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Jaffray mail being re-routed to Fernie, 50km away, due to Canada Post closure

The Jaffray post office is currently closed, but Canada Post is working on a local solution
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Canada Post mailboxes. (CP photo)

Jaffray residents are in for a drive to get their mail, with the Jaffray post office closed since March 7.

Mail is instead being redirected to Fernie, almost 50km away on Hwy. 3.

Canada Post’s East Kootenay superintendent, Chris Petryk, confirmed that Jaffray’s post office, which is run out of the Jaffray Sports and Hardware building, is currently closed, and that the mail sent to that location since Monday (March 7) has been re-routed to the Fernie post office.

The reason for the closure is unconfirmed, but information passed to The Free Press by Jaffray locals suggests the closure may have something to do with mandatory vaccination requirements for federal employees.

Petryk said that an ‘alternate site’ was being set up in Jaffray for mail to be delivered to, and that it should be set up by mid to late next week (week of March 14), “to get the post office service back to normal in Jaffray.”

The alternate site will be in the same location as the Jaffray post office, “just in a different setting inside that building,” Petryk said.

“I’m hoping that mid week to end of the week we should have it set up for folks to pick up their mail at that location again.”

Mail that arrives between March 7 and when the new site is set up will be shipped back to Jaffray from Fernie when it’s up and running – so residents that want that mail now will have to go get it in the meantime.

Wendy Smith, a resident of Jaffray, said she has not had mail since Monday. She said she has not been going to Fernie to pick up her mail, pointing to high gas prices. She and her husband are in their 70s and “don’t do too much travelling,” she said.

“I can’t afford to drive to Fernie a couple of times a week to get my mail.”

Petryk said that Canada Post were working on getting the mail situation sorted as quickly as possible.

READ MORE: Canada Post issues new stamp to mark the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth


@fishynewswatch
josh.fischlin@thefreepress.ca

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