This post looks at railway post office (RPO) arrangements for Berton/Helston. A significant amount of historical Canadian post office information is preserved at archive.org. This data does not contribute significant additional information about Berton/Helston's local history. However, it does provide a case study of how RPO service was organized by the Canadian government's postal service. It also shows how the service evolved as railway lines and settlement spread across the Prairies.
The Renaming of Berton to Helston
Government department names and website links change.
However, as I post this in 2022, if you search under this department:
Manitoba, Natural Resources and Northern Development
And click the underlying URL here:
Geographical Names of Manitoba
You will have an option of downloading a PDF of Manitoba's place names and their origins.
This is what the file shows for Helston:
And here is the link for 'Douglas 1933' at archive.org
Place Names of Manitoba, 1933
https://archive.org/details/P005678/mode/2up
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The map below shows Helston and other significant points which will be mentioned in the postal documents. Key locations are hi-lited with yellow dots.
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| from: Railroad Map of Western Canada; undated, circa 1955; Canadian Freight Association. |
As I worked with the on-line postal data, I realized that my copy of the book, below, could provide a little more background on the RPO routes. Entire pages are reproduced from this book with the salient paragraph hi-lited with a yellow dot.
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| A History of Canadian RPOs 1853-1967; LF Gillam, Ossett UK; self-published. |
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It seemed beneficial to provide the original pages in a consistent logical order for each date selected. You will notice there is general repetition of the same postal service instructions to employees from year to year. However, looking at the original documents and how they were modified gives one a better sense of how information was communicated back then, and how modifications were made to official routing documents in the field - i.e. using a fountain pen.
I have included all the pages giving instructions about how operations were to be organized. The rest of the books simply list the post offices alphabetically.
There is no indication where these particular books of data were used and modified, but it seems likely they were not used at the main Ottawa offices of the postal service, given the informal updating process.
* * *
May 1904
This page gives general instructions:
This page shows each RPO route by: 1. Railway 2. End points of the RPO route
3. How the route is abbreviated beside each post office listed in this directory.
Here is the first page of the alphabetical listing ... along with its instructions.
This page shows Berton.
It is unusual because it shows the
Canadian Pacific Railway W&Y (Winnipeg and Yorkton) RPO
with distribution at Keyes.
Here is CPR Keyes. It is on the same CPR RPO route as Berton.
Its mail arrives daily (i.e. ex Sun) on Trains 17 and 18.
A Google image with Helston (Berton) in the foreground and Keyes to the north.
Before RPO service began on the Canadian Northern Railway line through Berton,
the RPO travelling along the CPR through Keyes would have dropped off and picked up Helston's mail.
This page from the RPO history book gives a little background on the railway line
and the particular Winnipeg & Yorkton RPO which ran on the CPR.
(see the yellow dot)
* * *
March 1914
Here is the list of the various RPO routes.
This time, Berton will be on W & PA ... RPO (12).
W&PA is revealed to be Winnipeg and Prince Albert on the Canadian Northern.
The first page of alphabetical listings is included for its instructions.
Berton is on the Winnipeg and Prince Albert RPO, receiving daily service (ex Sun) on Train 3.
The text of the RPO book indicates that the original CNoR and GTP RPO routes
were generally maintained after the advent of Canadian National Railways.
The pen corrections to the W&PA RPO 1 above - PA versus SR - are explained at the dot below.
* * *
1918
This is near the end of World War I.
The Berton listing will be overwritten to show it is on the route of the WN&R RPO
(written in on the page below).
Below, we learn that the WN&R is considered a Canadian National Railways route.
Winnipeg to Russell.
First page of the alphabetical listing for its instructions ...
Berton is shown on the WN&R RPO route receiving service MWF Sa(?) via Train 17.
The RPO book (yellow dot below) suggests that the WN&R route was perhaps a wartime anomaly.
... I think the government takeover of the Canadian Northern
and the task of reorganizing and consolidating of the various routes,
even as the branch lines continued to be built/completed during the war,
could explain the unusual arrangement.
It was probably a pretty chaotic period in western railway history.
Perhaps this was also done with the expectation that the Grand Trunk Pacific RPOs
would sooner or later be brought into the Canadian National fold.
* * *
1923
Regarding the name change from Berton to Helston.
Here is a link to the post office distribution list
showing the name change.
https://archive.org/details/man192300postuoft
(Unlike other archive.org documents, you will need to download a file to read it.)
Images from this book appear below.
This time, Berton will be shown under the W&SR RPO route of Canadian National.
This is number 12 on the sheet immediately below.
Winnipeg and Swan River.
Above, you can see the notation that Berton is now Helston.
There are a number of other similar RPO documents at archive.org,
particularly for later years of operation which you might find interesting.
This addendum has only been created to focus on Berton/Helston.