Canada Post releases stamps depicting travel posters from tourism's golden age

Canada Post has released five new stamps featuring nostalgic travel posters from a golden age of commercial art and tourism marketing in Canada.

With railway expansion and, later, the advent of the automobile, Canada's popularity as a tourist destination surged in the early 20th century. 

Railways and steamship companies promoted the burgeoning industry by commissioning illustrators and designers to target globe-trotting tourists and Canadians alike. 

Ad campaigns beckoned people to explore Canada's wild beauty and urban attractions by promising world-class adventure, scenery and luxury.  

The boom in travel advertisements with a distinctive and elegant style fostered a golden age of commercial art in Canada. 

The five posters chosen for the issue evoke nostalgia for an era of glamorous travel:

• An observation car on the Canadian, Canadian Pacific Railway's premier transcontinental train, in the Rocky Mountains (1955, by Canadian artist Roger Couillard).
• The breezy glamour of cruising the Great Lakes with Canadian Pacific (circa 1937, after the work of British artist Tom Purvis).
• The Royal York – now the Fairmont Royal York – a landmark hotel in downtown Toronto (circa 1935, by Norman Fraser, birthplace unknown).
• Skiing in style at picturesque Mont-Tremblant ski resort, Quebec (1939, by Austrian-born artist Herbert Bayer).
• The welcoming sandy beaches and lighthouses of Canada's spectacular east coast (circa 1950, by Saskatchewan-born artist Peter Ewart).

The stamps were unveiled at the inaugural CAPEX 22 International One Frame Stamp Championship Exhibition held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, June 9-12.

The Permanent domestic rate stamps are available in booklets of 10. 

They were designed by Paprika of Montréal and printed by Lowe-Martin. 

There is also an Official First Day Cover, a souvenir sheet of all five stamps, prepaid postcards (sold separately or in a set of five) and a souvenir sheet overprinted with the CAPEX 22 logo.

The stamps and collectibles are now available for purchase at post offices or at canadapost.ca/shop. 

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