Sleigh

Three new stamps depict objects used in everyday life in Canada during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The 39¢ stamp illustrates a settle-bed, the 50¢ stamp a sleigh and the 68¢, a spinning wheel. In the days of our ancestors, the sleigh was a very practical vehicle. Although used primarily to transport wood, baggage, and sacks of grain, the sleigh was also used to carry passengers. In the 1940's, it was still being used in some rural areas to take children to school in the winter. The sleighs were equipped with two sticks on each side to secure the load, and a deflector at the front to protect the occupants from the bits of snow and ice picked up and thrown from the shoes of the trotting horse. The three artifact stamps were designed by Jean-Pierre Beaudin and Jean Morin. The stamp designs employ the same duotone technique for the artifacts as was used on the other stamps of this series issued in 1982 and 1983. The rich but subtle background colours represent the humble circumstances of the average Canadian pioneer home.