Canada Post French Settlement Series - 2004

2004

Pierre Dugua de Mons, 1604

The first stamp in the series commemorates 400th anniversary of the first French settlement in Acadia at St. Croix Island. Located on the border between Canada and the United States in the state of Maine, the former settlement is now an International Historic Site. A joint issue with France, the stamp was designed by Réjean Myette of Montréal-based Fugazi and illustrated by Suzanne Duranceau.

It features a portrait of nobleman Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, who led the expedition of five ships carrying 120 men. His boat, Le Don de Dieu, was the theatre of this incredible adventure. The portrait on the stamp is printed through intaglio, a gravure process. The remainder of the Canada Post-issued stamp is printed in lithography.

Stamps issued by La Poste in France will bear the same design, created through the intaglio and lithography processes. Pierre Dugua's group set sail from Havre-de-Grâce (now Le Havre), France in March 1604, and included explorer and cartographer Samuel de Champlain, as well as craftsmen, soldiers, a surgeon, a Roman Catholic priest and a Huguenot minister.

After reaching Canada the group split up, and Dugua and 78 of his men sailed into Passamaquoddy Bay and up the St. Croix River. There they found an island near what appeared to be the confluence of three rivers that resembled the arms of a cross, which led Dugua to name it St. Croix Island.

Scurvy overtook the men and by winter's end, nearly half had died. The next summer, the settlement on St. Croix Island was dismantled and the group left the island to settle at Port Royal, as named by Champlain, an area near the Annapolis Basin in Nova Scotia.