Issued by the Canadian Aerophilatelic Society’s Western Chapter, Recognizing the 75th Anniversary of the Official Airmail Flights by Commercial Airways to the Western Arctic — November 1929 – January 1930 is a commemorative package pairing a research booklet with two specially cancelled souvenir cards. Its story runs from Ottawa’s tender for Mackenzie River District airmail — closed June 7, 1929, awarded to Edmonton-based Commercial Airways Ltd. on November 25 over rival bidder Western Canada Airways — to the return of the last aircraft to Edmonton on January 3, 1930.

The booklet sets context with a short piece on the earlier, unofficial 1929 Mackenzie flights by C. H. “Punch” Dickins of Western Canada Airways in his Fokker Super Universal (Fort McMurray → Fort Providence → Fort Simpson, January 23–February 5, 1929, with a landing-gear/prop-shortening incident at Fort Resolution). The main narrative then covers the awarded contract service: 26 special mailbags of cachet-stamped philatelic mail were sent from Edmonton to Fort McMurray on November 26, 1929 with pre-cancelled First Flight Covers. From December 10 through December 20 mail moved out to Fort Chipewyan, Fort Fitzgerald, Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Hay River, Fort Providence and Fort Simpson; after weather turned back the December 21 attempt, two planes left again on December 22 for the run down-river to Wrigley, Fort Norman, Fort Good Hope, Arctic Red River, Fort McPherson and finally Aklavik on December 27. Return flights began December 30, with the final leg into Edmonton on January 3, 1930 flown by Wop May and Cy Becker, accompanied by Fort McMurray postmaster Guy Rocke, Canadian Wright mechanic Tim Sims, Postal Superintendent Walter Hale, and Edmonton Journal reporter Ted Watt.

In total, 125 flights were made by six pilots using four aircraft (Bellanca CH-300 Pacemakers CF-AJQ, CF-AJR, CF-AKI, and Lockheed Vega CF-AAL), racking up roughly 181 flying hours: Wop May flew about 58, Idris Glyn-Roberts about 50, “Boom” Lumsden 30, Cy Becker 25, Moss Burbidge 10, and Archie McMullen 8. Philatelic mail totalled 1,270 lbs (~120,000 covers); commercial mail (including parcel post) totalled 7,677 lbs. The Post Office paid Commercial Airways $7,500 for two months of service plus $2,703.08 at $0.5417/mile for extra philatelic-mail trips.

Reproduced in the booklet are the Post Office Department Announcement (Ottawa, August 1929) listing the 22 cachet routes and required 5¢/oz airmail rate; the Post Office “Winter Air Mail Service 1929–30 – Mackenzie River” poster(24 Sept 1929) with schedules, air parcel post rates (50¢, 75¢, $1.00/lb by zone), and the strict 800-lb load-limit priority order; and the Commercial Airways Ltd. rate/schedule poster with the “Air Lines to the Arctic” map. A full day-by-day flight table lists every leg by pilot and aircraft, and portrait pages show the six pilots plus mechanics Casey van der Linden, Don Robertson, Tim Sims, Stan Green, and passengers Walter Hale and Ted Watt.

The package’s centrepiece — the two numbered, Denny May-signed souvenir cards — carry the December 2004 postmarks of Fort McMurray and Fort Simpson, are back-stamped and signed by the postmasters of every community along the original route (Fort Chipewyan through Aklavik), and bear the “Celebrating Alberta’s Centennial” January 3, 2005 Edmonton cancel — 75 years to the day after the aircraft returned. ∎