COVER N.702 / POSTCARD N. 223 - CANADA.

Postcrossing Postcard sent on the 7th April ; received on the 15th April 2026.

Postcard image: landmarks of Prince Edward Island

_________________________________________________________________________________

What a lovely piece of mail I got from Sofi in Canada, through Postcrossing. Thank you so much Sofi. I really appreciated the care you have in sending the postcard in an envelope with so many outstanding stamps. I couldn't be happier about it!

There are no less than 9 stamps on this particular cover, so let's get down to them, left to right, top to bottom, as usual:

- 4 cent stamp, part of a definitive set of  8 stamps ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9,  10; 25 cents) dedicated to  "Traditional Trades". The 4 cent stamp is illustrated with a photograph of an oyster and of the hands of someone shucking an oyster, with a very tiny legend on the frame reading: Ostréiculture / Oyster Farming

- Between 2007 and 2014, Canada Post issued a series of definitive stamps dedicated to "Beneficial Insects". There were 5 issues in this series (2007; 2009; 2010; 2012; 2014). The 3, 1, 10 and 5 cent stamps on the cover pertain to the  first issue of the series, dated of 12OCT2007, while the 2 cent stamp was the 2009 issue, dated of 22APR2022.

Although tiny, these stamps are absolutely wonderful and capture in great detail images of insects that we all are familiar with and which we sometimes forget about their importance in the sustainability of life on this planet, through their role as pest controllers, pollinators and part of the food chain of other species.

On the cover we have stamps with illustrations of the following insects:

- 3 cent - Chrysopa oculata

This green lacewing of the Chrisopidae family is used to control aphid populations in orchards.

- 1 cent - Convergent Lady Beetle (Hippodamia convergens)

Another insect used to control aphid populations, the convergent Lady Beetle is a coleopter, member of the Cocinellidae family.

- 10 cent - Canada Darner (Aeshna canadiensis)

A member of the Aeshnidae family, this dragonfly as other dragonflies is a voracious insect predator,  being, therefore, very beneficial.

- 5  cent - Common Arctic Bumblebee (Bombus polaris)

According to Wikipedia, the Common Arctic Bumblebee, a member of the Apidae family,  is  is one of three bumblebees that live above the Arctic Circle and is also one of the earliest pollinators of vegetation in the Arctic each year.

- 2 cent - Monarch Caterpillar (Danaus plexippus)

A member of the Nymphalidae family, this beautiful lepidopter is a stout pollinator of wildflowers on its amazing migrations in the American Continent.

- Eid, or more precisely Eid al-Fitr (The breaking of the fast) is the Festival that celebrates the end of Ramadan for the Islamic communities and therefore a very relevant event on the calendar.  

On 24APR2020, the first day of Ramadan that year, Canada Post, following a tradition it inaugurated in 2017,  issued a "P" stamp, celebrating this important festival. 

- "Between the 1830s and 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children across Canada were taken from their families and sent to federally created Indian residential schools. They were stripped of their languages, cultures and traditions. Children endured unsafe conditions, disease, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse while at the church-run schools. Thousands of them never made it home. Residential school Survivors continue to experience trauma from their time at the institutions, and that has been passed down to successive generations"

The third edition of Canada Post’s annual Truth and Reconciliation Stamp series focused on artwork by Survivors of residential schools.

Issued on 27SEP2024, it comprised three "P" stamps. On the cover we have the stamp honouring the artwork of Helen Iguptak, and I can't resist transcribing some text from the stamp release notes:

"Helen Iguptak recalls the time she was taken away from her home in what is now Nunavut, at age 7, to live at Turquetil Hall residential school in Chesterfield Inlet. She was taken by boat and remembers the feeling of trading her warm caribou clothing for store-bought cotton clothes.

"I noticed it was kind of windy and the wind was going right through my clothes. I started thinking, how am I going to survive this winter,” Iguptak told CBC in an interview in 2018.

Iguptak today carries on Kivalliq dollmaking – a centuries-old Inuit tradition from the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut.

She took up the artform in the 1990s. But Iguptak learned to make her first doll at residential school. She befriended an older girl who taught her how to make the “little friends” that comforted her and helped protect her culture from being taken away.

“When I was in Chesterfield I had one friend who taught me how to make a doll, so I made one under her instruction. She taught me how to make basic clothing,” she told CBC. “I was only like 7. Just before I finished it – I think I was putting the hair on – I ran out of thread and I was too scared to ask for thread. I looked around the floor and saw something black, so I used that to finish the doll. It was a human hair.”

When she eventually left Chesterfield to go home, she says she was so excited she completely forgot about her doll.

Today, Iguptak is recognized as an artist helping to protect Inuit culture and continue the doll tradition. Her dolls are intricately stitched to capture the details of Inuit traditional dress. Details in her work typically include caribou-skin clothing, kamiks (sealskin boots) and colourful beadwork. They’ve been displayed in galleries and exhibitions across Canada."

- "The Canada Post Community Foundation is a registered charity distributing grants to Canadian schools, charities and community organizations that provide programming to children and youth (up to age 21)."

Annually, Canada Post issues a stamp with a10 cent charity surcharge to help fund its Community Foundation. On the cover we have the 2025 issue illustrated with some giraffes, issued on 28APR2025.

Prince Edward Island is the smallest Province of Canada, but is also the most populous. Located just in front of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the island as an area of 5,660 square Kilometres and a population in excess of 182,000.

Its capital is Charlottetown, on the centre south of the island.

The postcard features photographs of

- the confederation bridge, built in 1997, that links Prince Edward Island and Canada's mainland; 

- Park Corner fields, park corner being a small rural community  for its picturesque landscapes and proximity to the island's beaches;

- Cap-Egmont lighthouse, dating from 1884.