An exhibition at the Canadian Postal Museum from June 12,
1997 to November 30, 1999.
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.
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