My wife Kathy is always on the lookout for items of historical interest.
One she purchased recently was an envelope postmarked Carcross, April 13, 1928. It is addressed to Clyde Wann, Yukon Airways and Exploration Company, Atlin, British Columbia. Across the front a red white and blue paper ribbon was attached with the words “Air Mail – Care of YUKON AIRWAYS & EXPLORATION CO., LTD., WHITE HORSE.” At the time, the name of Whitehorse was still two words.
In the lower corner of the front of the envelope, the signature of the pilot, T.G. Stephens and the words “FIRST FLIGHT,” had been applied with a rubber stamp. A cancellation from Atlin on the same day can be found on the reverse side of the envelope.
This flight was intended to promote the new Yukon Airways air mail service. The flight departed Whitehorse at 8:40 a.m. on April 13, 1928, and landed at Carcross a half hour later, before continuing to Atlin (for many years, Carcross was an important aviation terminal). The trip, which carried only this unique cargo, was completed without incident.
Some 2,200 or more covers were carried on this flight, as well as several hundred copies of a special edition of the Whitehorse Star from the same date that proclaimed “Carcross and Atlin Have First Visit From Airship!”
The aircraft , which had arrived in the Yukon the previous year, was The Queen of the Yukon, with the call sign G-CAHR. The Ryan B-1 Brougham was purchased new for $10,260 at the factory in San Diego in July, 1927 by Andy Cruickshank and Clyde Wann, owners of Yukon Airways and Exploration Company Ltd. A modified version of this aircraft, named The Spirit of St. Louis, was flown across the Atlantic by American aviator Charles Lindbergh the same year.
The aircraft arrived in Skagway aboard the steamer Princess Alice on Oct. 21, 1927 where the fuselage, wings and motor were assembled. Four days later, the Spirit of the Yukon arrived in Whitehorse at 8:30 in the morning.
The Queen flew into Mayo on Nov. 1, 1927 carrying the first shipment of letters delivered by air. After being grounded for two days, it continued on to Keno and then returned to Mayo. The plane departed Mayo on Nov. 6, headed for Dawson City. But due to the lack of a suitable airfield, she did not land. Instead, she circled the Yukon capital at 11:35 a.m. Flying over the ball field at an altitude of 100 metres, pilot Cruickshank dropped a bag of mail which landed in a hedge at the home of Inspector F. Humby. Cruickshank then piloted the Queen back to Mayo before returning to Whitehorse.
Four days later, permission was granted by the Canadian government for Yukon Airways to carry air mail letters to various Yukon destinations, with the following conditions:
That a sticker reading “VIA AIR MAIL” be affixed to the front of each envelope.
That each letter should have regulation Canadian postage on the front.
A special stamp, issued by the carrier, in the value of 25 cents per ounce be affixed to the air mail letter as a surcharge imposed by the carrier.
The sender assumed the risk for delivery.
The first official air mail delivery to Dawson City occurred Nov. 11, when the Queen of the Yukon landed on a snow-covered beach in front of Sunnydale, opposite Dawson.
The second delivery of air mail never made it by air. On Nov. 24, due to the extreme cold, the airplane was forced to land on a small lake near Pelly summit. From there, the mail was carried forward by dog team.
The plane was towed overland to Mayo, where repairs were not completed until April. By that time, the company had been restructured, and pilot Cruickshank had taken a job with another aviation company. Cruickshank’s replacement was former RAF pilot Tommy Stephens. In the meantime, mail deliveries continued to be made by the traditional overland routes.
Yukon Airways resumed its mail deliveries April 2, 1928, after repairs to the Queen were completed. About two weeks later, it made the delivery to Atlin which produced the envelope cover that is now part of our collection.
Unfortunately, the flights of the Ryan aircraft came to an abrupt end on May 5. When returning to Whitehorse from Mayo, The Queen of the Yukon was caught by a fierce crosswind, causing it to crash into a waiting truck. The passengers all survived the collision, but the Queen was a write-off. It would still be a while before reliable regular air mail could be guaranteed.
The introduction of air service to communities such as Mayo and Dawson displaced, to a great extent, and took away significant revenue from the overland stage service in the winters and the overland route never entirely recovered from the loss.
The mail service that preceded air mail had many challenges. For the first Europeans to arrive in the late 1800s, there could be up to an 18-month wait for a response to a letter sent Outside. Early mail was carried by steamer down the Yukon to St. Michael, from which it would be transported south on the next available southbound vessel. Local mail delivery within the Yukon relied upon dog teams. And carrying mail could be dangerous. Case in point: Tom Williams, who volunteered to carry mail announcing the discovery of gold in the Forty Mile district in 1886, died several weeks later in Dyea, shortly after completing his journey, as a result of the rigours of the trail.
A decade later, Bernard Moore was contracted by the Canadian government to carry mail to the town of Forty Mile. He left Dyea on July 5, and delivered his mail to Forty Mile three weeks later. His return journey to Dyea, which involved poling his boat upstream against the strong Yukon River current, took from July 30 until Sept. 11.
During the gold rush, the Northwest Mounted Police took on the task of transporting and delivering mail under the most primitive of conditions. At first there was confusion, then long waiting lines.
It took a while to work out the wrinkles in air mail service in the Yukon. But it made for speedier delivery of business correspondence and personal family news. Letters sent to and from the Yukon before the gold rush cost a dollar each (today, that would be roughly $35) and took several weeks or months to reach an Outside connecting point. The new speedier air mail service reduced the cost to 27 cents. Today, with the internet, messages can now be sent around the world in seconds at virtually no cost.
What a long way we have come, and what gratitude we owe those early mail carriers from dog mushers to pilots!