New $20 coin unintentionally evokes dark moment in Canadian history
The Royal Canadian Mint's design for a new $20 silver coin -- which went on sale yesterday for collectors around the world -- has inadvertently evoked one of the darkest moments in the history of polar exploration and raised concerns with the country's main Inuit organization....
One side of the coin carries the current portrait of Queen Elizabeth. The other depicts 16th-century English explorer Martin Frobisher and a compass rose from his era, along with images of the ship he sailed in search of the fabled Northwest Passage and an Inuit man paddling his kayak in ice-choked waters....
A mint spokesman said the kayaker is simply meant to represent the indigenous people of the North, and their role in Arctic exploration. But the combination of elements recalls an infamous episode from Frobisher's 1576 voyage to Baffin Island and the tragic fate of an unnamed Inuit paddler who was lured aboard the explorer's ship, the Gabriel, and kidnapped for transport back to England as token proof of the expedition's success in reaching the New World.
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One side of the coin carries the current portrait of Queen Elizabeth. The other depicts 16th-century English explorer Martin Frobisher and a compass rose from his era, along with images of the ship he sailed in search of the fabled Northwest Passage and an Inuit man paddling his kayak in ice-choked waters....
A mint spokesman said the kayaker is simply meant to represent the indigenous people of the North, and their role in Arctic exploration. But the combination of elements recalls an infamous episode from Frobisher's 1576 voyage to Baffin Island and the tragic fate of an unnamed Inuit paddler who was lured aboard the explorer's ship, the Gabriel, and kidnapped for transport back to England as token proof of the expedition's success in reaching the New World.