WINNIPEG — Manitoba hunters feeling left in the cold amid the ongoing Canada Post strike finally have some answers.

After postal service stopped on November 15, some hunters have been wondering where and how to obtain licenses and tags recently ordered through the province’s elicensing website.

Ryan Rivest is an avid hunter from the St. Adolphe area. He says he ordered a new license for white-tailed deer in mid-November and was told it would arrive in the mail.

“Normally I would just print it (the license) and call it a day. But after I checked out, I only received an email receipt with a message that it was coming by post.”

By late Wednesday afternoon, Rivest was able to log back into the elicensing website and find the license as a PDF document to print.

“It wasn’t there earlier when I first bought it. They (the province) are supposed to be mailing new tags too, but I’m not hopeful.”

A provincial spokesperson tells ChrisD.ca tags can be obtained by attending an in-person Manitoba Conservation district office.

“The province has been working to ensure hunters who were in the process of applying for a license can continue that process during the postal disruption,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.

“When the disruption began, the elicensing call centre paused the fulfillment of requests, and directed customers to a provincial district office or a retailer. Alternatively, if the hunter has their own set of game tag packs at home, they can proceed to order a license online and assign one of these game tags to their license.”

In Winnipeg, that district office is located at 14 Fultz Boulevard.

Alternatively, retailers such as Canadian Tire or Cabela’s sell Manitoba hunting licenses, but only have limited quantities.

No end in sight to postal disruption

Around 55,000 Canada Post workers are on the picket line calling for a “fair wage” and better working conditions. The federal government says it is not planning to intervene to resolve the labour dispute between the Crown corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, even with less than a month to go before Christmas.

Mediation has been temporarily suspended as the two sides remain too far apart in their positions.

Meanwhile, the province has opened mail pickup and drop-off locations to ensure families and businesses can access cheques and other essential items during the ongoing postal disruption.