Canadian Toonies: The Polar Bear and Every Commemorative

The polar bear toonie

The two-dollar coin replaced Canada's two-dollar note in 1996. Its reverse shows a polar bear on an ice floe by wildlife artist Brent Townsend. The nickname followed the loonie's lead: two loonies, one toonie.

It's a two-metal coin, with a silver-colored outer ring around a gold-colored core. The bear has run for three decades with only minor updates. Regular polar bear toonies were struck in huge numbers and are worth face value, so the coins to look at closely are the commemoratives.

The polar bear toonie and its commemoratives

Specimen set toonies

Sold only in specimen sets, never in circulation.

Nunavut, the millennium and the 10th anniversary

The first commemorative toonie came in 1999 for the founding of Nunavut, with an Inuk drummer by Germaine Arnaktauyok. The 2000 Path of Knowledge followed, showing three polar bears. On that one the value sits on the portrait side and the date on the reverse, the opposite of the usual layout. Both are common, at 25,130,000 and 29,880,000.

For the coin's 10th birthday in 2006 the Mint issued Tony Bianco's Churchill design, a bear looking up at the northern lights, with the dates 1996 and 2006. It was the first circulation coin with the Mint's new logo. Only 5,005,000 were made. The 2008 Quebec City 400th, dominated by a large fleur-de-lis, had 6,010,000.

Remembrance toonies

Military anniversaries account for many toonies. Most from 2012 to 2017 were struck in runs of about five million.

• 2012 HMS Shannon, part of the War of 1812 series
• 2014 Wait for Me, Daddy, based on Claude Dettloff's 1940 photograph taken in New Westminster, British Columbia
• 2015 In Flanders Fields, showing John McCrae writing the poem among poppies
• 2016 Battle of the Atlantic, with a sailor at an anti-aircraft gun
• 2017 Vimy Ridge, showing the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, with 5,130,000 made
• 2018 Armistice, 2019 Battle of Normandy, 2020 End of World War II and 2025 Unknown Soldier, several with colored versions

Art, science and Canada's peoples

The 2017 Dance of the Spirits, for Canada's 150th, shows paddlers under the northern lights. On the colored version the aurora glows in the dark. Its 10,000,000 total covers colored and plain coins together. Other themes include the 2011 Boreal Forest for the centennial of Parks Canada, John A. Macdonald's 200th birthday in 2015, the discovery of insulin in 2021 and the 2022 Summit Series.

Artists have been honored directly too. The 2020 Bill Reid shows his Haida grizzly bear, the 2023 coin marks the centenary of Jean Paul Riopelle and the 2025 Daphne Odjig is based on her 1977 painting The Folk Singer. The 2023 National Indigenous Peoples Day coin carries Inuit, Métis and First Nations motifs, while four Inuit artists designed the 2024 Inuit Nunangat. The 2024 RCAF Centennial puts a CC-130H Hercules at the center with eight more aircraft around the ring.

The black-ring Queen Elizabeth II toonie

After the Queen's death in September 2022 the Mint issued a toonie with the usual polar bear but a black outer ring, colored with black nickel to look like a mourning band. With 4,305,025 made, it's the lowest published mintage of any circulating toonie. Several recent commemoratives have no published figures yet, so treat any ranking as provisional.

Specimen and first strike toonies

Some toonies were never meant for your pocket. From 2010 to 2015 the Mint's specimen sets included a toonie with a baby animal, from a young lynx in 2010 to baby raccoons in 2015, with 15,000 to 17,500 of each. First strikes, packaged from early production, had smaller runs still: 2,375 of the 2005 polar bear and 5,000 each of the 2006 10th anniversary and new Mint mark coins. Keep these in their original packaging, since that's what proves what they are.

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