Tag: Canada stamp

Quebec City had long desired a bridge over the Saint Lawrence River to connect the town of Levis. There was much struggle with financing but once construction started, the real problems showed as sections kept collapsing. As a result Canada much formalized the certification for being an engineer. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The building of the Quebec Bridge required 3 attempts, took 30 years to complete, cost three times what it was supposed to and the lives of 88 of the workers who labored to build it. This stamp from 10 years later seems to be that all is well that ends well. Hmm..

Todays stamp is issue A55 a 12 cent stamp issued by Canada in 1929. It was an eleven stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $9.00 used. Not sure if the bottom perforation on my copy were trimmed at one point of whether it connected at one point to the more valuable imperforate pair version? Contemplating this mystery lead me to consult the prominent Canadian stamp dealer Christopher McFetridge. I encourage you all to check out his website http://brixtonchrome.com. Chris informed me that the trimmed bottom occurred on the lower edge of an upper pane of a four pane printer’s sheet of stamps. This was only done from the mid 1920s till 1934.

Quebec City wanted a bridge over the Saint Lawrence as far back as 1852. The crossing there was by ferry or a winter ice bridge. Whether the high cost should be paid by the two cities the province or the federal government was the question. The design finally got going when it was rolled into the National Transcontinental Railway project. At the time it was to be the longest steel riveted cantilever bridge in the world. Starting in 1929 it was the second longest thanks to another Canadian bridge, the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario.

The project was under Sir Collongwood Schreiber, to which reported a dedicated railway engineer named Douglas. Mr. Douglas noted that calculations being turned in by contractors made no sense and required further work. To avoid delays, Douglas was fired and the project went ahead. The steel once actually cut proved much heavier than thought and as it was coming together there was much obvious warping. Schreiber assured every thing would be fine but then found other employment on a different lesser project. In 1907 there was a huge collapse of the still incomplete bridge. 75 workers died. Many of their grave markers were crosses fashioned from steel from the bridge.

A Royal enquiry followed that pointed to weak steel cables. A second attempt to build the bridge began. Disaster again struck. While attempting to lift the preconstructed center section in place, the section instead broke free and fell into the river. 13 more died this time. The next year in 1917 a new center section was successfully put in place. The bridge opened the next year to train, street car, automobile, and pedestrian service.

Remember the bridge was originally part of the transcontinental railway project. This is complicating the bridge’s current situation. About 60 percent of the steel is heavily corroded. The now privately owned railway says it is just cosmetic so not important. The city of Quebec, the province or Quebec  and the federal government all want to see it fixed. It is back to the 19th century though with arguments on who should pay. In 1995 the bridge was declared a national historic site which allows for public funds for preservation. It will be interesting to see if the money comes through before the rust rerenders the structure unsafe.

Well my drink is empty and my bet is with the rust, Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

There was a lot of Canadian airplane manufacturing through the war. Keeping that ability going afterwards has proved difficult. What has helped was developing planes suited to Canada’s needs, and then allowing them to find a wider market. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Water bombers are very useful in fighting forest fires in remote areas. Canada has a lot of areas like that so it is understandable that they take a special interest in this type of plane. This stamp issue shows the interesting progression of water bombers in Canada. From water bombers imported from the USA, through Canadian assembled and modified versions culminating in the CL-215, a Canadian design sold worldwide. Progress is a wonderful thing to display on a stamp.

Todays stamp is issue A405, a 17 cent stamp issued by Canada on November 15th, 1979. It was a four stamp issue showing water bombers in Canada. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Water bombers are large flying boats that scoop up water from lakes, mix the lake water with fire retardant, bombard a fire with the water and then repeat. Canadair Aircraft grew out of an operation of the British Vickers aircraft operations out of the old airport in Montreal, Quebec. The operation were nationalized by the Canadian national government. In the 1950s the operations were merged with General Dynamics, a coming together of many old American aviation and ship building names. Among the designs under General Dynamics control was the aging Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat. Canadair began to to make these as the Canso in Montreal.

Canadair realized their might be a market for a more purpose built water bomber. They designed a more modern airframe and had the CL-215 Scooper first flown in 1968. One interesting choice they made was to use the old Pratt and Whitney radial engine from the Catalina. This engine was actually no longer in production, so the new plane came with rebuilt old engines. This made the plane cheaper and shows how much the new relied on the old. By then it was the only new build flying boat anywhere in the west and found a small but steady world market for many years.

To keep Canadair going in the 1970s, the Canadian government bought it from General Dynamics and invested heavily in the Challenger business jet. The more right wing 80s Canadian government  sold off Canadair’s Montreal operations to Toronto based Bombardier. This included the tiny water bomber flying boat business. The flying boats finally gained a turboprop engine in the 1990s and remained in production until 2015 with a total production run of 215 airplanes over 46 years. Bombardier had by then run into trouble making low margin regional jet airliners based on the higher margin executive jets competing with lower cost Embrear of Brazil.

The story does not end there, British Columbia based Viking Air bought the rights from various failing Canadian plane makers to most all the old bush planes like the Beaver the Otter  the Dash 7 and even the Northern Irish Skyvan. Over the years there were many of these planes built but with nothing more modern replacing them they went on. Viking gradually developed the capability to build new, modernized copies of the old planes. Viking has now received a few orders for their CL-515 upgrade of the old CL-215 so the story of Canadian flying boat water bombers goes on. They are now called Super Scoopers.

Well my drink is empty and one can imagine it requires a great deal of government subsidies to keep a production line existing on such tiny volume. Bet they vote left. Come again soon. for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Corona Virus update. This is something I never thought I would write. Since I wrote this article a few weeks ago, the Scooper has been in the headlines. Examples in the service of Spain have been used to spray disinfectant over Spanish cities to fight the virus. I hope it helps as Spain has been very hard hit. Be safe out there. First published in 2020.

If French speakers were going to have a large voice in the affairs of Canada, they needed to move beyond Quebec. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Todays stamp shows the front gate of an historic fort. In showing it as Manitoba’s representative in a series of historic place stamps, Canada tips it’s hand as to which side it was on in the conflict the fort represents. The Quebec issue of this series buttresses that point by showing a governor’s mansion built for French governors but the used by mainly British ones.

The stamp today is issue A91, a 20 cent stamp issued by Canada in 1938. The stamp displays the gatehouse of Upper Fort Garry in Winnipeg, Manitoba. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents used. An imperforate pair of this stamp is worth $500 mint.

Fort Garry was built by the Hudson Bay Company as part of it’s network of fur trading posts in the northern and western parts of Canada. The areas were thinly populated and much of the population was first nation Indians. In the mid 19th century Hudson Bay Company was transitioning itself to retail stores and no longer wished to maintain it’s large land holdings. After rejecting a higher offer from the USA, the land was sold to Britain which passed it on to the new Dominion of Canada.

Quebec could sense the Francophones were needed out west if Quebec was to retain any political power in the new nation. They had not yet come upon the near foolproof method of having a Quebecois represent the left party.  Louis Riel presented himself as speaking for his fellow French, Catholic, and First Nation residents of Manitoba and petitioned to form the province of Manitoba. English speakers felt the area was being stolen from them  and their leader was quickly put to death by Riel’s provisional government. The central government of Canada thought Riel had overstepped his authority and tried him in absentia on charges of treason. Riel went into exile in Montana.

10 years later a similar coalition in Saskatchewan sought Riel’s help to present their grievances to the Canadian government. Instead he organized a military rebellion that was quickly put down by the Canadian Army. Riel fell into Canadian hands and the death warrant he faced from his earlier treason conviction was carried out. This aroused much bitterness in Quebec because it meant that the development of the west would be in English and not French hands.

Some view Riel as a rebel against Canada and a religious fanatic, while others view him as a unique for his time multicultural figure that worked for inclusion. Both views have much basis in fact and the latter is probably more held today. Admittedly not by me. The disdain for the Hudson Bay history of the area is shown by how the gatehouse on the stamp looks today. The encroachment of modern development shows the lack of respect for the past. Another large apartment building was recently very nearly built inside the fort walls.

Well my drink is empty so I will pour another to toast the traders of the Hudson Bay Company that did so much for Canada taming the wild west. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

When you think of Formula One Racing, Canada is not the first country you think of. You might have though in 1997 with French Canadian  Jacques Villeneuve the driver champion of the season. What a great time to remind Canada had some in the family history with Formula One. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp shows a Gilles driven Ferrari 312 T4 receiving  the checkered flag during his best ever season in 1979. He won 3 Formula One races that year, two in America and one in South Africa.

Todays stamp is issue A671, a 45 cent stamp issued by Canada on June 12th, 1997. This was a two stamp issue in different denominations that came before son Jacques’ later year championship. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Gilles was born in 1950 in Quebec, the son of a piano tuner. During his attempts to break into Formula One he would subtract two years from his age to more appear the young up and comer. In his teen years he raced locally in his personally owned 1967 Ford Mustang. He was also a notable and more lucrative snowmobile racer. Money was tight but he was able to get into open wheel racing in a personally owned Formula Ford racer that put him in competition with some better known drivers.

He received an invitation in 1977 to join the McLaren Formula One team. He only ran two races with lackluster finishes and was let go when he asked for a pay raise for the next season. This freed him up though to accept a position personally from Enzo Ferrari to drive for the factory Ferrari Formula One team. He was a controversial choice but the team had just lost more famous Nikki Lauda.

The first 1978 season with Ferrari did not go well. This was not all Gilles fault. The cars were having trouble with a new variation of their Michelin tires and the Lotus team that year added ground affects to their cars for the first time making them more stable then the Ferraris. Things got even worse at the last race of the season at the Japanese Grand Prix when he bumped another car went airborne and landed on a group of spectators, killing one. He was not penalized as the spectators where not where they were supposed to be.

1979 was where things came together for Giles. Ferrari had copied the Lotus ground effects and it was the last year they ran their reliable 515 horsepower, 3 liter normally aspirated flat 12  cylinder engine. The car won 6 races that year, three with Gilles at the wheel. He came in second in the driver point championship.

!980 saw a new chassis and a new smaller turbocharged V6 engine. The team did not have as much success as the cars had handling problems. At the 1982 during a practice lap for the Belgian Grand Prix, Gilles again ran into a car ahead of him and went airborne. As it was a practice lap. he was not wearing a helmet and died of a broken neck after a bad landing. Giles’ son  Jacques has had a long career currently in some European version of NASCAR and lives in European tax havens.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Attracting kids to the hobby is a goal of the creators of stamps. Here we have Canada with comic book style images of vampires, werewolves, goblins, and ghosts. This stamp issue in now over 20 years old. At some point will we realize that stamps should tell us about their part of the world and give up trying to catch the eye of the never collector. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The need to write things out in two languages was clearly a challenge. The writing had to go up two sides and leaves the image of the goblin off centered. Makes you wonder how it came when you bought a sheet of them. I presume they were attached together as standard horizontal stamps as I have chosen to have mine photographed. I usually base this decision on the direction of the denomination. The stamp designer is perhaps inviting the sender to affix it in a diamond shape. Judging by the cancellation on mine, the user was confused or unnoticing and put the stamp sideways.

Todays stamp is issue A681, a 45 cent stamp issued by Canada on October 1st, why not 31st, 1997. It was a four stamp issue all in the same denomination. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used. Canada had issues on serious subjects that same year and the low valuation is the same according to Scott. Not sure if this means that this stamp failed to attract the kids or just all the stamps failed to attract.

The image of a goblin as a miniature monster goes back far in European folklore. The word comes from the Greek Kobalos. Others think the word derives from a diminutive of the French name Gobel. Either way he a treacherous and sneaky character who lives in a hollowed out rock. He can take the form of a Gypsy King in Moldovan fiction or as a green arch rival of Spider Man in the comics or even as a banker in the Harry Potter universe. Watch out in Scotland for the goblin wearing a red hat. It is red because it is dipped in blood. He often accosts a traveler, perhaps giving the useful advise to be aware of your surroundings while in a strange place.

In modern times, the goblin has been a continuing part  of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons. A player may face a combat encounter with a goblin or an orc, which in older fiction are the same thing. The game master periodically is to role the dice and consult a random encounter table as to whether a questor will face an goblin while travelling. The percentages change based on the terrain being crossed. Fighting off the goblin wears down the player costing him valuable hit points and forcing him to use up his healing potions.  I am more a Avalon Hill game player than D & D. Random encounters with goblins became less popular in video games as players found them annoying and repetitive. The Tales and Final Fantasy series’ have dropped the random goblins.

Well my drink is empty and and I hope to be leaving you wondering about your random encounter with a new postage stamp when you visit The Philatelist again tomorrow.

Turning a sparsely populated, spread out colony into something prosperous was itself a big challenge. With the British fading and the areas southern neighbor and French minority on the rise, a Canadian politicion John A Macdonald came forward with a plan to make a coherent country. Not everyone agreed with everything he did, but by the end od a long career, most appreciated the effort. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelists.

Well you have to admit that this stamp resembles a same time period American founding father stamps. Describing Macdonald that way might inspire queasiness in Canada. He has a few statues and a John A Macdonald day, but it is not even a holiday. Some of it is partisanship, he was right and if you are left? or French( I think I am supposed to say Francophone?) Or maybe it was the still strong then affiliation with Britain, making local leaders seem less powerful. In any case, this stamp may look the same, but what it conveys is different.

Todays stamp is issue A45, a one cent stamp issued by the Dominion of Canada on June 29th, 1927. The stamp shows former Prime Minister John A Macdonald and was part of a 5 stamp issue celebrating 60 years sine the Canadian British colonies confederated as the Dominion of Canada. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.30 used.

John A Macdonald, there was a rival unrelated politician named John S. Macdonald, was born in Scotland to an unsuccessful shopkeeper. When still a child, the family moved to Kingston, Upper Canada where he was still an unsuccessful shopkeeper. Macdonald knew he didn’t want to go into trade so became a lawyer. At the time there were no law schools, instead you started with a test of general knowledge, then apprenticed with a lawyer and then took a second test of legal knowledge. If all went well, you were then called to the bar. All went well for Macdonald. his apprenticeship was with an up and coming young lawyer who died near the end of Macdonald’s studies, leaving him an established practice in Kingston, then the capital of upper Canada. One of his early clients was a 16 year old newlywed Irish immigrant that came to him seeking legal advise on a store she wanted to buy. She became rich and was a lifelong supporter and some say lover of Macdonald. Established, Macdonald went on a long English tour, coming back to Canada with a distant cousin Isabel as his bride. She was sickly and melancholy and she moved to Savannah, Georgia in the USA in the hope that would improve her condition. Macdonald visited her there and she had two children, but in this period Macdonald began drinking heavily. Isabel died in 1857. His surviving son was raised by an aunt.

Great Britain was paying a lot for the colonies in Canada. As such they were anxious to turn over the burden to Canadians. At the time Canada was just Upper Canada which is now Ontario, and Lower Canada, French Quebec. The Maritimes were separate colonies and the west an open frontier. Not a particularly promising country. Economic growth was quite slow and there was a serious net migration to the faster growing USA. Macdonald foresaw one country incorporating the Maritimes and with the west settled by Anglo Canadians. To unite the place he saw and supported a continent wide Canadian Pacific Railroad. The case for the railroad was not economic, it had to be greatly subsidized, and still required dealing with money borrowed from crooked interests. Several times, nineteenth century Canadian governments including Macdonald’s fell due to railroad corruption.  In Manitoba there were rivalries between English and French settlers, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/08/15/canada-1955-cellebrating-50-years-of-alberta-being-a-province/   . In British Columbia there was resistance to large numbers of Chinese railroad workers brought in that worked at half pay. Macdonald sided forcefully with the English Settlers meaning the west would be English. He also initiated a Chinese “Head tax” that charged $50 per Chinese they let into Canada. This was necessary Macdonald said otherwise the Aryian nature of British America would be compromised. It sounds harsh and ended in 1923 when Chinese immigration to Canada was banned completely. When trying to build a country where there isn’t one, diversity is not a strength. Many apologies no doubt from current Canadian leadership. Macdonald also supported high tariffs in the hope that Canadian manufacturers could survive American competition.

Macdonald lived long enough and returned to power enough times to see his prized Canadian Pacific Railroad completed. It did what he hoped and united the countries’ economy. He was in fact reelected the same year he died of a stoke.

Well my drink is empty and one perhaps shouldn’t toast a fellow with a drinking problem. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

Liberal Canadians were a little different pre Pierre Trudeau. Still interested in building Canada as a separate independent nation, but still recognizing the ties to Britain. The period the Order of Canada comes from explains the structure. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp is a fairly straightforward view of the medal, seen in the highest of the three grades. The red maple leaf is only on the highest companion level. Interesting that the red maple leaf was designed in the same era as a symbol of Canada independent of the Empire. Yet the Medal awards the status of being a companion of the British Monarch. Reflective of the confused time.

Todays stamp is issue A363, a 12 cent stamp issued by Canada on June 30th, 1977. It was a single stamp issue honouring the 10th anniversary of the of the establishment of the Order of Canada. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.

It was decided to offer a medal to outstanding Canadian citizens in the mid 1960s. Before that, a smaller number of Canadians were recognized as part of the British Honours system. The government of the time was Liberal, under then Prime Minister Lester B Pearson. A committee of Canadians would recommend a list of potential honorees to the British Governor General of Canada who then approves them on the authority of the Queen. The three levels of the medal represent the Monarch (Companion), The Governor General (Officer), and everyone else (Member). About 100 medals are handed out every year. It is safe to say that if the medal had come into being 5 years later, under Prime Minister Trudeau with his greater Quebec sensibilities, the British Royals would have been bypassed.

The award is not always well received. One or two percent of the awards are refused. Usually because of divided loyalty regarding potential Quebec independence or Jewish Heritage. The committee works to be inclusive of those from Quebec and people of First Nation heritage, which is what Canada calls Indians. However the Medal is relinquished if the honouree is convicted of a crime. The nature of the Medal sees it going to many political activists and occasionally a controversial one sees older awards being returned in protest. The medals are officially property of the Queen but are allowed to be passed down within families as an heirloom. Occasionally one comes up for sale. One bought at an estate sale for $45 and then put on eBay for resale. Bidding hit $750,000 before eBay pulled the auction.

The award can be seen as a short step away from Britain but some time there is a circle back around. It has been more recently decided that being awarded the medal entitles the recipient to have a Canadian Family Crest designed for those that don’t already have one. The Queen signed off on a Canadian Heraldic Authority in 1987, so Canadians no longer had to apply to the existing ones in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Sounds pretty silly, but I have a representation of my (British) family crest hanging on the wall, so who am I to judge.

Well my drink is empty and so I will patiently wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.