Canada Post will issue its first stamp of 2022 on Jan. 21, three weeks into the new year.
The annual Black History Month issue, it will honour Eleanor Collins, Canada’s “first lady of jazz,” who turned 102 in November.
Born in Edmonton, she and her family were “part of the movement of black homesteaders who migrated from Oklahoma and settled on the prairies,” CBC News reported on Nov. 21, 2019, the day Collins became a centenarian.
“I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets, but I have learned that all you give is all you get. There’s life after 100 … I want to give it all I’ve got,” Collins told CBC from her home in Surrey, B.C., where she lives independently.
A member of the Order of Canada since 2014, Collins became the first Canadian woman to have her own national TV show, The Eleanor Show, when it aired in 1955. She was also the first black TV host in North America, according to CBC.