Wilno Ontario Canada Polish Eagle Cancel

South of Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park in the upper reaches of the Madawaska River is the small village of Wilno, which was settled by Polish immigrants in the mid-1800s. It has remained predominantly Polish to this day, so much so that it was apparently allowed its own postmark, the Polish Eagle. In 2011 Wilno was in danger of losing its postal service but I have been unable to determine if this indeed happened.

I have tried to find examples of Wilno's eagle on cancelled stamps and covers on the internet without success, in fact, wasn't able to find images of any Wilno cancel types. Does anyone here have examples of the Wilno Polish Eagle cancel that they could show us?

Here is a link describing the village's attributes including a description of the old wooden postal boxes and the Polish Eagle postmark:

http://www.wilnovillager.on.ca/history.htm

The Wilno pictorial cancellation can be seen at the Canada Post website:

http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/per...ls/index.jsf

Too bad I didn't know about this earlier because I was through Wilno only the weekend before last on my way to the Merrickville Postcard Show.

However, I guess lorddenning has already answered that question for all of us.

BTW - Wilno has some historical notes from the past that include stories of vampires etc. Amazing how legends come with different ethnic groups. Wilno is an attractive town too.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Ironically, Wilno is now part of Lithuania, and also the capital, now called Vilnius.

Wilno was also the capital of the Polish controlled Republic of Central Lithuania from 1920-1922.

See 'Gov't in Exile and Bogus stamps' thread in this category. See third scan, first row, second stampo. This stamp was created but not issued at Poland's inception, and celebrates the Polish Legion. I would guess that the Wilno Polish Eagle was likely similar, if not identical.

Lorddenning: I have been remiss in not thanking you for providing that information regarding the pictorial cancellations. I had it in my head that the cancel might go back to the classic era stamps rather than being the recent event you have shown it to be.

Here is a detailed image of the unreleased 1916 Polish Legion stamp, I referred to earlier.

Art: your eagle looks a bit scrawny compared with the one Lorddenning displayed, albeit neither fit the noble grandeur of the image I had pictured in my head (all for naught as it turns out).

The Post Office of Wilno, Ontario is in an Esso gas station, here is a Google street-view image.

cynical:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

BeeSee: are they still the post office in Wilno? The news last year was that there would soon not be a post office.

Probably a 3yr old photo as the gaz was well below 1$

I'm like a dog on a bone. Here is an older version of the cancel but not by much (see link below)

http://www.wilno.com/Buisiness_Dire...iteheads.htm

Here is some history that pertains to how Wilno came to be and in it mention is made to Janusz Zurakowski, who is well known by almost all Canadian aviation buffs as the Avro Arrow's test pilot:

http://www.whitepinepictures.com/se...sidebar.html

For those wishing to know more about the Avro Arrow here is a link to Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_C...CF-105_Arrow

...and here is the test flight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8lTGTPQlDE