The Development of Canadian Armed Forces and Civilian Air Letters 1942 to 1996

Earle L. Covert
Released July 2016. Exhibit series # 90.
104 pages, 11x17, spiral bound.
Colour C$ 40.00 [ISBN 978-1-927119-66-2].

Invented during World War II to save weight on mail to and from Canadian Servicemen and women overseas, the Air Letter in its many colourful civilian forms remained in service until 1996. Earle Covert’s The Development of Canadian Armed Forces and Civilian Air Letters 1942 to 1996, the 90th volume in the BNAPS Exhibit Book Series, is also the first BNAPS exhibit book to be published in 11×17� landscape format. Many years of research and collecting have resulted in a collection of Armed Forces and Civilian Postal Stationery Air Letters that is unrivalled. The Civilian Air Letter section received a Gold award at BNAPEX 2014 BALPEX, while the Armed Forces Air Letter section received a Gold award at BNAPEX 2015 NIAGARA FALLS.

Earle Covert was born in Toronto in 1938. He attended schools in Brooklyn, New York, Toronto and Ottawa. In 1964, after graduating as a Medical Doctor from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, he and his wife Audrey moved to Hay River, Northwest Territories, where he started General Practice. In the 32 years he was there, he also did obstetrics, minor surgery, anesthesia and occasionally dentistry, and served as Coroner, Town Councillor, and Medical Officer of Health. With other physicians he provided service to Fort Providence, Fort Resolution and Pine Point, travelling thousands of miles by small aircraft and car. In 1996, Earle and Audrey moved to Alberta but continued to practice part-time in Hay River and Fort Simpson, and then at the Campbell Clinic in Coaldale, before retiring in December 2012.

Earle has been involved in the British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS) as Secretary, Member of the Board, Chairman of the Board and President, and is currently Chairman of the Convention Committee and Chairman of the Postal Stationery Study Group. He has shown over 60 different exhibits of Canadian Postal Stationery, Revenues, and modern postal history. He published Strike Courier and Local Post of the Elizabethan Era, and wrote over 20 articles for BNA Topics and for Postal Stationery, the journal of the United Postal Stationery Society.