Canadian Currency

Image Source: Bank of Canada.

I went to the bank in Colville to obtain Canadian currency for our trip to Fairmont Hot Springs this weekend. Of course, I always enjoy holding foreign money in my hands; it's so much more attractive than the U.S. dollar. I brought it home and showed my kids. I must say they were equally fascinated by the novelty of holding relatively large Canadian bills. Well, I decided to post a casual comment about the money on my blog, and post a picture of Queen Elizabeth II from the $20 bill. I'll be damned if the scanner didn't send me to a website about making counterfeit money! It also refused to make the copy (which I suppose ultimately saves me a lot of hassle later if someone decides to bother me about it). It was such an innocent novelty to me, and yet after I made the futile attempt to copy the queen's picture, I realized just how serious a matter it is in today's world; kind of like the time I took a picture of the U.S. Federal Building in Spokane and got stopped by a federal officer. I'm sure my sister is laughing her head off as she reads this, because in my naivite I tend to attract these kind of awkward situations.

In the age of domestic spying, I thought I'd better make a public repudiation of copying bank notes of any kind, even for benign purposes (just in case the nice folks in Canada are reading this). The moral of the story is: don't copy money.

Just to prove my sincere repentence (even though I never actually succeeded in copying the money), I include an approved photograph from the Bank of Canada, complete with instructions for legal use:

Conditions for use of photographs in image gallery

Images in this gallery can be used or reproduced for personal or public non-commercial use, free of charge, as long as the following conditions are met:

• the photographs are reproduced accurately and without alterations,
• the Bank of Canada is identified as the source,
• it is not implied that your particular use of the photographs is done in affiliation with, or with the endorsement of, the Bank of Canada.

You must obtain the Bank’s written permission to reproduce any other images of bank notes, regardless of how these images are obtained, by submitting a request.

To learn more about the laws and policy that govern the creation and use of images of bank notes, please consult the Bank of Canada Policy on the Reproduction of Bank Note Images.

Bank of Canada Currency Images.