Iqaluit’s Titiqqaniarvik Qaqqajaami Canada Post location had a sense of humour about the erstwhile national postal strike that full-time assistants Maggie Kanayuk and Paul Power turned into a positive creative outlet in the mail room.
“We started making the decorations because we heard that the other post office [in Iqaluit] has a little fireplace,” explained Power, 17. “Having finished everything since the strike started [on Nov. 15], Maggie wanted to make one for here, so we took a lot of the empty boxes... and put some together, covered it in paper, coloured it a bit, then put cardboard bricks on the outside and finished it up. That took a week and a half, I think, on and off.”
“Sometimes people leave their cardboard boxes [from deliveries],” added Kanayuk, “and that’s what we used to make the stands and fireplace... Paul likes to make things.”
The residential letter cubby has artwork all over it, including little qajaqs and other small free-standing structures that the two postal workers made in their spare time.
Typically, Kanayuk and Power are in charge of sorting letter mail in the back. However, over the last month or so, there had been little to do with strike grinding mail service to a halt. The Iqaluit locations remained open for business as they are not part of the same union as the hubs down south in Ottawa and Montreal, which send the vast majority of mail to be processed in Nunavut.
“We still had to come in every day,” said Kanayuk, “so we made time fly by doing stuff... You’ve got to get creative with eight-hour shifts... There’s lots of paper here... half-printed on and going to to be shredded... it started with just the fireplace.”
There was a meme circulating on Facebook with the poster for the cartoon version of 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' that someone redesigned as 'How Canada Post Stole Christmas' during the strike. That inspired Power to suggest having the Grinch stick out of the fireplace to get in on the joke.
“We didn’t know where to put the Grinch at first, so [Paul] said to put him in the chimney because we stole Christmas,” said Kanayuk.
“After [finishing the fireplace], Maggie was bored having finished her big project, and so I suggested she make the Grinch coming down the chimney, and so she did with some help from me, then we put the fireplace in the lobby with the Grinch," said Power.
“We were bored again, and so after the Grinch came, naturally, Max the dog, and after that we made Snoopy and the dog house with the little bird as well, and then Charlie Brown. All of them are just cardboard cut outs with paper on them, so that’s easy.”
Kanayuk credits Power with the details of the designs, and there are practice pieces and extras all over the mail-sorting area that show just how much time and thought went into the projects.
“The paper tree,” said Power, “was our last big project we rushed before the strike ended. Maggie made that with very little help from me.”
“I wanted to make Rudolph and the abominable snowman,” said Kanayuk, who has a three-year-old son she watches the cartoons with, “but the strike ended."
The cutouts were then moved to the lobby in the front of the post office.
“When I came out [from the back], everyone was taking pictures with it,” Kanayuk recalled.
Acting superintendent of Iqaluit post offices, Mathieu Beauchesne, is proud of his employees' efforts at turning the long strike into 'Grinchmas' fun for the community.
“I love it,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the Grinch... it was amazing! I read the Grinch stories growing up. My other manager and her staff all want to see the pictures.”
