Welcome to Week LXXVIII of 'Fishing Parkland Shorelines'. Like most of us I am a novice fisherman, loving to fish, but far from an expert. In the following weeks I'll attempt to give those anglers who love to fish but just don't have access to a boat, a look at some of the options in the Yorkton area where you can fish from shore, and hopefully catch some fish.
It has been some time since I wrote about my reintroduction to stamp collecting when I discovered first day covers with stamps related to sport fishing.
It has become a near daily ritual to delve into FDCs on ebay, as I realized very quickly you would get different results punching in a specific species, say pike, rather than doing a general search on 'fish FDCs', the latter bringing up a raft of aquarium and exotic ocean fish too.
So the collection grows, most FDCs being only a few bucks making it rather affordable.
And as a result I now have sport fish-related FDCs for some 30 countries, which in itself is pretty cool as a testament to the fact, sport fishing is truly a worldwide fraternity.
Along the way I have learned a lot.
For example regular readers will recall a column on the Gila Trout, a species endangered in the United States which I was not even aware existed until I acquired an FDC with a stamp depicting the Gila.
Stamp collecting has also, always been about learning more of our world, acquiring little tidbits such as Nagaland, which has issued stamps, being a state in the north-eastern part of India.
Like many hobbies though, this one, which itself is more or less an extension of my general love of fishing, has itself evolved.
The initial focus was FDCs. The idea of a cancellation on the date of issue of a stamp is historically interesting in terms of philately.
There are however stamps which I am not sure were ever issued on an FDC. At least there seems to be some, even quite recent ones, which never appear online for sale.
Yet the stamps are there, ones with amazing depictions of sport fish.
An example, one which tantalized me every time I saw the stamp online was one from Jersey depicting a brown trout.
So first, where is Jersey you might ask? I was curious about that myself when I saw the brown trout stamp.
"Officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, it is a British Crown Dependency just off the coast of Normandy, France. The bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, theMinquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq, as well as the island of Jersey itself," detailed Wikipedia. "Jersey is part of the Duchy of Normandy, and is ruled by the Duke of Normandy-a title held by by the reigning Monarch of the United Kingdom, though unrelated to those duties as king or queen of the UK.
Jersey is a self-governing parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with its own financial, legal and judicial systems, and the power of self-determination."
Sounds like a good place to dream of fishing one day.
Which brings me back to the brown trout stamp which I have still never seen on an FDC.
What I did find was the stamp on what, in the stamp collecting hobby, is known as a mini sheet.
The stamp is incorporated into a larger sheet, often extending the scene in the stamp into a more detailed rendering.
Wikipedia explains them in more detail.
"A souvenir sheet or miniature sheet is a small group of postage stamps still attached to the sheet on which they were printed. They may be either regular issues that just happen to be printed in small groups (typical of many early stamps), or special issues often commemorating some event, such as a national anniversary, philatelic exhibition, or government program. The number of stamps ranges from one to about 25; larger sheets of stamps are simply called "sheets" with no qualifier."
The larger sheets are of no interest to me, but the truer mini sheet fit neatly in the same sheets as FDCs.
"The stamps on the sheet may be perforated in the usual way, or imperforate. The margins or selvage of the sheet may have additional printing, ranging from a simple statement of the occasion being commemorated, up to a full picture of which the stamp(s) are just a small part. The margins
of the sheet may have ornamental designs,price,emblems and logo(s)which are not the part of stamp(s). Stamps on the miniature sheet can be in se-tenant position while the same stamps were not se-tenants in regular issue," continued Wikipedia.
"Luxembourg apparently issued the first souvenir sheet in 1923, a single 10-franc stamp, not otherwise available, inset in a larger blank sheet. The purpose was to honor the birth of Princess Elisabeth. However, somewhat similar issues by that country go back to the royal coronation of 1906."
So thanks to that Jersey trout mini sheet, which is perhaps the most stunning mini sheet I have to-date, I took the plunge and have added a few of those to the collection.
I still prefer the FDC for the cancellation, but the sheets are generally more stunning visually, and really enhance the collection when paging through the books and seeing them interspersed with the FDCs.
Of course in terms of visual, there is also another option closely related to FDCs.
The maxi-card is basically a postcard where the stamp is affixed to the picture side of the card.
In purest terms the stamp and card match or are in concordance. In most cases, the cancel is also related to the image on the front of the card and the stamp.
The collecting of maximum cards is known as maximaphily.
The maxi-card, in my opinion, often looks somewhat odd. If the postcard is photographic in nature, a stamp in the corner looks out-of-place to me.
There are however instances where the postcard and stamp work nicely in unison, and they too fit the FDC sleeves nicely.
Of course at times things overlap, the maxi-cards having a first day cancellation on the stamp.
Speaking of postcards, some countries produce 'postal cards'. They are postcards with a prepaid stamp printed on the back for ease of mailing, while the front of the card relates to some already issued postage stamp.
An example is a 2005 set of cards issued by Canada Post. The card front is an enlargement of the art for the 2005 fishing flies stamps. The art, which in this case, is amazing, is shown without the print words seen on the stamps.
I have seen such cards issued, at least for sport fish-related stamps from only a trio of countries, Australia, Britain and of course the four-card set from Canada, which yes are now residing in my collection book where they stand out as you flip through the pages.
As a collection based on a particular theme, you also face another question, one beyond what postal offerings fit into the book neatly, and that question is exactly what subject matter on the stamps themselves fit into a 'sport fishing collection'?
I suspect most collectors will tell you that the target of their thematic collection is a moving one, which morphs over time.
It has in my case, where I struggle to keep the collection on a reasonable course.
To start with there is the issue of what fish. There are hundreds of fish species on stamps, most I do not know. It's easy when a stamp says trout, or pike - it's in.
In other cases I am web browsing some Latin name (often on a stamp) to find out what exactly the fish are, after all a ciclid from an aquarium does not look so different from some perch species.
At least research answers those questions.
But what of a set of four stamps from Ciskei depicting fishing bait?
First let me digress back into a geography lesson here.
"Ciskei was a Bantustan in the south east of Â鶹ÊÓƵ Africa. It covered an area of 7,700 square kilometes, almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean," details Wikipedia.
"Under Â鶹ÊÓƵ Africa's policy of apartheid, land was set aside for black peoples in self-governing territories. Ciskei was designated as one of two homeland or "Bantustan" for Xhosa-speaking people. Ngqika(Rharhabe) Xhosa people were resettled in the Ciskei, and Gcaleka Xhosa were settled in the Transkei, the other Xhosa homeland.
"Ciskei had a succession of capitals during its existence. Originally, Zwelitsha served as the capital with the view that Alice would become the long-term national capital. However, it was Bisho (now spelledBhisho) that became the capital until Ciskei's reintegration into Â鶹ÊÓƵ Africa.
"The name Ciskei means "on this side of the Kei River" (cf. Cisalpine), and is in contrast to the neighbouring Bantustan of Transkei."
And yes there are Transkei stamps too. They put out a set of fishing fly stamps for five consecutive years in the early 1980s.
As for the bait stamps, I decided it was a nice addition to the collection.
The Transkei fly series was also another rather easy addition, especially given the cachet art on the envelop being of fly fishing.
That is another aspect of FDCs which occasionally draw attention. If the cachet art shows fishing, and the stamp is something like a rowboat (a rather popular American stamp in this case) it's not hard to pull it into the collection.
Speaking of cachet art, I also found a first day cover of a United States Mark Twain stamp where the art piece was Tom Sawyer carrying a fishing rod.
While not the voracious reader I once was I will forever owe a debt to Twain and his creation Tom Sawyer. The book was one of the first great classics I remember reading. It was a grand adventure a farm boy growing up in the Tisdale area could daydream on for months. It helped set my interest in reading and in allowing my imagination to go wherever it wanted to go.
So an FDC with cachet art of Sawyer fishing was an automatic 'buy it now' moment on ebay.
As it turns out there are a few Sawyer fishing art pieces on cachets, and I now have three in my collection.
And that had me wondering. I searched a bit and sure enough found a First Day Issue commemorative for an Ernest Hemingway stamp which showed not just the famed author, but a background scene plucked from the 'Old Man and the Sea' story. It was another easy addition for someone who, as a modest writer myself, has admired Hemingway's work for decades.
One other author-related FDC I must mention and that is one dedicated to Isaak Walton, an icon among fishing authors for his book 'The Compleat Angler', first published in 1653, and still considered a must-read for fishermen.
The cover actually celebrates the Jan. 26, 1983 tercentenary of Walton's death (in 1683). There are several commemorative coves marking the tercentenary, the one I have showing a great portrait of the author by Jacob Huysmans from 1672, and stamped with a British trout stamp from that country's 'River Fishes' series.
It is truly a stamp cover which ties to the fishing hobby, and to a reading.
That a simple stamp FDC can bring a love of fishing and reading together is one of the reasons the hobby of stamp collecting is so compelling.
And speaking of tangents with the hobby, one night I went off on an ebay search, one which had me looking at stamps with bears on them. I have long loved bears, and there was a mini sheet with a Grizzly Bear standing in a stream with a salmon. It was an iconic vision of something fishermen often encounter in Grizzly country, and often finding its way into fishing literature.
I added it to the collection, after all there was a salmon in the picture.
But that got me thinking about the 'great' images of fishing. Three came to mind from sport fishing shows, nature TV and books; the first being the aforementioned Grizzly in a salmon stream.
The second was the Osprey diving out of the clouds, hitting the water and flying away with a struggling fish in its talons.
The third the stoic Blue Heron standing silently before bobbing for a fish.
Both the Osprey, with fish in flight, and the Blue Heron were found on several stamps. I picked only one of each though for my collection, so I did show some self-control.
That little exercise led me to think about nature in more general terms at the fishing hole than just the fish we go to catch.
Most is beautiful, yet ancillary to the fish. A mallard duck and a muskrat are part of the ecosystem, as pointed out in a recent article on fishing the Qu'Appelle River, but I don't think of them as integral to fishing.
Crayfish though are more part of fishing, from being mimicked by lures in our tackle boxes, to occasionally being 'caught' while fishing.
So yes I added a crayfish FDC, from Liechtenstein no less, which I thought was rather interesting in itself.
Similarly I came across a nice FDC from Britain, which had four stamps depicting 'pond life'; a frog, minnow, dragonfly and water beetle. It was a natural to add.
By now you should have an impression of a rather diverse collection, even though it is less than maybe 250 items. That really has become a goal. I want to enjoy the experience of going through my albums, and souvenir sheets, and maxi-cards add visually, while the Grizzly Bear and Crayfish enhance the thoughts created by each visit to the collection.
More diversity is likely to come as there are a few other critters I think of as interactive parts of the system within which we fish.
The first is the common loon. Few sounds are more reminiscent of a great day of fishing than is the call of the loon. Hear a loon and you are generally in fish country. And of course the loon will feed on small fish.
There happens to be a rather stunning $1 Canadian loon stamp from 1988 I have my eye on, and want quite badly.
Of course when you think of fish eaters seeing an otter is always a huge thrill. The cute, playful creatures are competitors in a sense as apt fishermen themselves, but sighting a couple at leisure can make even a fish-less day on the shore a memorable one, as was the case in 2012 at Cutarm Creek.
Then there are pelicans. Not quite the icon the Blue Heron might be, but the sight of a flock of pelicans gliding to the water surface at Whitesand Regional Park is magnificent, and watching them dive and emerge with fish was the highlight the two times the Melville Reservoir skunked me last season.
Interspersing a few of these FDCs souvenir sheets will only help add a bit more variety to the collection.
Diversity was also the reason for adding four Canadian FDCs which show stamps issued over a four-year period depicting great rivers across this country.
The FDCs interested primarily because in terms of sport-fishing-related stamps Canada is pretty thin in releases, but the rivers are of course prime fishing destinations themselves, and often main thoroughfares for fish moving into area lakes.
While I won't be actively looking at river stamps from other countries, a look at Canadian ones, on only four FDCs made sense to me.
How far one wishes to throw their net in a themed collection like this is very much up to the individual. In my case I collect fish-related postal material because it provides a way to wile away an evening searching for something new and interesting, and often learning something new along the way.
When you buy something as simple as a $2 FDC online, it does add just the little bit of anticipation to the arrival of the mail each day.
In the end leafing through the collection is relaxing, interesting and yes even provides some feeling of pride in one's efforts.
So I imagine the collection will expand, like picking up the occasional fishing postcard, but that seems like it might best be left as the topic of an article on another day.
