Cartoonist and author Kate Beaton has walked into the post office in her home community of Mabou, N.S., on countless occasions in her life.
For most of that time, the 42-year-old would never have imagined being on a postage stamp.
“As an artist, I might have thought maybe one day they were going to call me up and ask me to draw a stamp but never that I would be the subject of a stamp,” Beaton told CTV Atlantic during an interview at the Mabou Post Office on Wednesday.
Last month, Beaton and five other graphic novelists were honoured in Ottawa by Canada Post with their own stamps reflecting a piece of their work.
Beaton’s stamp features her 2022 bestseller, ‘Ducks,’ which was included on former United States President Barack Obama’s list of end-of-year favourites.
“Books have a certain lifespan, and for ‘Ducks’ to remain sort of in peoples’ minds and their memories and for things like this - it’s quite an honour,” said Beaton.
For the Cape Breton cartoonist, the latest honour comes with a certain irony. In 1991, when she was a child, Mabou nearly lost its post office. She remembers taking part in rallies to salvage local service.
“When I get asked, ‘What does it mean to be on a Canada Post stamp?’ I do think back to being a child and the cutbacks and everything,” she said. “And how the community came together to save this building.”
Beaton agreed that it’s one thing to have your own postage stamp, but heading into the final week before Christmas it’s perhaps quite another.
“It’s a great time of year to be on a stamp because this is the time of year when it’s busiest in a post office,” she said.
These days, when so many packages are delivered through a number of different courier services, Beaton added that she is glad to shine a bit of light on traditional mail.
“We talked about the early 90s, but Canada Post has its issues now,” Beaton said. “To be able to say at a time like this how much the post office and the postal service means to me and to towns like ours and how much we support the workers there.”
Beaton’s stamp – and the five others unveiled with hers - is already in circulation.
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