World Stamps

Canada Post continues Truth and Reconciliation series

Oct 5, 2024, 9 AM
Three stamps in a Sept. 27 issue from Canada Post feature art by survivors of Canada’s residential school system. Canada Post began the Truth and Reconciliation series in 2022

By David Hartwig

Canada Post continues its Truth and Reconciliation series with three stamps in a Sept. 27 issue.

The issue date comes ahead of the Sept. 30 National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which recognizes those who never returned from Indian residential schools, those who survived and the affected families and communities.

Beginning in the 1830s up until as recently as the 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children across Canada were taken from their families and placed in Indian residential schools.

Students at the schools were forced to abandon their languages, cultures and spiritual traditions. In some cases, they faced unsafe conditions, disease, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Thousands of them never made it home.

Canada Post began the Truth and Reconciliation series in 2022 to encourage awareness and reflection on the need for healing and reconciliation due to the tragic legacy of Indian residential schools in the country.

The three permanent-rate (currently 99¢) stamps in this 2024 set focus on artwork by survivors of the residential schools. The stamps come in booklets of six and are presented in horizontal se-tenant (side-by-side) strips of three.

In an article on its Perspectives blog, Canada Post said: “The stamp images shed light on the history and legacy of Canada’s residential school system, with artwork expressing personal experience, resilience, Indigenous culture, and hope for a better future for all children.”

The stamp at left in the strip of three features artwork by Robert Burke, who spent almost a decade at St. Joseph’s Residential School in the Northwest Territories.

Born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Burke is the son of an African American soldier and a Metis woman. His art reflects his memories of St. Joseph’s, where he was sent at age 4, and the challenges he faced as a child, including homelessness.

After a career in forestry and heavy machinery, Burke enrolled in art school in his 50s. He found his voice through painting, exploring his Black Indigenous identity and personal experiences using simple forms and bright colors to convey his unique perspective.

His paintings have been exhibited at the Northern Life Museum in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

The stamp in the center of the strip shows a doll made by Helen Iguptak, who learned to make dolls at a residential school.

Iguptak was taken to the Northwest Territories’ Turquetil Hall residential school at age 7. There an older girl taught her to make dolls, a process which comforted Iguptak and helped to preserve her culture.

After rediscovering the craft in the 1990s, Iguptak has since become a recognized artist, using her dolls to reflect Inuit traditional dress, including caribou-skin clothing and sealskin boots. Her works have been exhibited across Canada.

Adrian Stimson, who designed the stamp at the right of the strip of three, attended three different residential schools.

A Two-Spirit interdisciplinary artist from the Siksika Nation of Alberta, Stimson channels his experiences from attending the schools into art that addresses genocide, loss and resilience.

His visual work uses symbols that are “a hybridization of popularized conceptions of ‘the Indian,’ the cowboy, the shaman and Two-Spirit being,” Canada Post said in Perspectives.

Stimson told Canada Post a feather on his stamp artwork honors residential school survivors, and the seven bison represent Indigenous resilience and the number of generations it takes to “move through the process of healing and reconciliation.”

Stimson’s works have been showcased internationally, and he has received several accolades, including a Governor General’s Award in 2018, a national honor that annually recognizes distinction in academic, artistic, and social fields.

The stamps were designed by Blair Thomson, the founder of the brand design agency Believe in. Thomson also designed the 2022 and 2023 stamps issued in the Truth and Reconciliation series.

The Survivors Circle of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation chose the artists whose work is featured on the stamps.

Lowe-Martin printed the stamps in 200,000 booklets of six. Canada Post serviced 7,000 first-day covers with an Ottawa, Ontario, cancellation.

The cachet of the official FDC highlights different elements of the design on the Survivors’ Flag of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, and the postmark depicts a child’s handprint.

The Canada Post ordering numbers are 414264111 for the booklet of six and 414264131 for the FDC.

The new stamp booklet and FDC are available from Canada Post, and by mail order from Canada Post Customer Service, Box 90022, 2701 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, ON K1V 1J8 Canada; or by telephone from the United States or Canada at 800-565-4362, and from other countries at 902-863-6550.

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