Aurora lights up new tenner
NWT national park featured on Canada 150 commemorative banknote
Beth Brown
Northern News Services
Monday, April 17, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A sweeping scene of the aurora borealis, as seen over Wood Buffalo National Park, will be featured on the back of a new $10 bill to be issued by the Bank of Canada, June 1.
Bank of Canada representative Michelle Marselle compares a new commemorative $10 bill to a regular note. The Canada 150 banknote, which will enter circulation in June, was presented at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre on April 11. The note features a Northern lights scene from Wood Buffalo National Park. - Beth Brown/NNSL photo |
The Northern lights photo by park resource conservation technician John McKinnon is among five images of the natural Canadian landscape incorporated into the commemorative bill, marking the 150th anniversary of confederation.
"Canadians told us they wanted to see the beautiful vastness of our country and how different it is," said Bank of Canada representative Michelle Marselle, who presented the bill in Yellowknife April 11.
Scenes also include the Twin Sister mountain peaks in B.C., a wheat field in Saskatchewan, forests near the Kipawa River that run across the Canadian Shield in Central Canada and Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland and Labrador, where John Cabot is likely to have landed in 1497.
"The deep darkness of the Northern skies over the park offer an ideal backdrop for the spectacular displays of aurora borealis for which the park is famous," stated an April 8 release by Wood Buffalo National Park.
The park has been designated as having the world's largest dark-sky preserve by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
"We are very pleased that the Bank of Canada recognized the iconic nature of this photograph, and we are honoured to have Wood Buffalo National Park represent Northern Canada in the landscape images that grace the new $10 bill," stated park superintendent Cam Zimmer.
The 40 million limited edition Canada 150 banknotes are to be issued as legal tender on June 1 to allow lead up circulation time to Canada Day celebrations.
"By July 1 everybody should have one if they want one," said Marselle.
Besides Sir John A. MacDonald, the note features father of Confederation Sir George-Étienne Cartier, who championed French Canadian minorities,
Agnes Macphail who was the first woman elected to the House of Commons in 1921, and James Gladstone who is also called by his Blackfoot name Akay-na-muka and was the first Canadian senator of First Nations origin.
The assumption - or arrow - sash pattern of the Metis people borders the bill and a rendition of Cape Dorset artist Kenojuak Ashevak's Owl's Bouquet is set in the polymer bill as a colour shifting metallic security feature.
