by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 03/97) - Residents of the Keewatin are among the only ones in Canada who are still receiving any mail.

Post offices are open and mail is moving within the Keewatin, but the amount of mail is limited because of the strike that has closed offices everywhere in Canada, including Yellowknife, Hay River and Inuvik.

Keewatin residents are receiving mail only within the region. Postal workers in these communities are still working because they are not in the same union as the Canada Post employees that are on strike.

The unionized workers at Canada Post shut down services Nov. 19, when they failed to reach an agreement for a new contract.

Despite the continuation of services in the Kivalliq region, residents are receiving little mail.

Louise Malliki, Repulse Bay postmaster, said that the community is still receiving mail from Rankin Inlet, but little from the other centers.

"We're not getting any from the south," she said. "We've had little to do all week."

Maggie Panika, postmaster in Rankin Inlet, said that the office hasn't received mail from the south since before the strike, except for a shipment from Churchill, Manitoba, last Wednesday.

Since then, the amount of mail moving through the community has slowed down.

Even the amount of mail coming from around the Keewatin is slowing down, according to Panika.

"We stopped receiving mail from around the Keewatin Monday afternoon," she said. Panika also said that there is little mail getting out to the communities because there's nothing coming into the region to go out to them.

"There's nothing coming in for the Keewatin so we can't put anything out," she said.

Despite the slowing of the system, Panika said that residents can still mail within the Keewatin.

"Mail will be sent out to the communities next week," she said.

And while she looks forward to the strike ending and services being restored, she doesn't look forward to the huge influx of letters and packages that will flood the system for the Christmas season.

"I don't want to drown with all the mail," she added.

The last postal strike was 1991.