How the N.W.T.'s polar bear licence plate became a 'holy grail' for collectors | CBC News

NWT The N.W.T.'s iconic polar bear licence plate.(Sidney Cohen/CBC) Sam Bova has been exclusively collecting N.W.T. and Nunavut licence plates for more than 30 years, and now has around 1,300 N.W.T. plates in his collection.(Submitted by Sam Bova) Sam Bova said an average modern N.W.T. licence plate is worth about $30, but some can go for close to $1,000.(Sam Bova) American content creator Ethan Craft, as a child, with a Nunavut polar bear licence plate.(Submitted by Ethan Craft) How the N.W.T.'s polar bear licence plate became a 'holy grail' for collectors Plate became an instant hit among collectors when it was first introduced in 1970 Iconic. Beloved. Unique. Desirable. The holy grail. Those are just some of the ways collectors describe the Northwest Territories’ polar-bear shaped licence plate. Steven Silver has been a fan since the plate was first introduced in 1970. The 67-year-old Kingston, Ont., resident said he can still remember the first time he saw one. He was 12 years old. “I broke away from my mother and I ran down Princess Street three blocks to catch up with this thing, to see what it was,” he recalled. When he saw the plate, he wasn’t disappointed. “This thing was just beyond a collector's wildest dreams,” Silver said. He immediately set his sights on acquiring one of the polar bear plates - not an easy task for a teenager growing up before the internet. But he was eventually able to sign up to buy a used plate from the N.W.T. government. “It was probably one of my prize possessions for a long time,” Silver said. “It was always sort of the holy grail of licence plates.” Collector Sam Bova shares this feeling. He has been exclusively collecting N.W.T. and Nunavut licence plates for more than 30 years, and now has around 1,300 N.W.T. plates in his collection. Like many collectors, he was drawn to the plates because of their unique shape. “Twenty or 30 years ago I got my first one, and then, as most collectors will tell you, the addiction kicks in,” he said. He said an average modern N.W.T. licence plate is worth about $30, but the most rare N.W.T. plates can go for close to $1,000. The history of the polar-bear plate The Northwest Territories’ polar bear-shaped licence plate first came out in January 1970, in honour of the territory’s centennial. Stuart Hodgson, the territory's commissioner at the time, is credited with the idea for the plate, though he likely didn’t design it. In a News of the North article from Jan. 8, 1970, headlined “Get a polar bear and travel!,” Hodgson is quoted as saying the territory wanted to create a polar bear plate to go with the N.W.T. government’s polar bear logo, which had been introduced a couple years earlier. Jakes Ootes worked with Hodgson at the time, first as his executive assistant, then at the N.W.T. government’s department of information. “[Hodgson] wanted to bring attention to the Northwest Territories. And one way of...

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