Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Mar 12/99) - Two Inuvik girls have made the first cut in a Canada-wide poster contest where they had to depict their vision of the future in drawings which may eventually appear on postage stamps.

Canada Post has included nine-year-olds Caitlin Weitzel and Chantel Bazin as semi-finalists along with 118 others in the contest for children between eight and 12 years old.

With that distinction comes a Stampville CD-ROM, a Stamp Quest kit and a Stampin' the Future T-shirt. They also have a one-in-10 chance of winning a VIA Rail trip for four.

In her drawing, Weitzel's vision of the future is very pastoral -- two hills with a stream and some animals. Bazin's is more technological with a rocket launcher and people set to board.

Within the next couple weeks, the two girls will find out whether they have been further shortlisted when contest judges choose 30 artists from around Canada.

If they make the top 30, they will win a trip for four to Ottawa for themselves and their family.

Finally, four winners will be announced and they will get their drawings issued on commemorative stamps that Canada Post is set to issue on Canada Day 2000.

Winners will also receive a trip for four to Anaheim, California, an IBM personal computer and a CD-ROM encyclopedia from McGraw Hill.

"We never expected to receive so many entries," says the contest project manager, Yves Piche, of the 56,800 initial entries.

"There was a lot of work involved. It wasn't just filling out their names but also completing a drawing."

He says 29 countries are holding similar contests to mark the start of the millennium and that after the winners are announced there could be other meetings between the Canadian winners and those in other participating countries such as Sweden, China and Britain.