Artist W. David Ward was commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint to design two one kilogram coins—one gold and one silver—portraying the Canadian Arctic landscape.
More on David Ward's Arctic inspiration can be found on his website.
From the Royal Canadian Mint:
Sculpted by relentless winds, grinding ice and bitter cold, the vast, open Canadian Arctic landscape embodies the ancient spirit of Earth's glacial past. Locked in twilight for much of the year, cast in blinding contrast for its few months of midnight sun, the Canadian Arctic is like no other place on Earth.
For Canadians, the Arctic represents not only a massive component of the nation's geography and the interconnectedness of Canadian lands from sea to sea to sea, but the source of the ice, snow and cold that has carved out not only the land but the soul of this country. Mapped by Canadian explorers such as those of the 1913 Canadian Arctic Expedition, the lands, waterways and continental shelves extending from the Northwest Passage to the nearer North are sovereign Canadian territories that play an important role in the heritage of Canada's people, geography and environment.
The coin was designed by Canadian artist W. David Ward and presents a highly detailed portrait of the north shore of Baffin Island, overlooking Lancaster Sound, at the mouth of the Northwest Passage—a region that evokes the Arctic's various landscape elements: icebergs, glaciers, mountains, ice plains and frozen waters. Amid the semi-frozen sea water of Lancaster Sound, dotted with masses of ice, large icebergs float majestically under a cloud-filled sky. In the distance, on both sides of the Sound, jagged glacier-topped mountains rise against the horizon.
