Post Office

Post Office. . , Nearly every village along the rivers of Alaska had a post office. They were only open when mail was delivered. Often the postmaster would start a fire in the post office stove to warm up the cabin, meet the airplane, dog team or riverboat that was delivering the mail and then hand out the mail to the residents. As a result, the post office served as a community meeting place where people not only received supplies and correspondence from the outside world, but they would also stay connected with each other., When Captain Jim was running riverboats up and down the Tanana and Yukon rivers he regularly delivered supplies and mail to remote villages. Village residents were always happy and eager to see the riverboat and often everyone would come out on shore to meet the riverboat and warmly welcome the captain and crew. Captain Jim got to know many residents of countless villages through his role as mail man., The cabin that serves as our post office features a sod roof, which was common in native villages. While the grass and flowers growing on the roof give it a decorative appearance, the sod was actually quite practical. Originally, the roofs of cabins would be composed of sheets of peeled bark laid flat and overlapping each other much like shingles, from the eave up to the ridge., In the absence of nails, the bark was weighted down by placing three to six inches of soil on top. This also added a valuable layer of insulation. As vegetation began to take hold, the root system held the roof together and served to keep the Athabascans warm and protected from the elements even during the harshest conditions. In the summer the roof system would retain rainwater helping to keep the cabin cool., Our post office cabin features the coal and wood burning pot belly stove Captain Jim once used and a bronze statue of Susan Butcher's legendary lead dog, Granite. Dog teams were often used to deliver mail to rural villages in the winter months when the riverboats could no longer run., [Top photo caption reads] "Post Office in Wiseman", [Bottom photo caption reads] "US Mail Being Delivered by Dog Team"