V-79878. P.O. Arthur Bergquist,
c/o General Delivery,
Midland, Ont.,

May 1, 1944

Dear Ma, Pa, Rub & Ruth:

Just a few lines to let you know that I arrived here at “Midland” and that I am alright. The best way for me to get your mail would be for you to address your letter the way it is above, that is, to General Delivery. I will then be able to pick up your mail at the Post Office here.

Another fellow and myself have a room to-gether. We also get our meals here too. It costs me $9.50 a week here, and that’s not bad when you figure that that includes meals too.

H.M.C.S. [?] does not open until around the end of this month, so that is the reason we have to live and eat out. As long as this keeps on I will be getting $5.00 a day. There is only about 10 Navy fellows here now. They have some boats to fix up so I will start working to-morrow. The Chief P.O that I mentioned in my last is here too and he said to-day that we will start by putting in a new Engine bedin a boat. There is only one other shipwright besides myself, the others are motor mechanics and stokers so It looks as if I will be busy for a while. This place only opens up for the summer so it looks like they are going to put what boats they use here into shape.

The Chief P.O said to-day that they close up about the end of August but he said that that didn’t mean that we would necessarily be here that long. In this Navy you never know just where you are at. At any rate I am on the move and I sure hope that I will start moving to Vancouver soon. Right now thats all I can do is just hope.This is not a very big place. They only have one main street about 5 blocks long with one show that changes 3 times a week, so there is not much for a fellow to do for amusement except go to a show – that is if I havent seen the picture – I have seen the one that is on to-night, so there ought to be one show that I havent seen some time during the week. They say that during the summer – they dont have a very long summer here, about 3 months thats all – the place is filled with tourists. The place where we are staying is a tourist place, but they charged tourists more than we are paying. In about another month the tourists start coming. If we are here that long we will probably be stationed at “[?]” by then.

I haven’t received a letter from you since last Thursday, my changes places like this will probably delay the mail a bit. I should get a letter to-morrow though I hope. Don’t forget to send the letters “General Delivery” as long as I am here.

Well I had to leave “Jim” this morning. He said he sure didn’t like to have to split up with me, and when we said goodbye this morning it sure was tough. We were late getting up this morning so we didnt have time to have breakfast to-gether, he had to hurry to get to the barracks in time, so about all we had time to say was goodbye and he was gone, because we had to go different ways, Jim to the barracks and me to the “Union Station”. We are going to keep in touch with each other though so we will know how one another are getting along. I took a roll of films into get developed last night and he is going to send the pictures to me. He said when we were  going to “Buffalo” that maybe when this is all over he would have us build him a house. He is thinking to getting married to his girl-friend in Vancouver. She works in a photographic place in Vancouver.