jflail &erbice 



(HEN my father settled at Trinity Bay in 

 1859, we had no mail service at all in this 

 part of the country, the nearest post office to the 

 Bay that I remember having been Bersimis. Dur- 

 ing the summer we sent or received letters by trad- 

 ing vessels or fishing schooners which outfitted in 

 Quebec and returned there after the season's 

 operations were over. In winter, about the mid- 

 dle of January, a private mail was sent by the 

 Hudson Bay Company from their post at Mingan, 

 which was, and still is, the chief one on Western 

 Labrador and the North Shore, east of Bersimis. 

 The distance from Mingan to Bersimis and re- 

 turn, by land, counting all the detours that have 

 to be made, is over six hundred miles. 



Three men were generally sent on this trip, in- 

 cluding one of the junior clerks who always had 

 charge of the despatches and saw to the purchase 

 of provisions and other necessaries during the 

 voyage, which generally took six weeks. The 

 whole trip had to be performed on snowshoes, and 

 the mail and provisions, etc., were carried in a 

 pack, each one taking his share. My early com- 

 panion and friend, Mr. Peter McKenzie, made 

 the trip several winters in succession. When the 

 party happened to put up for the night at some 



