Antique & Vintage Postcards

Thundering over a 40-metre precipice into a misty canyon, Kakabeka Falls — billed on the card's back as the "Niagara of the North" — fills this vivid chrome-era postcard with raw Precambrian power, while a cheerful red-roofed hotel perches at the gorge's edge in the upper right, welcoming the mid-century road-tripper. The back carries a warm, chatty message dated July 18, 1956, in which Ruth and Fred tell the folks back home in Chicago that they spent the morning at the falls, had breakfast at the hotel, and note it's "plenty cool out this way" — a perfect time-capsule of a 1950s Canadian summer holiday. Addressed to the Hampels at 2148 Montrose Ave., Chicago 18, Illinois, the card is franked with a Canadian 4-cent violet Queen Elizabeth II definitive (the Karsh portrait issue of 1954), cancelled with a light wavy-line machine cancel. Published by Western Smallware & Stationery Co. Ltd. of Winnipeg and printed in the USA by Colourpicture Publishers of Boston (P11123), this card exemplifies the cross-border publishing partnerships that dominated the mid-century North American chrome postcard market.