SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Tara Vatcher knows where you live.

A regular at Arctic Express - the company contracted by Canada Post to deliver parcels and registered letters to recipients all across the city - Vatcher is a living, breathing Yellowknife directory.

The first thing Arctic Express delivery person Tara Vatcher does when arriving at the Canada Post warehouse for her shift is check how many packages she and her co-workers will have to deliver that night. On Dec. 15, the count was just under 1,100. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

Point to a name on any parcel and she can instantly, and proudly, recall that person's address.

"I can pretty much remember every parcel that I pick up in my hand," says Vatcher. "I've done this for five years. I don't even look at the address; I just look at the person's name."

But, as Vatcher made clear last week during her Wednesday shift, delivering evening mail takes more than just a good memory; it helps to have thick skin, too. Literally.

"People only see us for five seconds, so they don't realize what we have to go through," she says. "I've fallen down stairs that weren't shovelled. I've been bit (by dogs) many times. Many times."

But their owners all say, "'Oh, (he's) friendly' - after its teeth are in my legs."

Sharp teeth and snow-covered steps - it's all in a day's work for Vatcher, whose route is Downtown B, which includes School Draw Avenue, Old Town and the Niven Lake area.

It's one of five routes covered by Arctic Express employees, all of whom use their own vehicles and, with that, pay for their own gas and, in come cases, damages.

Two weeks ago, while rounding the corner of Old Airport Road and Franklin Avenue, Vatcher pulled aside to let an ambulance and fire truck go by. As the emergency vehicles whizzed past, a rock was launched into Vatcher's back windshield. She drove to Mac's Convenience Store to assess the damage. When she shut the trunk, the glass shattered all over her parcels.

"Guess who had to pay for that? Me," she says of the windshield. "Guess how many nights I had to pay for that? I probably had to work four nights ... all for pulling on the side of the road for an ambulance."

Her van was fully loaded that night, stacked from floor to ceiling.

"It was good because the parcels kind of boxed out the cold - but as the parcels started getting down, I was like, 'Oh, it's getting colder, it's getting colder.' "

Vatcher's workday starts after she drops her kids off at home from school. Then she's off to the Canada Post warehouse near the airport - where all Canada Post regular mail and parcels are trucked or flown in - for 4 p.m.

The first thing she does after entering the warehouse is check 'the list' - the page outlining the total number of parcels destined for delivery that night.

On this evening, Dec. 15, Arctic Express is in full Christmas swing. There are about 1,100 parcels awaiting to be delivered among the five routes. Staff with Canada Post - who occupy the back half of the warehouse - have already separated the regular mail, which goes out during the day, from the Arctic Express evening parcels.

By the time Vatcher arrives, a seasonal staffer named Justin Campbell, stepson to Arctic Express owner Perry Campbell, has taken all of those packages and further separated them into five different bins - one for each delivery route.

Downtown B's share of the day's total, Vatcher estimates, is about 200.

"Normally it's just one person (working my route), but because it's Christmas, it's crazy busy. I do have somebody to help me a couple nights a week," she says.

On an average night during the rest of the year, Vatcher delivers anywhere between 40 to 80 parcels a night, four nights a week.

But Christmas is a different story. Vatcher works every weekday night, sometimes Saturday, too, if she doesn't get all her Friday deliveries done by 10 p.m. that night.

"We even deliver on Christmas Eve," she says.

After greeting Justin Campbell, Vatcher gets to work loading her Blue Dodge Caravan. Beside her, filling his own truck, is Kevin Vickers, who is helping her on her route during the holiday season. He'll handle School Draw and Old Town tonight, leaving the Niven Lake area for Vatcher.

"It's not an easy job. There's a lot of lifting and carrying. It's hard on the body," says Vatcher.

Parcels are plucked from bins and tossed from Vickers, who is perched on a ledge, to Vatcher, who stands on ground level and places the boxes near her van.

A sound akin to a muffled shotgun blast occasionally echoes through the warehouse as boxes hit the concrete floor.

"We pile them into the van the way we're going to deliver them," says Vatcher of the loading process. "So when I open the door of the van, the parcel I'm going to deliver first is right there and I don't have to search around for the parcel I'm looking for."

Vatcher always makes sure to keep her gloves in sight, lest they get buried among the cardboard.

Three rows down, tattooed Jason Coles carefully loads his van, reserving the last available slot for an immense pink box: a Barbie Dream Townhouse.

"It was tough at first, the first night I did it," says Coles, a two-year veteran. "I wasn't out of here until 7 p.m. If I come here at 4 p.m., I can be on the road by 5:30 p.m."

As that deadline approaches, Vatcher is carefully considering how to finish loading her van. Yellowknifers who order big items that take up a lot of room are at a disadvantage, she admits, because her van can only take so much.

Fortunately, whoever recently ordered a gun rack is in luck tonight, as it is among the big items that Vatcher finds room for.

She then goes to work filling in the remaining spaces with smaller packages, until even her baby seat lies under a sea of boxes.

Vatcher conducts a rough count of her parcels: 52. For each one, she will be paid $1.40.

"Fifty-two is not enough," she says. "To make it worth my while, (I need 80). After 80, not so much, unless you have doubles (customers receiving more than one package). Otherwise you're getting in and out of the van 80 times."

After grabbing a dozen more packages from Canada Post and placing them in the van, Vatcher hits the road. Her first stop is not technically part of her route, but crucial all the same. At the Tim Hortons drive-thru, she orders an extra large double-double with sweetener - the final step before she starts her deliveries.

Meeting her customers is what Vatcher loves most about her job, and her first stop - a side trip to the home of Grace Nakano on 41 Street - starts her night on a sweet note.

After handing over four large parcels, Vatcher is given a box of six Chocolatier truffles by Grace's son Ronnie, who wishes Vatcher a Merry Christmas.

In her brief exchanges with customers, Vatcher has come to make friends, she says.

"Last night I went to a place that I probably hadn't been to in almost a year. I was looking forward to going to the door because I knew, last year, the baby was only a couple months old. It was exciting to see how much he had grown in the last year. He was walking when I went there last night."

Though new make the job worthwhile, Vatcher added "there's certain people that I like to deliver to, and some that are not so nice."

Among her biggest pet-peeves are people who neglect to shovel their steps. Early in her tenure with Arctic Express, she fell down 12 stairs, ripping four fingernails right off after throwing her hands to catch herself.

"That was the beginning of the route. I still had 60, 70 parcels to deliver. I couldn't bring them back because I (was) going to have another 60, 70 parcels the next night. I

picked myself up and just carried on."

A good route is not measured by the number of stops it has, but by how well a deliverer knows its hidden and not-so-hidden dangers: the slippery stairs she learned about the hard way, or houses with dogs ready to pounce.

Vatcher uses codes to remind herself later why a package could not be delivered. "DCDW" means "Door code doesn't work." A lone "D" means "dog."

Now that she knows the ins and outs of her route, Vatcher can flag troubles early. Earlier, in the warehouse, pointing to a package, Vatcher said, "This apartment building? They have their front door locked. I can't even get into their buzzer; the buzzer is inside.

"So right away I know I don't have to waste my time putting that (one) in (the van)."

Finally, once Vatcher gets to Niven Drive, she settles into her routine: she parks in front of one house, makes her delivery and reenters her idling car, sometimes advancing as little as one driveway before reaching her next stop.

At one house, sparkling with Christmas lights, a young boy, about nine years old, answers the door.

"It's packages!" he exclaims to his parents, who are eating dinner.

"Thank you!" he says to Vatcher, excitedly grabbing two boxes, one of which is covered in Christmas wrapping.

"One's a Christmas present," the boy exults. "I knew it. I knew it!"

After that brief exchange - all 10 seconds of it - Vatcher climbs into her car, grabs her clipboard and continues inching her car up the street.

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