of Alexander Mackenzie as well as the Conservative government of John A. Macdonald. The town took to advanced technology very early, having a telephone exchange staffed with four women operators in 1912. The telegraph office, operated by Billy Rawson, linked Mariposa by telegraph wires along Main Street to the nearby county seat (modelled on Barrie) and the provincial metropolis. For such a small town, the fourth estate is amply represented by two widely read newspapers (modelled on the Orillia Packet-Times and the Owen Sound Sun-Times). The Mariposa Newspacket supports the Conservative Party and its editor wears his blue temperance ribbon of the Knights of Pythias. The Mariposa Times-Herald supports the Liberal Party and its editor published the famous partisan screed from Patriotus Canadiensis. Transportation Mariposa has good transportation networks. Rail transit is provided by the transcontinental trains which roll through the town, usually at night. Unfortunately, scruffy miners and coiffed millionaires from the city rarely stop to offload or load. For that, one must board the Mariposa Local which links the town to the city one hundred miles to the south. Once commercial travellers from the city arrive from the 6:30 a.m. express train, or before they wish to leave the Main Street hotel strip to catch the 5:30 p.m. train to the city, they take the hotel shuttle into downtown. Otherwise, there is no common carrier public transit in town so even bank employees use their feet or bicycles. Since 1972, the stationary dining cars of the Ossawippi Express have served as a reminder of the area's proud railway history, and given residents and visitors a classy place to eat out. Mariposa Belle was the name of its notoriously unseaworthy steamship which cruised at . Its only scheduled departures from the wharf built by the federal government were for scenic cruises on May 24 and July 1 (that is, Victoria Day and Canada Day). Many locals and visitors took chartered day excursions twenty miles (32 km) north to Indian Island (modelled on Georgina Island Indian reserve on Lake Simcoe and Chiefs Island of the Rama Indian Reserve on Lake Couchiching) on Lake Wissanotti. Locals groups, including Knights of Pythias and Sons of Temperance, also take day trips to local option dry townships in Missinaba County. In 1987, a new paddlewheeled cruise ship also called Mariposa Belle began operating in Toronto. In contrast to its namesake, conspicuous and considerable consumption