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For Mankind, the act of flying through the air has never been an aimless exercise.
The whole purpose has usually been to accomplish some other piece of related business,
that is, war, the movement of goods and people, intelligence-gathering, exploration of
unknown tracts of the globe and, why not ... the carrying of mail. Flying is not the end,
but rather the means to achieving other goals that may not always be romantic or
awe-inspiring. This is not to deny that, in the execution of their task, the pilots
were not an adventurous, almost heroic lot far from it. The whole history of
airmail in Canada and throughout the world during the first few decades of this century
derives from the work of a remarkable generation of pilots, or "winged messengers". They
opened up the skies to the movement of mail. They laid the groundwork for today's
international airmail system.
The exhibition Winged Messenger
was on display in the Canadian Postal Museum from June 1997 to November 1999
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