A Tale Of Mail

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] 1705 pierre de silva de português is appointed by the governor of new france as royal courier between Quebec and Montreal he also carries mail for ordinary citizens love letters summonses bills letters de cachet and so forth Pierre is Canada's first postman [Music] [Applause] [Music] one of the letters from Paris asks why it takes so long for goods to travel between Quebec and Montreal the explanation is simple there is no road there were no roads anywhere in those days the settlers were isolated from home by brooding forests and unnecessary quantities of rivers and lakes they could never be sure they'd ever hear from the old country again [Music] why to send the letter by C was to put it into the hands of the gods as the seed and the sailing ships were rarely unfriendly turns only that day we we're home [Music] on arrival in the New World the mail was delivered to a well-known coffeehouse by the ship's captain in person the citizens were only too pleased to compensate the captain for his trouble no mail we could always read somebody else's some letters wouldn't be read at all if the owners didn't show up in time they might get lost or stolen or suffer some other fake so even if you live near the port's delivery wasn't guaranteed but in the backwoods the message was direct and to-the-point the appointment of royal couriers improved communications along this in Lawrence River but dry land well that was a different matter [Music] so to the governor of New France the soldiers merchants and plain citizens took their gripes he agreed to build a road between Quebec and Montreal [Music] host houses were set up to provide relief for tuckered out travelers and tired horses the new road made it possible for citizens to travel and live in something like peaceful old French style except by now the peaceful old French for battling friendly old English again wolf ended this conflict at Quebec a new France wandered into the British Empire almost by accident when news arrived that peace had been signed in Paris a deputy postmaster promptly flew up from Philadelphia to set up a general post office in Quebec mr. Benjamin Franklin by name been established new post offices in Quebec three rivers in Montreal under a buoyant Scot named Hugh Finley [Music] Finley's put the post houses on the Quebec Montreal Road to good use in speeding the male and his carriers were given priority all along the route why even the ferryman were ordered to take the couriers across toll free of course improved communications had a stimulating effect on trade and commerce between French Canada and the other British colonies in North America the canoes that came swishing down the natural waterways from New York brought hot news from the outside world it was only a few weeks old then came 1775 the Mingus punk tempo was born the Mingus 1-temple Sarah Siddons made her debut on the London stage there was also a little spot of trouble in the colonies that year the Americans declared their independence a good many thousand Americans however remained loyal to the British crown and were forced to cross into Canada the Revolution was also highly inconvenient mail wise the mail now had to be collected from Halifax instead of New York in those days it was the addressee who paid the postage the postal official x-rayed the mail and if there were two sheets of paper inside it costs twice as much [Music] even by the year 1800 better still came by ship to Toronto renamed York later renamed Toronto land communication gradually improved it started with a courier trudging all the way from Montreal to Niagara once a year only ten years later there was a service every two weeks between Kingston and York later renamed and as clean wholesome immigrants poured into the country a mail service stove with them even deeper into the unknown [Music] in 1812 the Americans decided to see Canada but not as immigrants or tourists to encourage Canadians to free themselves from the yoke of British imperialism they burned all the post offices on the Niagara Peninsula [Music] [Music] however after three years of fighting during which the ineptitude of one side was nicely balanced with the incompetence of the other they went home and peace broke out again this gave communications a chance to improve still further new towns new roads were built even a new bridge or two steamboats made their appearance on Lake Ontario complete with smokestacks and mailboxes however most people still left their letters in the captain's cabin [Music] the official rates were so steep that hardly anyone could afford them for this small unofficial service the captain charged a small unofficial fee and trouble was the post office like everything else was still being run from London a reform movement sprang up its loudest spokesman was mr. William Lyon Mackenzie among a good many other institutions he denounced the postal service it was illegal monopoly there Arden to be allowed [Music] and worst of all the profits all went to England the Reformers passed a law for a provincial post office the executive passed it back they'd been passing for years this dot on the reformers nerves and 1837 they rebelled in Montreal and in Toronto where McKenzie made his headquarters in a well-known refreshment establishment which may or may not have been the reason the rebellion failed [Music] afterward the government which had brought a little energy to running the country showed plenty and looking for culprits culprits were everywhere from the lowest will push her to Toronto's illustrious postmaster the rebellion was by no means washout however some of the time its source had healed it had become obvious that colonial rule was going out of fashion responsible government was becoming visible through the smoke of the Industrial Revolution the building of the la Prairie to st. John's Quebec railway in 1836 was one of the manifestations of this revitalized a [Music] a rush of railway building throughout Eastern Canada followed the post-office was quick to take advantage of this newfangled means of communication [Music] the West though was still isolated apart from the occasional dog team there was little contact between East and West and [Music] then yes in 1858 gold was discovered on the Fraser River thousands joined the go [Music] including the post office whose most colorful agent in the West Bernard's Express galloped with the male's to the remotest parts of the goldfields but with all that gold and all those miners British Columbia looked like a Friday night Russia [Applause] [Music] but all too soon the dust in the Nuggets were panned out and British Columbia was left highly uncertain about its future stay with the rest of Canada hmm join the United States they decided to stay on the condition that rail and postal services would link them with the rest of the country they got the mail service though for a long time it was courtesy of the steamers from San Francisco finally in 1885 after great hardship and crippling opposition from the less imaginative Donald Smith of the Canadian Pacific Grove the LA bent that bent the last [Music] finally drove the last spike the mail service and the country were united at last changing and growing together through the Victorian era when aircraft became reliable mailbag started flying around dizzy speeds of over a hundred miles an hour why by the Second World War they were fairly clipping hello and when Rockets become standard transportation the mail is sure to be aboard [Music] [Music] 250 years after Pierre de Silva to português the business letters the love letters the newsletters the summonses are still being delivered to you and I with the same personalized service the Canada's first mailman started it so long ago [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]