada, and fears were expressed as to the political future of the great hinterland. In 1857, the Toronto board of trade addressed a memorial to the government,[318] pointing out the situation in the north-west, and urged the expediency of establishing a post route and telegraph line between Canada and British Columbia, over Canadian and Hudson's Bay territory.
The government acted upon the suggestion without loss of time. A mail service was opened in the summer of 1858 to the Red River settlement.[319] Mails were carried twice a month between Collingwood and fort William by steamer, and from the latter point to the Red River by canoe. When winter closed the water routes, a monthly packet by dog-sleigh carried the mails, the carrier travelling along the north shore of lakes Huron and Superior.
But this effort to establish a direct connection between Canada and the north-west was not a success. The difficulties of travel placed this route at a hopeless disadvantage with that through the United States, which gave the people of the settlement a direct communication with but seventy miles of transportation on their part. The service was abandoned after two years, and shortly afterwards the improvements in the service of Pembina in the United States system, enabled the settlers on the Red River to exchange mails with the outer world twice each week.
But the failure of this scheme was merely the prelude to the greater scheme, advocated by the Toronto board of trade. The Canadian government opened a correspondence with the Hudson's Bay Company on the questions of a post road and telegraph across the Continent.[320] On its part, the government was prepared to adopt any measure which would facilitate travel over the stretch which lay between the settled parts of Canada and the Hudson's Bay territory. Appropriations were made for roads through to Red River, and it was hoped that free grants of land would induce people to settle along the route.
The discovery of gold on the Saskatchewan, with the anticipated influx of gold-seekers from the United States made the question one of great urgency. The only access to the territories was through the state of Minnesota, and it was feared that the settlement at Red River would inevitably imbibe principles inimical to the British interests. Unless Canada could offer a passage into the territories, equal in accommodation to that afforded by the United States, the territories would in no long time be occupied by foreigners, British rule would virtually have passed away, and the key to the trade to British Columbia and ultimately to China surrendered to rivals.
Dallas, the resident governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, looked at the question from the standpoint of the company's interests. He pointed out that the establishment of a line of communication across the territories of the company would be seriously prejudicial to those interests. The Red River and Saskatchewan valleys, though not in themselves fur-bearing districts, were the sources from which the main supply of winter food were procured for the northern posts, from the produce of the buffalo hunts.
A chain of settlements through these valleys would not only deprive the company of these vital resources, but would indirectly, in other ways, so interfere with their northern trade as to render it no longer worth prosecuting on an extended scale. It would necessarily be diverted into various channels, possibly to the public benefit, but the company could no longer exist on its present footing.
The Canadian government was far from satisfied with this answer. As they saw it, the question resolved itself into simply this: Should these magnificent territories continue to be merely the source of supply for a few hundreds of the employees of a fur-trading company, or be the means of affording new and boundless contributions to civilization and commerce? Should they remain closed to the enterprise and industry of millions, in order that a few might monopolize all their treasures and keep them for all time to come, as the habitation of wild beasts and the trappers engaged in their pursuit?
The postmaster general in making his report to the council estimated that the cost of a road and water connections with Red River would cost 80,000, and from that settlement to the passes of the Rocky Mountains, 100,000, and recommended that the Canadian parliament should appropriate $50,000 a year for a number of years for this project.
The Red River settlement approached the Canadian government on the subject, undertaking to build a road to the head of the Lake of the Woods, if the Canadian or British government would construct a practical passage from lake Superior to meet this road. The British government, to whom a copy of this memorial was sent by Sandford Fleming, replied that plans were almost matured for establishing a postal and telegraphic communication with British Columbia, and it was expected that with the aid of the two colonies, the scheme would be entered upon at no distant date.
An obstacle to the settlement of the plans lay in the indeterminate nature of the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company to the territory over which the means of communication should pass, and the Canadian government declined to participate in the project while these claims remained unsettled. They opened correspondence with the British government with the view to determine the questions in dispute, maintaining at the same time the right of Canada to take over all that portion of central British America which was in the possession of the French at the period of the session in 1763.[321] The question of postal communication was as a consequence postponed to the larger question of Canada's acquiring these territories, and this was not settled until 1870.
In 1865, the Hudson's Bay Company sent Dr. John Rae, the Arctic explorer, to ascertain the practicability of establishing communication by telegraph across the continent. His report was favourable, and the company went so far into the scheme as to send a quantity of telegraph wire into the territory. But as their continued ownership and monopoly of the territory became increasingly uncertain, the company suspended operations, and these were not resumed.
In April 1862 the governor and council of Assiniboia by an ordinance established a postal system in the settlement. James Ross was appointed postmaster in the middle section of the settlement, with a salary of 10 per annum; and Thomas Sinclair, postmaster of the lower section, with a salary of 6 per annum. A mail was to be carried between the settlement and Pembina at the public expense, in connection with the United States mail to Pembina. The postal charges between the settlement and Pembina were fixed at a penny per half ounce for letters, twopence for each magazine or review, and one-halfpenny for each newspaper. For books, the charges were fivepence for half a pound or under, one shilling for one and a half pounds, and twopence for each additional half pound.[322]
This embryo system was in operation when Sir Adams Archibald arrived in the new province as lieutenant governor. He lost no time in putting the system on as efficient a footing as the circumstances permitted, and in incorporating it into the postal system of the dominion.
The postmaster general arranged with the post office department of the United States for the transmission across its territory by way of Chicago and St. Paul, of mails between Windsor, Ontario and Winnipeg.
The postal rates in force in the dominion were applied to the new province; and in November the post offices were provided with Canadian postage stamps, to replace those of the United States, which had been used until that time.
The means of transportation through the United States was gradually improved, and advantage was taken of these ameliorations to improve the communication of Manitoba. In 1879 the completion of the railway between the Pembina and Winnipeg left little to be desired in the facilities enjoyed by the province for the exchange of correspondence. But it was still dependent on the good will of the United States for these facilities. It was not until 1884 that the completion of the Canadian Pacific railway between Winnipeg and eastern Canada provided a connection across Canadian territory.
The need for a regular postal service in British Columbia did not arise until 1858, the year in which the gold discoveries in the mainland brought large numbers of miners to seek their fortunes in that country.
The colony of Vancouver Island had been in the process of settlement by the Hudson's Bay Company since 1849, but the success of the company had been but moderate. The whole population in 1856--scarcely equal to that of a small town--was gathered together in Victoria and its environs, and their requirements as regards correspondence were limited to a communication with Great Britain.
The home government gave early attention to the question of providing these means. On August 3, 1858, the day after the act providing for the government of the new colony had been adopted, the colonial secretary wrote to the treasury, pointing out that the establishment of the new colony, and the large influx of immigrants thereto, made it desirable that some safe and regular communication should be formed between the colony and the kingdom, and asking that the lords commissioners should consider the possibility of such a suggestion.[323]
The treasury consulted the admiralty and the post office. Neither department could suggest a scheme which would not involve an outlay much beyond the ideas of the treasury as to the importance of the objects to be attained. The post office proposed sending mails to Colon, at the entrance to the Panama railway by the steamers of the Royal Mail Packet Company, thence to Panama by railway. The voyage occupied from sixteen to twenty days and the passage across the isthmus about five hours.
The conveyance from Panama to Victoria offered greater difficulties. The connection between British mail steamers arriving at Colon and the United States steamers running from Panama to San Francisco, was so faulty, that the mails would have to lie at Panama as long as two weeks before they were taken forward. The passage to San Francisco occupied two weeks, and from this point to Victoria from four to five days. The delay at the isthmus was usually avoided by taking the steamer from England to New York, from whence a line of steamers ran to Colon in close connection with the Pacific steamers from Panama. By the latter route the journey from London to Victoria was made in about forty-five days.
But the important consideration with the treasury was the very considerable cost. The preference of the government was for an all-British conveyance. This could be arranged by having a steamer, subsidized by the government, take the mails from the Cunard vessels at either Halifax or New York, and carry them to Colon, and by providing other vessels under its control to make the conveyance from Panama to Victoria. The enormous cost of these services precluded the adoption of this scheme, until the colony had grown to an extent that it could bear, at least, part of the cost. It was estimated that the steamer on the Atlantic coast would call for an outlay of 25,000 a year, while the Pacific line would cost not less than 100,000 a year.
A solution of the difficulty was found through the good offices of the United States government. There was a service carried on twice a week between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco. The route was 2,765 miles in length, and it was covered by four-horse coaches with great regularity in twenty-two days.
This service, the United States government placed at the disposal of the British post office for the exchange of its correspondence with its distant colony. The mails on their arrival at San Francisco were delivered to the British consul, who arranged for their transmission to their destination.
At the best, the isolation of the new settlement was extreme. There had been a newspaper in Victoria since June 1858. It was published weekly, and for two weeks out of three, its columns were confined to purely local news. The third issue presented the appearance of a modern newspaper. The steamer "Eliza Anderson" had arrived from Olympia, bringing with it the despatches from San Francisco, containing news from all parts of the world.
How belated the news was may be gathered from a glance over one of the issues. The issue of March 9 contained news from San Francisco, not later than February 8, and from St. Louis, the latest date was February 5. As St. Louis was within the eastern telegraph system, the papers from the city contained despatches from all parts of the United States and Canada. It was observed that among the items of news was the arrival of the steamer "Bohemia" at New York, with the Liverpool newspapers of January 18. So that under ordinary circumstances, news from England was fifty days old before it reached the public in Victoria.
The construction of a telegraph line to the Pacific in the autumn of 1861, and the extension of the lines of the California State Telegraphic Company to Portland, Oregon, in 1864, did much to relieve the situation, so far as concerned news important enough to be sent by telegraph to the newspapers in San Francisco.
But the ordinary news from Canada did not reach Victoria by telegraph, and the length of the delay in the transmission of news from Canada by letter may be seen from the fact that the _British Colonist_ of November 11, 1864, contained a newsletter from Canada, dated September 30--six weeks earlier. Governor Kennedy in his annual report to the colonial secretary on the state of the colony in 1864 observed that "expensive and defective postal and other communications are the great bar to progress, and reflect but little credit on the two great nations--England and America. A _Times_ newspaper costs fourpence postage, and that for a book is entirely prohibitory."
Arrangements of a simple character were made for the conveyance of letters into the sections occupied by the miners. In November 1858, governor Douglas reported that the men at the mines--nearly all of whom were on the course of the Fraser river--numbered 10,500. He also stated that he had arranged a postal system on a small scale, which provided for the wants of the country, at an expenditure which was fully covered by the receipts.
The earliest letter delivery in this region was carried on by the express companies, whose operations were extended from California to British Columbia, with the migration of the miners to the newly-discovered gold districts. This mode of delivery is described by a British naval officer, who spent four years in the country, as one of the safest imaginable. He states that "so great is his faith in them that he would trust anything in even that most insecure country (California) in an envelope bearing the stamp of the Wells Fargo and Company's express."[324]
In May 1858 the colonial administration arranged with the private expresses for conveyance of letters anywhere within the colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island on condition of the prepayment of five cents per letter, as colonial postage.[325]
This rudimentary arrangement was replaced in 1864 by a regular departmental postal service with headquarters at New Westminster.[326]
The charges on letters and newspapers sent by post were fixed as follows: for every letter to and from British Columbia and Vancouver Island, delivered at Victoria or New Westminster, threepence per half ounce; on every newspaper posted under the same circumstances, one penny; on every letter from a post office at any one place in the colony to a post office at any other place in the colony, sixpence per half ounce; for a newspaper posted for delivery under the same circumstances, sixpence; on letters from any other place than Vancouver Island, threepence in addition to the foreign postage.