St Lawrence Seaway opened April 25, 1959

  

Joint issue Canada-USA
Opening of St Lawrence Seaway
Issued by Canada and USA June 26, 1959, to coincide with the official opening.
Canada:
Designers: Alan L. Pollock and Gerald Mathew Trottier
Engraver: Yves Baril 
USA:
Arnold J. Copeland, E. Metzl and W. H. Buckley

The Seaway Saga

The completed St. Lawrence Seaway included 5 canals and 15 locks. From end-to-end, it covers 600 km (370 miles), from Montreal, Quebec, to Port Colbourne, Ontario. 

The Seaway’s origins date to 1680, when Dollier de Casson commissioned the building of a 1.5 m. (5 feet) deep canal between the Island of Montreal and the South Shore to bypass the Lachine Rapid. 99 years later, the Royal Army Engineers began work on a series of small canals connecting Montreal to two lakes. 

For the next 2 centuries, work continued with the creation of canals up and down the St. Lawrence River, including William Hamilton Merritt’s 1824 Welland Canal and the later 43.5 km (27 miles) long canal in 1833 constructed of 40 wooden locks. 

 

By 1895, the Canadian and American governments recognised the need to examine whether it was possible to create a jointly managed Seaway. The Canadian Deep Waterways Commission was formed that year followed in 1909 with the International Joint Commission. 

1932 the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Deep Waterway Treaty was signed by Canada and the US. But no action was taken and once again in 1949 another feasibility study was initiated. 

1951 signalled the start of realising the Seaway. Both the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority Act and the International Rapids Power Development Act  were passed, and work began on various projects. In 1954 Canada passed the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority “with the mandate to acquire lands for, construct, operate and maintain a deep draft waterway between the port of Montreal and Lake Erie, along with the international bridges that cross it and other lands and structures” 300 Years History – Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System (greatlakes-seaway.com)

The U.S.-Canadian St. Lawrence Seaway navigation project was completed in 1959, linking all the canals and locks into one continuous route. The first ship to pass through the Seaway was the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker “d’lberville” on April 25, 1959. 

The Designs

In 1958, stamp advisory committees from Canada and the US met in Ottawa to discuss the creation of a joint stamp release.  At that meeting, numerous designs, submitted by both Canadian and American artists were considered. The stamp Opening of St Lawrence Seaway went through a quite a few iterations before the final June 26, 1959 release was approved.  A few of the proposed designs can be found in Archives Canada, but no designers are listed. According to the Smithsonian Postal Museum, there was intense lobbying on both sides of the border to design the first joint Canada-US stamp. Both American and Canadian interests had to be satisfied with the overall theme and content. 

The preliminary design for the final stamp below shows the trial watercolor and collage draft by Canadian artists Alan L. Pollock and Gerald Mathew Trottier that was presented at the 1958 meeting.  The next design expanded the maple leaf and lifted the eagle wings as well as applying fine details to both national symbols. Compare the first draft to the finished product and you can see quite a few changes. 

   

A number of other adjustments were made, including the POSTAGE layout on the lower left and the font used on Canada. The design was tested in different shades of red during colour trials and sent for approval on February 4, 1959. 

It was a common practice for post offices to test different colours on stamp proofs and is interesting to see how the design changes with the colour variations.  It’s too bad the official notes are not easily available to examine. It would be interesting to find the reasoning behind the final blue choice. Of the four, the 32 Red, is the standout for me. 

A number of proofs are available in the Canadian archives, including each signed off stage in the design process. The first stamp was approved in red with blue lettering a few weeks after the initial red colour trials. It was dated February 23, 1959.  

 

The final overall design was also approved on the same date. 

   

No reference to a colour change is made until April 6, 1959, when Postmaster General, William Hamilton approved it and sent it for engraving. The US design was signed off by Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield around the same time.

 

The final production team included Canadians artists Alan L. Pollock and Gerald Mathew Trottier who designed the stamp.  Engraving duties were given to the great Canadian engraver Yves Baril who engraved almost 1000 stamps for Canada during his career.  Lettering was engraved by Donald J. Mitchell, who’s work includes the Queen Elizabeth II – 1962-63 – Cameo Issue.  The American design team, for the US design, lettering and engraving was done by Arnold J. Copeland, E. Metzl and W. H. Buckley. This was their sole stamp, except for Copeland who created one more in 1970, The UN. They may have created other stamps, but don’t show up in the credits, so if you know of more, please let me now so I can add the information.

The official Seaway opening was held June 26, 1959, with Queen Elizabeth and President Eisenhower in attendance. At the ceremony, the Queen and Eisenhower were presented with special binders with full sheets autographed (by the postmasters, not the artists!). 

Errors, inverts and doubling up

About 400 Canadian stamps were printed with the maple leaf and eagle inverted. The non-error stamp is listed for .45c for a crisp non-hinged mint. A St. Lawrence Seaway invert error sold at auction in 2019 for $9,900 Cdn ($7,000 US). 

The errors were discovered when they were first purchased from an Eaton store on Aug. 20, 1959.  The lucky recipient was a young office worker at the Marlborough Hotel, Winnipeg, Manitoba. She nipped across the road to buy stamps from the Eaton’s postal outlet and found she had sheet of rarities. 

“In August of this year, a young lady stenographer of Winnipeg startled the philatelic world (as well as Ottawa postal officials) with the disclosure that she and a syndicate had in their possession 27 Canadian Seaway stamps with inverted centres. She had originally purchased 30.”

In a 1959 newspaper article, it was thought 50 stamps had been purchased, not 30. 

6 stamps were sent to the Post Office to confirm the errors did exist. 26 of the stamps were sold to Winnipeg stamp dealer Kas Bileski for the princely sum of $1,000 each and 4 were used on covers (rf April 2003 Scott Stamp Monthly). At one point, it was thought more than 2,000 inverted errors escaped into the wild.  And, for a short while, drove the price down to $150 each. Over time, only a trickle of stamps were found and the price popped back up. 

There are 13 known covers with the Inverted Seaway on them and 4 postcards If a cover came up for sale, it could fetch up to $25,000. More inverted panes were found at post offices around Canada and returned to government offices. Although it’s thought there were 400 released, there may be more, sitting in an attic collection.

By December 1959, Bileski  discovered a second error. The Double red impression has a light red Canada shadowing the lettering on the Seaway stamp. While not as spectacular as the inverted variety, it is currently catalogued at approximately $2,000. 

Wait, there’s more!

The Seaway has made an appearance in two more stamps since the 1959 opening. In 1967, Canada released The Centennial Definitives 1967-7 which included the 4c St. Lawrence Seaway lock. 

A later joint release was issued on the 25th anniversary of the Seaway’s opening. Both stamps, 25th Anniversary of St. Lawrence Seaway (Canada) and Aerial View of Seaway Freighters (USA) were designed by Canadian graphic designer Ernst Barenscher and released June 6, 1984. 

    

If you look carefully at the Canadian stamp, in the sea of blue and grey is a small red flag. It’s very difficult to see, but it’s there. The red flag represents the location of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority’s headquarters in Cornwall, Ontario. 1984 was also Cornwall’s 200th anniversary.