Meeting the Designer of a Canadian Coin

A few weeks ago, we were wandering around Parliament Hill with our daughter, who was visiting from Toronto.

As usual, the area was full of visitors.

We were returning from the back of the Parliament buildings - where there is a wonderful view of the Ottawa River - when a tourist asked if I would take his picture beside a statue of Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first prime minister.

Chatting with this stranger, we discovered that his interest in Canada's first prime minister stemmed from the fact that Sir John A. had been the driving force behind the building of the trans-Canada railroad.










Chatting further, we discovered that the man we were talking to had created of one of the designs chosen to be on the special coins marking Canada's 150th birthday. His design of two trains joining well-known Canadian landmarks had won the honor of being on the commemorative $1 coin.

The next day, Terry headed out to try to find the coin. It took most of the day, but in the end, he managed to get one for every member of the family...

His enthusiasm for this particular coin stemmed not only from the fact that we had met the designer - so randomly on Parliament Hill - but because in his younger years, Terry had taken the train across Canada. And since then, he had visited every landmark found on the coin!

(Doing a google search of the coin, I came across this video clip of Wes Klassen, the man we met on Parliament Hill, speaking about the inspiration behind his design.)