A moment of New Westminster's history will be immortalized in a postage stamp.
The City of New Westminster received a letter from Canada Post stating that the Wait for Me Daddy photograph will be one of the subjects to be featured on stamps in 2014.
Wait for Me Daddy is a photograph taken by Province newspaper photographer Claud Detloff on Oct. 1, 1940.
"Every year, we receive hundreds of ideas related to anniversaries, achievements, events and themes that have played an important role in Canada's history and culture," wrote Mary Traversy, Canada Post's senior vice-president of mail, in a letter to the city. "Each idea is given careful consideration by our stamp advisory committee, which is charged with the task of ensuring a balanced program from a long and varied list of potential topics."
Wait for Me Daddy, one of the most famous photographs of the Second World War, is one of 19 successful applicants chosen for the 2014 stamp program.
"We believe they truly reflect the Canadian spirit," Traversy wrote of the successful applicants.
The well-known Wait for Me Daddy photograph shows a boy breaking away from his mother and rushing to his father, who is marching with other soldiers down Eighth Street.
While attending a Federation of Canadian Municipalities event in Ottawa last year, Coun. Lorrie Williams met with Canada Post representatives about the possibility of including the image on a stamp.
"It recognizes this particular photograph and this happened in New Westminster as a national event," she said. "It happened in New Westminster and belongs to Canada, all of us. It has put us on the map."
Last year, the city issued a call for proposals for three life-size, bronze statues that would depict the boy, the father and the mother shown in a photograph as part of a public art installation in the downtown.
The statues would be located on the actual site where the photograph was taken, which is now Hyack Square.
"We have chosen an artist," Williams said. "We can't say anything until the artist signs the contract. We are very close to doing that."
In addition to applying to Canada Post to commemorate the image in a stamp, the city has also requested the Canadian Mint produce a coin with the Wait for Me Daddy image.
While in Ottawa last year, Williams also met with representatives from the Canadian Mint about the possibility of creating a coin commemorating the Wait for Me Daddy photograph. She hopes the mint will create a coin commemorating the image.
A reenactment of the march is also being planned for 2015 as part of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, which ended in the spring of 1945.
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