The Canadian Postal Guide is an essential tool for postal workers. It contains all the regulations and information concerned with the processing of mail.

The precursor of the Canadian Postal Guide fit on a single sheet of paper. In 1765, Benjamin Franklin and John Foxcroft, Deputy Postmasters General for the colonies of British North America, circulated a table listing 41 post offices with the rates in effect for transporting letters between them. In 1829, a similar table indicated the rate structure and distances covered in transporting mail between Québec (Lower Canada) and Fort Erie (Upper Canada). A book published in 1851 by the postal administration for the Province of Canada has a section called  "Facts pertinent to the operation of the postal service." It does not discuss rates, for, at the time, there was a standard rate of three pence for mail within the Province of Canada. The book lists the 638 post offices, indicating the county, township and postmaster’s name for each. In 1863, John Dewé, Post Office Inspector for the Province of Canada, took the initiative of compiling all the information required by postmasters to do their work properly. In the first section of the first Canadian Postal Guide is a brief history of the Post Office in Canada, recalling the development of the Canadian postal system. This is followed by an overview of the postal administration as it existed at the time in 1863. The five postal divisions (Québec, Montréal, Kingston, Toronto and London) are listed with a list of counties for each. The bulkiest part of the guide, the "Rules and Regulations" section, cites all the rules, definitions, rates, and procedures for all types of postal shipments. In this section of the Canadian Postal Guide, suggestions are offered by the Post Office department to the public on how to make the most effective possible use of postal services. For example, it advises against using wax to seal letters going to warm countries. For, as the heat causes the wax to melt, the letters will stick to each other, to the annoyance of both postmasters and the recipients, whose correspondence arrives in a wretched state. Also included in the Guide are the lists of post offices, offices that issue postal money orders, and railway stations and telegraph offices in Canada. Finally, the main railway routes used to transport the mail are indicated, along with the distances between the different stations. Dewé had provided for the publishing of revised copies as changes were made to the postal regulations, i.e. once or twice a year. It was in 1875 that the Canadian Postal Guide adopted the format we know today, of four editions per year.

If the Postal Guide is an essential working tool for postal employees and an invaluable instrument of communication between the department and the public, it is also an important reference document for postal historians, for it is an aid in retracing the path of Canada’s postal history. Today, Canada Post produces a CD-ROM version of the Canadian Postal Guide. As one might expect, the National Archives of Canada holds the complete collection of the Canadian Postal Guide.

Stéphanie Ouellet

Sources

Campbell, Frank W. Canada Postal History. n.p., 1958.

Dewé, John. Canadian Postal Guide. Toronto: R. & A. Miller, 1863.

McGuire, C. R. Aspects of Canadian Philately. Toronto: Canada Post Corporation, 1987, pp 5-6.