As It Happens

Ottawa woman plants garden to stop view-blocking community mailbox

Lynda Kitchikeesic, along with members of the Canadian Union of Postal workers, planted a garden of medicinal herbs on the proposed site of a Canada Post community mailbox that would block the view from her home.
(facebook / cp images)

One of Lynda Kitchikeesic's biggest pleasures is to gaze out the window of her bungalow, where she can sometimes glimpse the Ottawa River. But after Canada Post began pouring concrete for a community mailbox that would have blocked her view, she took action.

Sympathetic workers from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have also seized the opportunity to protest the end of home mail delivery. They've manned a picket line outside Kitchikeesic's home -- trying to prevent construction. 

And today, workers helped transform the concrete base of the mailbox into a garden of traditional medicinal plants.

Kitchikeesic tells As It Happens co-host Carol Off, "They can't come and easily put a mailbox there now...so it will give me some time to stop them or talk them out of it."

Canada Post declined to comment.