FAROE ISLANDS, AND A BIG MAILBOX

I was recently enjoying a post from Faroe Man on his blog where he detailed a road trip he took to the island of Sandoy. On this island is a very large mailbox. According to Mr. Faroe, the box was constructed specifically to break a world record, and it may have succeeded for a time. But somewhere out there, some other batch of mailbox builders outdid them.

That made me wonder just who these people were that stole the Faroe's mailbox thunder? I tried an appeal to the Guinness Book of World Records. But they don't have a mailbox record listed online, so I had to appeal to the Internet.

A little snooping around Google produced three other mailboxes that claim to be the world's largest. No mention of the Faroese box, by the way.

The first one can be found in Greenland, specifically the capitol city of Nuuk. According to some website, all the mail sent to "Santa Claus, North Pole, Greenland" finds its way to this mailbox.

Contender number two comes from Canada, and Santa Claus is also a factor. Some mall in Vancouver has what it claims is the world's largest mailbox. They claim Guinness backs them up, but I have no way of knowing if that's actually true. Apparently you use this one to send Santa a letter. While it's not unreasonable to think that, perhaps, your letter would one day wind up in the Greenland mailbox, that appears not to be the case. Santa's Canada address is "Mr. and Mrs. S. Claus, North Pole, HOH OHO"

It occurs to me that Santa may be caught up in the North Pole gold rush that's currently on. Russia, Canada, and Denmark (which runs Greenland... sort of) all are claiming the North Pole is theirs. In stands to reason that, somwhere in Russia, there is a giant mailbox with some connection to Santa as well.

I intend to get to the bottom this. Before Christmas comes, I will sent two letters, one to Canada Santa, and another to Greenland Santa asking them to explain themselves. I will use my skills as a trained journalist to shine the light of truth onto this dark landscape.

But I digress.

There is one more mailbox I found that claims to be the world's largest. This one is in a small town in the south of Thailand. As of yet, I can find no connection between this box and Santa Claus, but I'm sure there's something there.

While there is no clear cut winner in the mailbox derby (measurements are hard to come by), I'm going to go ahead and declare the Faroe Island mailbox the winner. Yes, they don't even claim to be the world's biggest anymore, but I think that humility should be rewarded. So there.