Please check the newest entries in this blog for the most current link to the most current Postlandia calendar!
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It's that time of the year again—that time I somewhat shamelessly inform you of the amazing and fantastic new Postlandia Calendar of Post Offices and Places! This year's [the 2018] iteration features 12 all-new and unique images, from a dozen different states. And these are really good ones!
Cover snippet
With Postlandia I've always brought you the stories behind the post offices and communities of America, and here you can explore a wide-ranging cross-section of the nation. This year's offerings transport you across the United States: Alaska, the South, New England, the Upper Midwest, California, and the vast and empty West. These photos take you not just from time zone to time zone, but span history as you explore photos from two centuries (taken from 1900 to the present).
Where can you find a literal 'floating post office' that rises with the tides? How about a vintage Vermont general store (and post office, of course) that appears today just as it did 100 years ago? The calendar also features the 1910 New Ulm, Minnesota post office, which was so distinctive that its construction essentially forced the government to re-write its design standards. And then there's the post office on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, and I guarantee it will floor you. (This particular location took me an hour and a half to find as I drove through the high desert this summer; for you it will have definitely been worth the wait.) And there's more. Much more. As always, here you don't just get photos, you get the story behind what makes them unique.
All images in the calendar are full-page and high quality. And, with each photo, there's full text at the bottom that explains exactly what's going on. Here are peeks at just a few of the images (which have been cropped to show detail on your screen)!
Minnesota: there's no place like New Ulm
Montana: last looks at a ghost town P.O.
Vintage Vermont
Again, there's so much more where these came from. I hope you experience as much enjoyment with this calendar next year as I enjoyed piecing it all together this summer. Remember, I've trekked to thousands of post offices—across all 50 states—to document as many post offices as I can, so I bring you some of the very best, anywhere.
I really do believe this is the perfect calendar for USPS employees, a great gift for the mail carrier in your life, a perfect purchase for philatelist and stamp collectors, and generally speaking, just the perfect post office calendar. The calendar is available [Nov. 2018 edit: link removed], at the website of a high-quality printer called Lulu. The calendar even has the honor of being on the printer's Holiday Gift Guide! Again, you can find it here, and everyone I know who's purchased either the 2017 or 2018 Postlandia post office calendar has loved it.
Hello again! Welcome to Postlandia's fourth installment of Alaskan postal explorations. In case you missed them here are the links to the first three posts in the series:
This time we conclude our late October explorations from Homer, Alaska. Instead of flying we will be heading to our final village off the road network, Halibut Cove, on the official U.S. mail boat. And like the communities we've visited in our previous posts, there's nothing quite where we've about to go.
TravelAlaska: "There are no roads to Halibut Cove — in fact there are no roads in Halibut Cove — but the community is only [a few] miles across Kachemak Bay from Homer and the famous Homer Spit... Halibut Cove's peak years date back to 1911 when it supported 42 herring salteries and a population of more than 1,000. After the salteries closed, most residents left and today the community is an enclave of artists, craftsmen, commercial fishermen and the operators of one very fine restaurant."
Halibut Cove features just one-to-two dozen permanent residents around its pristine waters, with scenic views of the Kenai Mountains and blocks of boardwalks on stilts to protect everyone from (as we noted back in Seldovia) some of the highest tides in the world. They also have, of course, a post office—a contracted Community Post Office (CPO), to be precise.
Fortunately, of those dozen full-time residents two are named Carl and Tammy Jones. They were gracious enough to answer all my questions, get me on the mail boat out to the town and ferry me back to Homer, all during the tourist off-season. Thank you, Tammy!
Our journey begins at the docks near the end of the four-mile-long Homer Spit (seen from above, below).
On the ground (water?) our destination of the Stormbird, a former U.S. Army T-boat that carries the mail twice a week to Halibut Cove. During the tourist season she also carries passengers who can "visit the art gallery, hike the scenic trails or beaches watching the wildlife or grab a bite to eat at the Saltry Restaurant." Today though, we're off to see Halibut Cove's floating post office.
Here is the Stormbird docked at the harbor in Homer, and its USPS / mail boat decal.
The Kenai Mountains are in the background as we leave the harbor.
Aboard is a stack of mail and a bag of mail. Mail gets delivered twice a week to Halibut Cove: Tuesday and Saturday. The post office is open those days and only those days. Current operating hours are 9:00am - 10:00am and 3:00pm - 5:00pm. The official "address" of the post office is 6400 Boat Dock Lndg.
You are welcomed to Halibut Cove by a former lighthouse, now a rental that can be had for a cool $200/night.
Stormbird is ably captained by skipper Jim, seen here focusing on the task at hand.
Upon arrival at the dock the mail is carried the few dozen feet to the post office. Halibut Cove is identified by USPS as a No-Office Point (NOP), "a location where there is no Postal Service facility or Postal Service personnel. The NOP community identifies and appoints an individual as the agent responsible for receipt and dispatch of mail."
Below, mail is walked to the post office, and contractor ('Postmaster') Kay comes down to greet the mail and open up shop for the afternoon. Behind her is the Halibut Cove Coffee House, a visitor favorite.
Stormbird handles deliveries beyond official mail as well. Tires were among the products getting delivered this October afternoon.
The post office building (along with the entire dock) rises and falls with the tide. Hence it is truly a floating post office. See the pilings? We're actually near high tide at this time. I think it's also interesting to watch just how extreme the tides in this area can be, and how it affects the piers. Watch this time-lapse video from nearby Tutka Bay, from low to high tide:
I will let the post office speak for itself. This might be the greatest post office sign ever.
The inside of the post office is not unusual, per se.
I think it's helpful to provide a broader view of the community. I never made it to high ground, per se, but one person who took a Halibut Cove hike, Panoramio user jeffxx, took this wonderful overview photo. I annotated a small version of it to show the Halibut Cove Community Post Office (CPO) in its larger context.
Anyway. I sent a LOT of postcards to my friends from the post office. Thank you, Kay, for putting up with me!
From the post office Carl Jones ferried me on the Bay Roamers Water Taxi to the beautiful Covelight Inn for some much-needed coffee after a long day of flights and ferrying. Bye, floating post office!
The water taxi ride was pleasant. You'll likely see wildlife during a trip to Halibut Cove. Case in point: welcome back, Otter!
Here's the lovely Covelight Inn. And here I am with Tammy, outside.
The trip back to Homer was chock full of wildlife, all documented (from very long range) while still in the cove. First was a sighting of Spot, the resident seal. You can even get postcards of him at the post office! Careful if you're a fisherman just back from a run; he might just snatch away some salmon!
Back on terra firma, here's one final look of the Homer Port and Harbor.
So the flights to Seldovia, Port Graham, and Nanwalek, as well as my trip on the mail boat, occurred in one day. Let's get a drink. The Salty Dawg Saloon is right by the docks and is positively plastered floor to ceiling in (largely signed) dollar bills. Talk about a really cool decor / possible fire hazard!
Anyway. Cheers, and thanks for joining me on this Alaskan voyage.
But before we go...
Whittier: The 'Town Under One Roof'
Before we bid adieu to the Last Frontier for now, I thought I'd show you a postal operation south of Anchorage that, while it is on the primary Alaskan road network, makes for a rather unique travel experience. That's because a mountain separates the city of Whittier from Portage, which is on the primary route Alaska 1. The solution? A tunnel, of course. But this isn't just any tunnel. This 2.6-mile tunnel was the longest highway tunnel in North America until it was edged out by upon completion of Boston's Big Dig. What's remarkable about Whittier's Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is that it's one lane wide. This means that both vehicular traffic, and even train traffic, travel in the same space. How is this accomplished? Very carefully.
Alaska.org: "The one-lane tunnel must be shared by cars and trains traveling in both directions, and it usually needs to be aired out in between trips (with jet turbine ventilation, another first!). This unique design that enables a single lane of traffic to travel directly over the railroad track saved tens of millions of dollars over the cost of constructing a new tunnel."
So how does it work? You can't travel the tunnel any time you want; there's a schedule stating when eastbound traffic can enter and travel (once per hour), and when westbound traffic can enter and travel (once per hour). And then, of course, the trains get their time slots as well.
The arrangement makes for an interesting visual when driving through.
Ah, yes. There's also a toll (collected eastbound), which was $13 for the round trip last year. And don't head to Whittier for the nightlife; the tunnel is closed entirely between 11:00 pm and 5:30 am.
So how is Whittier "under one roof," you ask? Because Whittier is an unusual town. For a community with only 200 residents the landscape is dominated by one surprisingly tall structure: Begich Towers, which houses most of the community's residents as well as the city offices, police department, and (of course) the post office! The contracted Community Post Office (CPO), to be precise.
The 14-story building was originally constructed as an army barracks during the 1950s. It was constructed in three phases as three buildings: "east," "middle," and "west". The post office can be found inside the east entrance (at left, above) along Kenai Street. It features a great wooden sign, banks of P.O. Boxes, and an experienced contractor who's got some interesting stories to share.
Whittier, Alaska Community Post Office (CPO):
You can see more photos and read more stories from Whittier here.
Hope you enjoyed! That's it for this episode, but don't worry, there are plenty of amazing post offices to be found all over our country. See you next time on Postlandia.
The first thing you'll notice about Nanwalek? Landing in Nanwalek is fun. Their runway is not exactly linear.
Welcome to our third installment of Postlandia visits Alaska. In our first post we discussed just how large Alaska is compared to the rest of the United States; took a postal tour of Alaska's largest city, Anchorage; and explored Alaska's unique Bypass Mail network. Next we headed down to the Kenai Peninsula; saw a couple of nice "log cabin" post offices; and took off from Homer to the villages of Seldovia and Port Graham. Now we take our third flight of the Alaskan October morning to Nanwalek. To review, here's a map of the flights we're taking in this corner of the Last Frontier.
Google Earth satellite imagery for Nanwalek is presently disappointing, so we won't have an annotated aerial view as we did with Port Graham. Nanwalek is the furthest community west on the Kenai Peninsula, and is only accessible by local boat or by airplane. It's a fraction of a square mile in size, built largely on top of a hillside (think: protection from tsunamis) overlooking the airport. The airport lies between a lagoon and the outer reaches of Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet (the body of water stretching from the northern Pacific Ocean inland to Anchorage. The gravel runway is 1,500 feet long, 50 feet wide, and, as we've seen, not perfectly straight. But it serves the community's needs.
Here I am at the modest airport terminal, getting greeted and inspected by a friendly local.
Here goes my ride! It's heading back to Homer, and another Smokey Bay Air plane will meet me in an hour.
I'm greeted by a local, Mackey, who's tasked with bringing the mail to the Community Post Office (CPO) from the airport. Mail is flown in three days a week from Homer, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—weather and regional volcanoes permitting. The CPO is open 11 am to 2 pm those days. The post office is located inside the building also housing the local tribal administrative office. I'll show you the outside in just a little bit; first let's see the sign.
This might strike you as modest. Did anyone else notice the red, 'white', and blue outlines? I love it. Below, here I am at the entrance. I also love the hanging sign with the standard stamp rate [remember, this was back in October], and the packaging with the active rates on them. It's always great seeing when people let loose that creativity.
Aside from this the interior is comparatively standard; you can see a bank of current-generation P.O. Boxes behind me there.
Now let's go outside. You might expect the sign to say good ol' Nanwalek, which is actually the local native term for "place by the lagoon." (Remember, the airport lies between the bay and a lagoon?) However, the sign says English Bay. This is no accident; the town was known as English Bay until 1991. Nanwalek is one of a number of Alaska place name changes in recent decades, part of a trend toward reclaiming indigenous names over arbitrary modern English monikers. (One larger example of this in action is Barrow, originally Utqiaġvik and officially, again, Utqiaġvik as of 2016. The name Barrow still appears on maps and on their post office.) Anyway, here's the sign designating (as well as yours truly):
Postlandia friend John Gallagher visited Nanwalek 25 years ago, and snagged a photo of the [now former site of the] operation in 1992. Look closely at that sign! Why fix what ain't broke?
Both names Nanwalek and English Bay belie an important part of the community's history, that of a Russian fur/pelt trading post starting in 1786. The community was then designated Alexandrovski. Alaska was Russian until the United States (remember "Seward's folly"?) purchased the entire territory in 1867. How English Bay got its name is unusual. According to Nanwalek's website, "The two villages [Nanwalek and Port Graham] share not only family relations but also many customs and traditions. Interestingly, the English names of the two villages were switched by a cartographer in the late 1800s. Thus, English Bay sits out on the tip of the peninsula, while Port Graham is located further in the bay." So English Bay shouldn't have been English Bay to begin with! It gets better still. I should note that our English Bay-née-Alexandrovski should not be confused with English Bay, a body of water out in the Aleutian Islands, whose name pertains to its exploration by Captain Cook.
All good? Great. Nanwalek's Russian heritage bears heavily on the town to this day, particularly in terms of its religious life. By the post office is the community's Russian Orthodox church, a structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is beautiful and I was honored that Mackey (seen later on) gave me a tour of the inside of the church. Isn't it lovely?
Here's the church's classic "onion dome"!
The Russian Orthodox have some beautiful traditions. I recommend visiting this KBBI story about Orthodox Christmas, which is celebrated on January 7. Here's a snippet, discussing the representation of the journey of the Three Wise Men:
Each region in Alaska that practices this style of caroling, what we call Slavic, they all have variations. But generally they follow a star, a wooden frame that’s decorated with the icon of nativity in the center and that star guides the carolers house to house.
The rituals are a blend of Native traditions, the community's Russian past, and Western influences alike. It's a rather unique combination.
The Russian Orthodox cemetery, located behind the church, is also beautiful. Male and female graves are marked distinctively: "The graves in this cemetery are marked with Russian Orthodox crosses. The crosses for females have a wooden "cap" signifying the caps women wear in church." Can you see the difference?
Here's my gracious tour guide, Mackey, on his ATV (perhaps the most common vehicle around town). The church is in the background.
Nanwalek, as one would expect, has a general store. It's bright and inviting inside, if rather nondescript outside.
Has anyone here tried Sailor Boy Pilot Bread?
I'll leave you now with a few closing views from Nanwalek. First up, the elementary-through-high school, a larger school with a more substantive playground than we saw over in Port Graham.
Here's a restful look at the Nanwalek lagoon, taken at the periphery of the airport.
Finally, a view of the Nanwalek airport/runway from the Russian Orthodox cemetery.
Flying back to Homer we get a view of the wonderful turquoise sea.
Finally, we return over four-mile-long Homer Spit. Here we see the harbor/marina, from which we'll depart for our final post office of the day.
Once again, thank you to Smokey Bay Air for working with me and making this trip possible!
In our next installment we take the mail boat to Halibut Cove, and after a long day we'll relax in the bar with 80 gajillion dollar bills on the wall, which can be found back at the end of the Alaskan road. We'll also explore one unique Alaska city, Whittier, which is accessible by a three-mile, one lane tunnel through the mountains.
