Canada 2019-03-27

A map is featured on one of the stamps issued by Canada Post on March 27, 2019 honoring Canadian pioneers in flight. Of interest to cartophilatelists is the stamp featuring aviation pioneer and bush pilot C.H. “Punch” Dickins, who logged more than 1.6 million kilometers flying over Canada’s northern territories. A World War I flying ace and Distinguished Flying Cross recipient, Dickins made the first reconnaissance flight across the unmapped Barren Lands of the Northwest Territories. Part of a map of the Great Slave Lake in Canada’s Northern Territories is reproduced on the stamp. The horizontal formatted issue features a photograph of the young “Punch” (c.1927) dressed in a fur coat. In the upper left of the issue is an image of what appears to be Dickin’s Fokker “Super Universal” floating plane which he flew on mapping and reconnaissance flights over Canada’s, vastly uncharted north. On the right a “negative” image of a map showing a partial outline of the lake and area surrounding Yellowknife overlays the portrait of Dickins. The stamps are non-denominated, and cover the basic domestic letter rate, and are identified by the letter “P” inside a symbolic maple leaf icon on the stamp. The stamps are available in a booklet of 10 (two of each design) and a gummed mini-pane of five. [while researching this issue, a number of fascinating links were found, including what appears to be the official Dickins archive at the University of Alberta, in addition to those about Dickins and his many surveying and reconnaissance flights. this is not the first time Dickins was honored with a stamp. in 1982 Canada Post issued a stamp depicting Dickins’ famous Fokker “Super Universal” G-CASK plane (sc 972). an inquiry about a reference for the map used in the stamp was submitted. a reply is pending. -web admin]