Canada stamps mark 100 years since Titanic's sinking

Canada Post unveiled five stamps Tuesday to mark the centennial of the sinking of the RMS Titanic and the recovery of hundreds of victims by four Canadian ships.

Four domestic-rate stamps depict the White Star liner's impressive bow and stern.

Another international-rate stamp shows the ship sailing on a calm ocean with a map tracing its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from Southampton to New York, and the spot 375 miles (604 kilometers) south of Newfoundland where it struck an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912.

"This was the biggest man-made moving object on earth that after setting off on her maiden voyage hit an iceberg and ended in disaster," said Dennis Page, an artist who helped design the stamps.

"I imagined myself standing below her bow looking up, which really gives that vantage point and perspective at how vast something like this could be."

The biggest, most ambitious ship of the era, the Titanic was touted as unsinkable. Of the 2,224 people aboard on its maiden voyage, 1,514 perished in the disaster.

Survivors were conveyed by RMS Carpathia to New York while four Canadian ships left from Halifax port in easternmost Canada with embalming supplies, undertakers, and clergy to recover 328 bodies. Passing steamships also retrieved five more victims.

One-hundred-and-fifty unclaimed bodies were eventually buried in three Halifax cemeteries.

The wreck of the ocean liner was rediscovered on the sea bed in 1985 at 12,415 feet (3,784 meters) below the surface.

"To this day, Canada, and especially Halifax, has an enduring and remarkably human connection to the Titanic story," said Canada's Defense Minister Peter MacKay, who represents a Halifax electoral district.

"The Canadian legacy of the Titanic still resonates strongly with everyone."