Friday 16 March 2012

Sandford Fleming

I associate Sandford Fleming's name as an inventor of standard time (the clock in Greenwich and the concept of "time zones"). I guess that is the first thing I learned about him in a picture book in grade school. When I started teaching Social Studies, I was reminded that Fleming was Canadian. In fact, he was a well-known surveyor for the railroad and eventually engineered much of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.
What recently peaked my interest in Samuel Fleming, however, was when I came across an interesting factoid. Apparently, it was Fleming that designed the image of the beaver on Canada's first postage stamp. I have already posted some thoughts about Canada's first stamp (and the first stamp to picture an animal), but I didn't know that it was designed by Sandford Fleming. I wonder if the image itself was his choice, or if he just designed it?

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