University professor spots error in mountain featured on $10 bill

OTTAWA -- The Bank of Canada is making a molehill out of a mountain.

The central bank had claimed that its new plastic $10 bank notes included an image of majestic Mount Edith Cavell, a prominent peak in the Canadian Rockies south of Jasper, Alta.

But a sharp-eyed professor in Toronto, who had hiked the mountain with his family, thought something was amiss when the image matched neither his memory nor his photos.

Hitesh Doshi contacted the Bank of Canada by email last November, shortly after the new $10 notes were released, to say something was amiss. He kept getting the runaround until last week.

That's when the central bank quietly changed its website, removing Mount Edith Cavell and several other peaks from its official description of the back of the $10 bank note, replacing them with some other peaks.

It also sent Doshi a short email, finally acknowledging the error.

"One of the memorable things for me in Alberta was visiting (Mount) Edith Cavell," he said of a visit with his family. "To us, it was a very memorable trip."

But when he later examined the $10 bank note, "the peak was not there," said Doshi, a professor of architecture at Ryerson University and a new Canadian. "That's where the whole thing started."

Doshi contacted a mountaineer based in Edmonton, Eric Coulthard, who noticed some other discrepancies in the images of peaks on the bank note. For one, there was a misidentified image of Mount Zengel, which the bank claimed was the Palisade and Pyramid mountains.

"He recognized Zengel right off the bat," said Doshi, who sent the bank some more unanswered emails in November and December.

Eight months after Doshi's original inquiries, the Bank of Canada finally removed Mount Edith Cavell and Mount Marmot from its website description of the upper left image of the mountains, saying they're actually Lectern Peak and Aquila Mountain. Mount Zengel is also properly identified, along with some other changes.

"I can confirm that we changed the description of the $10," bank spokesman Alexandre Deslongchamps said Monday.

"Image research was undertaken during the development of the polymer (plastic bank note) series. The documentation error was the result of a misunderstanding about information provided to the Bank of Canada by Canadian Bank Note Co. Ltd."

Added Deslongchamps: "The bank has consulted several subject matter experts to ensure that we now have an accurate identification of the mountains in our documentation for the $10 note."

The mountain images on the back of the $10 note, which also features a passenger train, were based on commissioned panoramic photographs, with images later cut and pasted to highlight certain peaks, rather than depict an actual panorama.

"Selected areas within those photographs appear in the $10 design, and are now accurately identified on the bank's website," Deslongchamps said.

The bank simply changed the website descriptions without a note to readers citing the alterations or the reasons.

Edith Cavell, for whom the peak was renamed in 1916, was an English nurse during the First World War. She was executed by the German army in 1915 for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium.

The 3,363-metre peak in Jasper National Park formerly had a French name that translates the Mountain of the Great Crossing (La Montagne de la Grande Traversee).

The Bank of Canada's new polymer series of bank notes, introduced to thwart counterfeiters, has been plagued with problems and misunderstandings.

Vending-machine operators initially complained that the new plastic $20 bills didn't work properly in their machines. Critics complained that images of pioneering feminists, the Famous Five and Therese Casgrain, were removed from the old $100 bill to make way for the image of an icebreaker on the new, plastic version.

Some key controversies and misunderstandings with new plastic bank notes

-- The Bank of Canada misidentified Mount Edith Cavell and other peaks featured on the reverse of its new $10 bank notes, first issued last fall. Last week, the bank's website revised several of the names, dropping Mount Edith Cavell altogether. The bank said it was given misinformation by a supplier.

-- Owners of vending machines said the devices were not able to digest plastic $20 bank notes released in late 2012, and blamed the Bank of Canada. The bank said it gave sufficient notice and technical information to the industry.

-- The Bank of Canada purged the image of an Asian-looking woman from a draft of its new $100 bank notes, issued in 2011, after focus groups raised questions about her ethnicity. The final image was made to look Caucasian. Then-bank governor Mark Carney later apologized for the process of vetting images and promised to change it.

-- Claims that the Bank of Canada added a maple syrup scent to the new bank notes went viral on the web soon after the new $100 note went into circulation. A bank spokesman said no scent has been added to any of the new bank notes.

-- Some botanists have claimed the new polymer bills feature a maple leaf from a species that's native to Norway, not Canada. The Bank of Canada denies that, saying the leaf images are stylized and from native Canadian maples.

-- Some Canadians have alleged the new plastic bills are prone to melting when placed on a radiator or in a clothes dryer. The bank denies that, saying the bills were tested and designed to be impervious to normal heat sources.