Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 16/99) - Canada Post supervisor Dave Craig says there are some good news stories, too.

Replying to recent charges of poor customer service levelled by a local woman, whose hand-made dresses went missing the mail, the Yellowknife supervisor said Canada Post does some extraordinary things to get the mail through.

"A guy in Fort Smith blew up a balloon and wrote Happy Birthday and the street address on it with a felt marker and sent it as regular mail with a stamp on it," Craig said. "It was delivered in Edmonton two days later -- and he was so impressed he called to compliment us."

While Craig added that Canada Post certainly doesn't want to encourage the use of such unorthodox packaging, he said the story represents some of the untold, positive postal experiences people have.

"We just don't get the good news," he said. "A lot of people don't understand what we insure or how we insure things...and we're more than willing to share that with them, but we have to be asked questions beforehand."

Canada Post spokeswoman Teresa Williams said insuring mail doesn't necessarily change its delivery route -- or the fact that non-Canada Post employees will be handling it. But she said insurance guarantees the post office will refund the item's value or estimated worth.

Williams also pointed out that Canada Post is fair in that postal charges are consistent across the country -- even for remote Northern communities -- though the trade-off is longer delivery times.

"A lot of people expect to be able to put a parcel in the mail in Edmonton and have it here the next day," said Craig, "but like everything else, it's subject to the ferry and the ice road."

With Elizabeth Noel's recent experience and her lost dresses, others have come forward with their own post office encounters of a more negative kind.

"It's almost like everyone in Yellowknife has a Canada Post story," said Marilyn Morin, who lost $120 worth of quilting fabric in the mail, last summer.

"It hurts when something gets lost in the mail -- but it's the attitude that really irks you."

Morin said she had $120 worth of quilting fabric go missing in the post, and received a polite but ultimately unhelpful response at a 1-800 number and less-reassuring assistance from the Yellowknife office.

Government worker Charlotte Babicki said she was surprised last week to see a contractor emptying a mail box at the Panda II Mall about a half-hour before the designated pick-up time.

"He told me all the boxes in town say 11 o'clock on them but that he can't pick them up all once," Babicki said. "But shouldn't the posted time be the earliest -- so if you're racing to the box just before 11, you can be assured you didn't miss the only run of the day...it would be nice to have more accurate times."

Some good news came to Elizabeth Noel since her plight with the lost dresses had been publicized, there had been some communication between her and Ottawa.

"Canada Post in Ottawa called me and asked me for photos of the dresses," she said.