by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 26/97) - When a postal strike gripped the country in the late fall of 1975, Yellowknifers did the only thing they could in the pre-e-mail, pre-fax era: they started their own post office.

When posties walked off the job 22 years ago almost to the date of the current strike, a group of Northern businessmen banded together to operate their own mail service and post office.

It only worked for letters sent and received within the city, and most of it consisted of paycheques and bills, but it adequately replaced Canada Post for the duration of the month-long strike, recall those behind the idea.

"It was mostly business mail, there wasn't a lot of personal mail," said Dave Nickerson, a former MP and one of the people behind the idea.

"We just did it as a kind of public service, that was all."

The post office operated in the basement of the old City Hall and was the brainchild of Nickerson, Tom Doornbos, Jack Decker and Barry Hickey, while the service was championed by xxxYellowknifer. The boxes themselves were built by local contractor Rod Russell and the post office operated six hours a day, five days a week.

People paid 20 cents for each letter distributed by the post office and at the end of the experiment, the office had turned a profit, said Yellowknifer publisher Jack (Sig) Sigvaldason.

Businesses were also encouraged to send their paycheques through the post office because most of the mail people began getting consisted of bills, and so they were often less than conscientious about checking their boxes.

When the strike ended, all the remaining mail was hand-delivered, and Nickerson said he did not hear any rumblings from the other set of posties about the enterprise.

"We never heard any complaints from either the post office manager or the unions," he said.

"They might have said something different under their breaths but we never heard it."

When asked if the idea might still be feasible today, though, Nickerson downplayed the suggestion, saying 1975 was a different time with a different set of circumstances.

"Back then, we didn't have faxes and all the other things we have today -- courier companies in the city that deliver parcels, that sort of thing," he said.

"I don't know if there would be a need for it now, really."

-For more on the current postal strike, see business briefs in the Business and Labor section.