Released in 1994, this $20 sterling silver coin is the ninth release in Canada's acclaimed ten-coin series, Powered Flight in Canada: The First 50 Years. Celebrate Canada's aviation heroes and their groundbreaking achievements.

This piece honors the Curtiss HS-2L and Stewart Graham, Canada’s first professional peacetime pilot, whose forestry patrols are widely recognized as the birth of Canadian bush flying,

The Design

The reverse features the de Curtiss HS-2L flying above a lake along with a 24-karat gold plated cameo portrait of Stewart Graham. The obverse features the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II by Dora de Pédery-Hunt.

Curtiss HS-2L 

Originally used as a military aircraft during World War I, the Curtiss HS-2L later became a cornerstone of Canadian bush flying. The nation's pioneering bush flight operations launched in June 1919 with survey flights out of Lac-à-la-Tortue, Quebec. Canada's very first civil HS-2L, christened La Vigilance, arrived at the station after a historic flight from the former U.S. Naval Air Station in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, crewed by pilot Stuart Graham, acting navigator Madge Graham, and engineer Walter Kahre.