Mail Service in the Arctic

At the turn of the twentieth century, Alaska and Puerto Rico represented the northernmost and southernmost territories serviced by the U.S. Post Office Department. Alaska, which had been purchased from Russia in 1867, grew quickly as mining prospectors flooded the territory; they required increased mail delivery via both water and land. Puerto Rico, won from Spain in 1898, necessitated the expansion of United States mail service across an ocean. An avid traveler who had already explored Alaska and visited Tierra del Fuego, Greenland, Newfoundland, and Ireland, Rockwell Kent was a natural choice to depict the importance of the post in these two far-flung locales.

In the 1930s, mail still arrived in Alaska's ports by ship from Seattle. From there, airplanes commonly transported letters and goods within the state. At each stop, bags were transferred to dog sleds for delivery to their final destinations. Native Alaskans, who were far more familiar with the land and its navigation than recent immigrants, were often hired to drive the dog sleds. This represented a great economic opportunity for a group of people otherwise facing fierce discrimination. In Mail Service in the Arctic, a group of native Alaskans bids farewell to the mail plane. In the foreground, an envelope addressed to Rockwell Kent at Au Sable Forks, New York, changes hands between two women dressed in traditional fur-lined parkas and the driver of the sled.