Ontario

The world born anew in this view of sunrise at Halfway Bay in the Bruce Peninsula National Park. It sounds a wonderful place to visit and explore with its trails, limestone rocks, 1000 year old cedar trees and crystal clear water. No wonder then that it is part of UNESCO's Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve. When Dawn sent the card back in January from Ontario it was a sunny -8° and she had shovelled and car brushed snow to get to work.  No doubt she is now enjoying the warmer spring weather which I read is a great time to visit Halfway Bay.

The card came with

2014: Roses

 one of the three roses used for the 2014 'permanent' stamp. This is a velvety red hybrid tea rose called 'Konrad Henkel'. The stamp designer was Isabelle Tousaint who photographed many roses in the Montreal Botanical Gardens before making her choice for the stamps.

Then there was Canada's first prime minister Sir John MacDonald who died in office in 1891 and his body was carried by train back to Kingston in Ontario. He has appeared many times on the stamps of Canada but this is a fine addition to their number. I love the typeface surrounding the photograph. The graphic designer is Louis Gagnon co-founder of the award winning design company Paprika.

Lastly is the stamp issued for the opening of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in 2014. This Winnipeg based museum was designed by the architect Antoine Predock whose vision was for visitors to arrive at the ground floor symbolising darkness, move through large spaces and gradually reach the light of the Tower of Hope, the large spire on the stamp.  The stamp itself was designed by Adrian Shum of Circle Design from photographs taken by Mike Grandmaison who has a rather nice blog post about it here showing the interior and the other uses of his architectural photographs on the Canada Post's FDC and stamp booklet. There are also lots of gorgeous photographs of Canada on his main site.