Saskatchewan Territorial Mail: 1846 to 1905

Harold Kellett
Released February 2018. Exhibit series # 99.
88 pages, 8.5x11, spiral bound.
Colour C$ 24.00 [ISBN 978-1-927119-87-7].

In Saskatchewan Territorial Mail: 1846 to 1905, Hal Kellett uses many fine covers and in some cases the contents of letters to present the development of mail services to and from settlements that were in, or came to be in, the provisional district of Saskatchewan that was formed after the Hudson’s Bay Company transferred the Northwest Territories to Canada in 1870. He then focuses on locations which became large enough to have a post office after the District of Saskatchewan was created in 1882, leading up to it becoming a province of Canada in 1905.

Harold (Hal) Kellett was born in Toronto, and lived there until moving to Saskatoon in 1960. He joined the Saskatoon Police Service in 1963 and continued his education as a police officer, and also attended the University of Saskatchewan, College of Commerce. He retired from the Police Service in 1997 with the rank of Inspector.

Hal and his wife Marjorie were married in 1963 and had three children, two girls and a boy. Marjorie passed away in 1997. Hal remarried in 2000. Since then he and Marie have spent most of the winter in Victoria, BC. Hal enjoys the wonderful philatelic group there, and Marie has her stitching buddies.

Hal says that he is probably the template for stamp and postal history buffs of his generation, having collected stamps as a kid, forgot about them during his teenage years and into his 40s, then renewed his interest in philately. The first postal history exhibit he prepared was the “Toronto Street Postmarks�. He purchased his first cover from Allan Steinhart at the 1975 BNAPS Convention in Scarborough, ON. On arriving at the door to the bourse, on a Friday as far as he can remember, he was told that he had to buy a membership to BNAPS in order to gain entry into the show. He had no idea what BNAPS was, but bought a membership nevertheless and has been a member ever since.

Hal’s current postal history interests are Saskatchewan Territorial covers (and stamps) plus Canadian Military postal history.