Canada Post French Settlement Series - 2005

2005

Port Royal

The French settlers who survived the disastrous winter of 1604 on St. Croix Island relocated to a new location on the Annapolis River in Nova Scotia. Samuel de Champlain drew a detailed plan of the settlement in his journal. This drawing proved a starting point for the design of a new stamp depicting Port-Royal.

The stamp was the second in a series dedicated to French settlement in North America, and is consistent in design with last year's stamp recognizing St. Croix Island. Fugazi placed the engraving over a background of bright, modern colour for a more lively, contemporary look. The engraving was created by illustrator Martin Côté, and is quite faithful to Champlain's original.

The drawing was simplified in places, but many small details remain and are visible even at stamp size. For example, the microscopic inscription in Old French in the upper left corner. This level of precision was attributed to intaglio printing, a technique appropriate for this historic image.

Technically, the registration is difficult to maintain when printing two techniques on two different presses. Once colours are printed through a lithographic process, a second pass through the intaglio press applies the engraved image in black. But on these presses, the paper often shifts during the second pass, resulting in misalignment between litho inks and intaglio inks. The solution was that background colours were printed in an imprecise, watercolour style that did not depend on alignment with the engraved image.

• The original drawing as published in Champlain's journals in 1613 can be viewed on the Library and Archives Canada website at: http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/h27/f1/nlc003352-v6.jpg.

• Champlain's drawing was also a source for the 1939 reconstruction of Port-Royal. For more information, see the Parks Canada website at http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/portroyal/natcul/index_E.asp.