Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 02/00) - The polar bear image on our licence plates is recognizable throughout Canada as a symbol of the Northwest Territories.

The great white bear walked off the tundra and on to the distinctive plate in time to mark NWT centennial and a Royal visit in 1970, said Richard MacDonald, regional superintendent for the department of transportation.

"The idea was attributed to Stuart Hodgson, who was commissioner of the Northwest Territories at the time," said MacDonald, who worked for 13 years at the Department of Motor Vehicles, where he became something of an expert on the bear plate.

"The first (NWT) license plate was issued in 1940 and there was a plate issued every year after except 1943, when they just issued a windshield sticker," he said.

"It was during the war, so metal was at a premium. I don't know if there are any left out there, but we've never been able to find an original windshield sticker."

Since 1988, the plates have been stamped out by Hi Signs in Edmonton which bought the equipment from Corrections Canada.

Plant manager John Beattie the polar bear plate requires some special gear to produce.

"This is probably the most expensive, most complex tooling used in a licence plate anywhere in the world," Beattie said.

"To buy all the dies all over again is probably worth more than the value of the contract."

The company punches out about 20,000 plates per year from galvanized steel. The plates are finished with a non-reflective, baked enamel coat.

"The main opinion on the reflective background, was that it doesn't really lend itself well to the polar bear design," he said.

"We get bombarded constantly from collectors around the world, trying to get a government plate; of course we can't indulge them," he said.

"It has to be one of the most popular plates among collectors."

The polar bear plate was briefly a threatened species when Nunavut separated, but both governments agreed to keep the bear with the only difference being the territory name on each plate.

"We offered to have the bear going in the opposite direction, or different colours or a variety of other things to keep the polar bear design, but they settled with just changing the title," he said.