Inuvik (Dec 24/04) - While Santa Claus gets most of the credit for making sure presents are under the tree on time, the unsung holiday heroes at Canada Post toil away behind the scenes.

"The volume of mail at least doubles, if not triples, over the holidays," said Inuvik Canada Post Office supervisor Robert Ploughman Tuesday afternoon. "They dumped on us this morning, but we managed to get through it."

With a staff of nine sorters and clerks, the crew in Inuvik keep the outgoing mail flowing and sort through the incoming, which can pile up quickly.

"Last week I had to call CBC to tell people to come and get their mail as the storeroom was packed with parcels.

"About the end of November it starts and slows down a bit just before Christmas," Ploughman said. "Then afterwards we get hit again with all the mail that never made it on time."

When letters and packages are late, it is rarely the fault of the Canadian Postal Service, which handled more than 10 billion pieces of mail in 2003, according to Ploughman.

"Sometimes people mailing down south think it's going to get there in a day," said clerk Sue Rioux. "It's not really a panic, but just frazzled customers in the holiday rush."

As for strange packages and odd requests, Inuvik postal staff talk about the real Christmas trees shipped in from the east coast one holiday season. No such items have come through the post office this year, however.

"One time we had a person come in with a TV set, no box or anything, and ask if we could mail it to Edmonton," recalled Rioux.

As well as the occasional strange parcel, the post office has to cope with the many spellings of Inuvik.

Inuville is just one of more than 100 different variations sorters have come across in the past.

And in the holiday spirit, the Inuvik Post Office acts as a hub for letters from around the world addressed to Santa Claus, which are passed on to the North Pole.

Don't forget the postal code: HOH OHO!