CCGS Amundsen chosen for new $50 bill

The Coast Guard research icebreaker, the Amundsen, will be featured along with early Canadian prime minister William Lyon MacKenzie King on the Bank of Canada’s new $50 plastic bills. The bill also features some Inuktitut syllabics, saying the map shows the Arctic. (IMAGE USED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE BANK OF CANADA)

As a Canadian Coast Guard research icebreaker, the Amundsen is already familiar sight to many people in the North.

Now southern Canadians will also have the chance to recognize the Amundsen’s distinctive red and white profile.

That’s because the Amundsen is going to be featured on the back of Canada’s new red and white $50 bills — “fantastic news,” according to ArcticNet executive director Martin Fortier, who co-ordinates the icebreaker’s annual research trips through the Arctic.

The Bank of Canada unveiled its new series of durable “secure” plastic bank notes this week.

The $100 bill will begin circulating this November, followed by the $50 note in March.

The $20, $10 and $5 bank notes will be issued by the end of 2013.

Printed on a plastic polymer material, the new bills have security features including transparent windows and metallic holographic images.

These innovations and other details are intended to foil counterfeiters.

Although the production cost of the new bills is almost twice that of paper money, the new bank notes are expected to last at least 2 1/2 times longer.

The bank notes can also be recycled.

To avoid confusion with existing currency, the bills will be the same size as paper bills in the same denomination and keep the same dominant colours and portraits.

The new $50 bill features a portrait of William Lyon Mackenzie King. The window to the right of his image has a holographic image of King.

The reverse side of the bill, intended to celebrate Canada’s development of the North, is where you’ll see a drawing of the Amundsen.

Pioneered in Australia over 20 years ago, polymer banknotes are now used in 32 countries around the world.

(with files from Postmedia News)