Bypass Mail: We should all thank the postmistress in Ester. I called NUMEROUS post offices and nobody ever answers the phone. I’ve been on the phone with her several times getting contact information as people don’t answer the phones, have no voice mail, or it’s a wrong number. I have to be honest and say that I don’t have a lot of confidence in the person I talked to at the post office today, having given up on having my call returned by the person who actually handles by-pass mail (and who doesn’t answer her phone and who always has a full mailbox). He claimed that the by-pass mail rate from FBNKS to Ruby was $2.65 per pound and when I told him that must be a mistake, he recalculated. According to his calculations (and he didn’t seem real competent), it is 48 cents per pound to Ruby from FBNKS; he claims the doesn’t know the rate to Kaltag and can’t figure that out. Apparently the woman I’ve been trying to reach is the only one who knows this. He was unable to figure to figure out if the by-pass mail went from Anchorage to those villages. I’ll have to do the calculations for getting the straw from Alaska Mill and feed; I have the information, just need to crunch a bunch of numbers. Perhaps Victoria will eventually contact me, or maybe not.

1,000 pounds can go on a pallet; the straw is 50 pounds (approximately) per bale or 600 pounds. We would need at least 1,000 pounds (straw plus drop bags) to use by-pass mail AND we need a person’s address in those villages as well. There are forms to fill out for by-pass mail so we need to get cracking on this. Robert, if you e-mail me I’ll tell you how to find the form as we will need this for our drop bags as well.

If we want to do by-pass mail for our food AND straw, we must have the address of a person who will pickup and store the items. They won’t do general deliver on by-pass mail. So, getting a contact in RUBY and in Kaltag is very important.