During "back-to-school" season in Canada, inexpensive "Heritage notebooks" made by Hilroy are a common site. These notebooks are 12.7cm by 20cm and stitched (or stapled) at the top so that they open up instead of to the side. This style of notebook used to be more popular, especially among students, than they seem to be today. The Heritage notebook (sadly made in China for the last 20 or so years), has a long history. Before it was the Heritage notebook, it was the Camp Site note book. In the image below-right (the Camp Site notebook with the Valu-Fair price tag) you can see no. 42-511 printed on the bottom right of the cover. This is the same number found on the current Heritage notebook. This Camp site notebook is probably from the late 1970s or early 1980s. 

The image and style of the Camp Site notebook is copied from the Camp Fire notebook manufactured by W. J. Gage and dates back to at least 1911. The Camp Fire notebook on the right with the Zeller's price tag has the Campus brand on the front and DRG Stationery Company on the back. DRG (Dickinson Robinson Group) purchased the stationery and envelope divisions of W.J. Gage Limited in 1971. They phased out the Gage corporate identity by 1981 but kept the Campus line branding and continued manufacturing in Georgetown, Ontario. This notebook likely dates to the mid-1980s. The DRG Stationery facility in Georgetown closed in 1992.

Spiral Paper Products was a competitor to Hilroy in the 1970s and 1980s and had several look-alike products including the Camp Notes notebook seen here.

How small does a pencil have to be in order to fit in an envelope with no additional postage? It turns out that the answer is about 1/8" diameter and about 3.5" long. These mini pencils were sent out in subscription renewal letters (back in the days before subscriptions and renewals were done online). Magazines and newspapers would include a tiny pencil to make sure that recipients could fill out the renewal and return it on the spot. In an interview with the Erasables podcast (episode 106), Henry Hulan, former president of Musgrave Pencil noted that these pencils were difficult to manufacture and required special machinery because of their tiny size. He also mentioned that Musgrave made millions of these pencils. I'm not aware of any Canadian made mini-pencils.

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These mini pencils remind me of program pencils just without the cord to attach to a dance card.

These vintage "Government of Canada" pencils were made by the Venus Pencil Company in Toronto, Ontario. What strikes me most about these pencils is their colors. These were made in green, blue, red and yellow. 
It's hard to imagine a modern government ordering pencils like these. Current governments seem to prioritize lowest bids and minimizing taxpayer expense (which is a sound fiscal policy). Sometimes however, fiscal responsibility means that we get dull and utilitarian pencils instead of something that evokes a bit of charm and whimsy. 
I think we could use a bit of whimsy these days.

Warm summer days are made for ice cream. If you grew up in Pictou County Nova Scotia, you may remember Picoda Ice Cream made by the Pictou County Dairy in Stellarton. In the mid-20th century, promotional pencils were a popular way to advertise. Pencils were inexpensive to manufacture and likely to be kept and used by the recipient rather than being thrown away. This pencil is a charming reminder of a heritage ice cream brand that disappeared after the dairy was purchased by Scotsburn in 1964.

Eagle Canadiana colored pencils from the 1950s are some of my favourite pencil crayons. The red box decorated with autumn leaves makes me want to sit down next to a fireplace at a lakeside cottage. I admire the font that looks almost hand drawn. This set of 24 is a recent addition to my pencil collection.

An early 1960s Eagle catalogue states this about Canadiana pencils.
"Canadiana colored pencils are especially constructed for home and school use. They are made with strong EXTRA thick leads to withstand rough treatment from school age children.
The 24 brilliant colors are made with smooth, pigment-packed thick leads. They are full length, 7 inch round pencils, beautifully finished to match the color of the lead. An added feature is the signature panel where the owner can write his name to guard against loss.
The sets come in gaily colored boxes. Each set contains a selection of balanced colors.

​Canadiana pencils at this time came in 24 different colors, plus a two-colored checking pencil:

• 501 Crimson Red
• 502 Scarlet Red
• 503 Vermilion
• 504 Orange
• 505 Canary Yellow
• 506 Lemon Yellow
• 507 Apple Green
• 508 Light Green
• 509 Olive Green
• 510 Grass Green
• 511 Sky Blue
• 512 Light Blue
• 513 Ultramarine Blue
• 514 Indigo Blue
• 515 Violoet
• 516 Purple
• 517 Magenta
• 518 Yellow Ochre
• 519 Terra Cotta
• 520 Brown
• 521 Black
• 522 Grey
• 523 White
• 525 Red & Blue
• 526 Lavender

Below is a page from an early 1960s Eagle Pencil Company of Canada catalogue. The page shows several pencils that were only distributed in Canada. I have a few of these pencils in my collection and are searching for the rest. I used to believe that I could date pencils based on its style of logo. This catalogue has disabused me of that notion. This catalogue has pencils with several different styles of logo (the old fashioned eagle, the more modern stylized eagle as seen on the Express below, the flying letter E as seen on the Valor and several with just the word Eagle as on the Royal Canadian or no logo at all like the Atlas). It seems the logo on these pencils were not updated at the same time. 

I have a collection of Eagle Valor pencils but they are all newer thant the style shown here with the blue block of color.

There is a long history of free items being included in boxes of tea.  A popular promotional prize was the 'Wade Whimsies' porcelain figures included with Red Rose Tea in the 1960s. Tea cards were another popular promotional item with cards being included with boxes of tea from 1954 all the way to 1999.
As charming as those porcelain figurines and vintage trading cards are, my collection is strictly focused on stationery. Luckily for me, King Cole Tea for a short time gave away pencils.  King Cole Tea is a Canadian brand of tea that is made by G.E. Barbour Inc. (Barbours), a company based in Sussex, New Brunswick. This brand of tea was started in 1910 and the company is even older. King Cole gave away sets of 5 colorful pencils with boxes of tea in the mid-1950s. These came in several different colors. The one below has English text but they were also printed with French language text as well.

Below is a picture of a full set of free pencils and an advertisement showing "5 Jolis Crayons Gratis" from 1954. Each of the five pencils was a different color: red, grey, blue, orange and yellow. The pencils have "Made in Canada" written on the top but I don't know which Canadian manufacturer whould have made this.

King Cole also had pencil cases and ink blotters and mail-in promotions. I don't have a pencil case but below is an image of an advertising ink blotter.  

I'd love to find more examples of these pencils but they are a pretty rare find. The ink blotters seem to be much more common than the pencils.

It is time once again for the Canadian Census. The census of population takes place every five years and this year marks the 24th nation wide census. During the 1971 and 1976 census in Canada, census packages included a pre-sharped pencil to complete the form with. Since millions of these pencils were manufactured and they were widely distributed, they are not especially rare. I shared my collection of census pencils during the last census in 2021.  Recently I found a much less common pencil from the 1974 test census.

After the 1970s, pencils were no longer manufactured for the census. These old pencils are a reminder of a different era. Currently, the census is completed online so there is no need for a pencil.  

Yesterday was the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby. This race takes place at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Until I recently found the pencil shown below, I had no idea that Prince Edward Island is sometimes called the 'Kentucky of Canada.' This is due to its long-standing tradition of harness racing. Similar to how Kentucky and it's 'Kentucky Derby' are synonymous with horse racing in the United States, PEI boasts the 'Governor's Plate' race in Summerside. This summer will mark 150 years of harness racing in Summerside.

I have no idea how old this pencil is, but the knurled ferrule on the end makes me believe it is vintage and most likely manufactured by Eagle Pencil. Perhaps this was purchased at the Summerside Raceway which is believed to be the oldest, continuously raced horse track in Canada.

In 1964, Prince Edward Island initiated an island-wide celebration to honor the centennial of the Charlottetown Conference, effectively jumping three years ahead of the rest of Canada’s 1967 national centennial. This early start was to commemorate September 1, 1864, when leaders from the Maritimes and Upper/Lower Canada first met to debate the union of the colonies. P.E.I. is pround of its identity as the "Cradle of Confederation." Canada's 1967 national centennial celebrates the date when the British Parliment officially passed the British North America Act in 1867.

The pencil below was manufactured by Eagle Canada to commemorate the celebration.

P.E.I. again celebrated a centennial anniversary in 1973 with the anniversary of the date that they officially joined the confederation.

So within a ten year period, Islanders got three different centennial celebrations! Perhaps we should just call it party island.

The Canadian Weekly, insert to the Montreal Gazette, 16 May 1964
P.E.I. WHOOPS IT UP
by ALAN EDMONDS

CHARLOTTETOWN — While the rest of Canada is in a tizzy of confusion wondering how (and sometimes whether) to celebrate the nation's official 100th birthday in 1967, the littlest province of all — Prince Edward Island — is happily one jump ahead with an invitation to the world to visit its shores and celebrate the Centennial of Confederation this year.

This may seem a little presumptuous of the 107,000 people who live on the crescent-shaped island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, particularly since P.E.I. did not even join Confederation until 1873. But on the first day of 1964 the island's dignitaries publicly cut a mammoth birthday cake to launch a year-long, island-wide party at which the province will be whooping it up in honor of the Centennial of Confederation three years ahead of the rest of Canada.

On May 1 work was finished on a massive $5,600,000 cultural complex of theatre, conference halls, art gallery and museum which is Canada’s first monument to the nation’s founding fathers. It was christened on May 18 when the Dominion Drama Festival was staged there, and will be formally opened in October by the Queen, who will spend two days in Charlottetown at the start of her visit to Canada. And throughout the rest of the year the farming and fishing villages scattered around the 120-by-35 mile island will be staging Centennial celebrations of the kind optimists hope to see across Canada in 1967.

Justification for all this is that the seeds of Confederation were sown in Charlottetown on Sept. 1, 1864 — a hitherto widely ignored event in Canadian history. On that date the steamship Queen Victoria arrived in the harbor at Charlottetown, where leaders of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I. were about to debate plans for confederation of the Maritime provinces. Aboard the Queen Victoria were John A. Macdonald and 12 other members of the cabinet from Upper and Lower Canada (Ontario and Quebec were then jointly administered) come to proffer a grander plan: The union of the Canadas and the Maritime colonies in one new nation, Canada.

There was to be another Confederation meeting at Quebec in October that year, at which the terms of union were threshed out. The British North America act, which still serves Canada as a constitution, was not passed by the British Parliament until 1867 — and it is the 100th anniversary of this which Canada observes in 1967.

But to Prince Edward Island, Confederation really began the day visiting politicians steamed into harbor to be met by a committee of one — the local secretary of state, who borrowed a skiff to row out to the Queen Victoria. Their arrival passed unnoticed by the islanders, who that day were more interested in the circus which had come to Charlottetown than in the birth of a nation, though ever since the province has proudly worn the label: "Cradle of Confederation."
[...]
To Canada the P.E.I. Centennial is an overture to the nationwide celebrations planned for 1967, though there is a widespread feeling among islanders that the rest of Canada is ignoring the province in this, its vintage year. They are partly mollified by the fact the Canadian Mint has issued a P.E.I. Centennial dollar (it also marks the Quebec Confederation meeting) and the post office is thinking about a commemorative stamp. But islanders are, to a man, furious with National Centennial Administration Commissioner John Fisher for not mentioning P.E.I.’s celebrations when interviewed about the national Centennial on a CBC public-affairs TV program in January.
[...]