New stamp marking solar eclipse doesn't feature Hopewell Rocks after all
Canada Post takes back its claims that N.B.'s flowerpot rocks are on eclipse stamp and in path of totality
A stamp released by Canada Post this month to mark the total solar eclipse coming April 8 was billed as showing three locations along the path of totality, including New Brunswick's Hopewell Rocks.
But less than a week later, Canada Post has corrected its communications about the stamp, acknowledging anyone looking for the iconic flowerpot rocks won't find them on the stamp. Or in the path of totality.
The original news release said the stamp image "depicts the sun at the moment of totality" and shows its path across the country.
"Across the bottom of the stamp is a photomontage of land formations along the path of totality, including Ontario's Niagara Falls, New Brunswick's Hopewell Rocks, and Spillars Cove in Newfoundland and Labrador."
A spokesperson for Hopewell Rocks told CBC News the provincial park was not contacted about the stamp. Nor could the spokesperson identify the rocks that do appear on the stamp.
Reached by a reporter, the Toronto designer of the eclipse stamp said he had never heard of the New Brunswick landmark along the Bay of Fundy. He declined further questions.
The other confusion in the original news release was the reference to Hopewell Rocks as being in the path of totality, which is the geographic area where the sun will be completely eclipsed by the shadow of the moon.
Randy Attwood, the expert consultant on the stamp, agreed the Hopewell Rocks fall outside the path of totality.
"To be quite honest, I didn't look it up — it's very straightforward to find a map of the path, but if the Hopewell Rocks are down in say the Bay of Fundy, then I think they would be outside the path."
Attwood said he has seen 10 total eclipses, and when he was presented with a version of the stamp "about a year ago," his role was to help the designer make the "eclipsed sun look as accurate as possible."
He said he didn't have any input on the landform design at the bottom.
'New Brunswick's coastline,' not Hopewell Rocks
In an interview Tuesday, Bronwyn Graves, Canada Post's director of stamp services, insisted the landform on the stamp image between Niagara Falls and Spillars Cove is the Hopewell Rocks.
"We are looking at something that's broadly representative of three locations that are on the path of totality," she said. "And the path of totality itself is pretty significant. We're talking about a lot of Canadian geography."
Graves said "a large number" of people, including academics and fact checkers, worked on the stamp from concept to launch.
"Putting three significant and distinct locations in one artistic rendering at the bottom of the stamp, there isn't quite as much detail as perhaps some people with sharp eyes would like, but Hopewell Rocks would be at the centre of the coastline that is in the middle," she said.
Late Tuesday evening, Canada Post updated its news release.
In an email Phil Rogers said, "Upon further review, the reference in the news release to Hopewell Rocks was incorrect and has been fixed."
It now refers instead to "New Brunswick's coastline."
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