Great achievements often find their way onto Canadian coins and this one is no different.
The Royal Canadian Mint is celebrating the birth of Alexander Graham Bell and recognizing him for his numerous breakthrough inventions with a new coloured one-dollar coin that began circulating today.
His most influential invention, the telephone often overshadows other achievements such as the first manned-flight in Canada which happened on the Bras d’Or Lake in Cape Breton shortly after the Wright Brothers did the same in the United States.
After inventing the telephone in 1876, Bell built Beinn Breagh, his estate near Baddeck on Cape Breton Island. It is there that he designed his aircraft the Silver Dart and a futuristic hydrofoil marine craft that blazed the waters of Bras d’Or Lake
“The story of Alexander Graham Bell is one of persistent scientific exploration and great personal achievement, but it is also a tremendous tale of Canadian innovation,” said the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. “From conceptualizing the telephone in Brantford, Ontario, to pioneering new air and marine craft later in life from Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canadians can take great pride in their connection to one of history’s greatest inventors.”
He spent much of his later life working at Beinn Breagh, until his death in 1922. Baddeck is now home to the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site where artifacts and full-scale replicas of his transformative inventions are on display.