March & April 2010
Mail days in McCarthy look much different than mail day delivery in the “big city.”
First, it is not 5 or 6 days a week but twice a week; that is, unless the weather keeps our mail pilot on the ground in Glennallen, about 125 miles west of our community.
Wednesdays and Fridays are the scheduled days for both incoming and outgoing mail. For the most part, if one of those days is missed due to adverse weather conditions, our mail pilot tries again the next day.
Copper Valley Air Service has a variety of airplanes and pilots. Dave Parmenter, owner, is often our “mail pilot.” Dave is pictured here as he prepares to unload his Cessna 185 with all our mail day goodies. Wheel skies are still a “must” during the latter part of February.
Winter mail days are usually sparsely attended by local residents. The McCarthy/Kennicott area population is only about 50-60 year round folks and work is seasonal—mostly in the summer months. In recent years, the majority of us take advantage of the slower-paced winter months to travel and visit family and friends or just seek out those warmer climes.
Transportation to mail is usually by snowmachine with sleds to haul incoming boxes. Others prefer skiis while a few prefer a nice, warm truck.
Summer population swells and instead of half a dozen people (or sometimes less) attending a winter mail day, a summer mail day may see 20-30 folks turn out.
Extremely cold temperatures in the morning at the time of the mail plane’s arrival (11:00 a.m.) can discourage otherwise interested mail day participants in traveling to the “mail shack,” as it is called.
Our small one-room building which houses our nearly 90 small or large wooden boxes, affixed on two walls, can easily fill up with incoming boxes of mail order items, groceries from Glennallen, and the 3 or 4 mail sorters who are usually bundled up in their bulky winter garb. A sorting bench lines one of the longer walls. A 20 lb. propane tank topped with a Mr. Heater gives a slight source of heat for those cold fingers that need a warm-up after handling letters, magazines and catalogs. Larger incoming boxes are stacked underneath the sorting table and the smaller ones on top. Most of the parcels are gone by the next mail day with respective owners picking them up during the warmer part of the day.
The present mail shack was built after high winds leveled our former building. Winds estimated near 100 miles an hour on Dec. 22, 1996, left mail scattered for some distance and the need for a new building. The Department of Transportation was kind enough to supply enough building materials for a new mail shack. About the only thing reusable from the original building was the floor. All four walls and the roof were extensively damaged. Local volunteers were rounded up and by mail day, Feb. 26, those of us who showed up for mail discovered a fully-constructed building ready for its first bag of U. S. mail!
The mail plane often brings us passengers. On Feb. 17th of this year, Erica Edmonds, a new park ranger for the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park arrived to take a winter look at Kennecott. This was her first trip to our town and she came with plenty of warm gear, including a pair of skis. She was met by local resident and, park ranger, Stephens Harper. Arriving on a Wednesday enabled her to spend a couple days in the area and then return on the Friday mail plane back to Glennallen.
I hope you enjoyed taking a peek into a special part of McCarthy’s routine—our winter mail days. If you are privileged to get mail delivered to your doorstep, you may want to stop and count your blessings.
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