The Lemming's Last Tale
The snow moves behind me. It twitches like the thick tail of the one the Inuit call Tiriganiaq - my kind's most feared hunter. He is the sly shape-shifter who sits in wait, grey against the seashore stone, brown against the hard earth of the summer tundra, waiting like a rooted bush as we gather our food. In winter, he becomes as white as... snow.

It is a lean year and I am one of the last of my kind. Every day I must go further to find food, venturing beyond my safe,hidden world between the earth and the snow into the bitter white realm above. And now I feel the strange, shifting shape behind me, a staring beast with eyes of bluest ice stalking across the snow on feet padded with soft white fur. To me, this mound of white is more massive than a mountain - although there are other beasts nearby who dwarf the shape-shifter. Dwarf him, yes, but never outwit him.

HowI fear this silent, inscrutable snow-beast stalking me. I know that for him, my death means life. For his partner, too, and the many pups they will care for together as the winter snows give way to green once again. He is hungry. If he cannot catch me, he will have to travel farfor food - as do all of his kind in the lean years.

I see his sharp teeth in my mind's eye, appearing from nowhere, snatching at my death as I leap for a hole in the hard-packed snow. The frozen wind's chiding is lost on him; it cannot penetrate his thick pelt. His fur-lined feet move faster, yet are ever silent. I leap below the snow. Here is my burrow. I will be safe - for surely he cannot find me here, can he?

This coin is the first issue of the Untamed Canada collection.
The first coin of the series, released in 2013, depicts the Arctic Fox.
The second coin ofr the series, released in september 2013, depicts the Pronghom.
The third coin of the series, released in march 2014, depicts theWolverine.

UNTAMED CANADA - ARCTIC FOX - 2013 CANADIAN COINS 01 is categorised COINS AND PAPER MONEY / 08- ROYAL CANADIAN MINT / 10- FLORA, FAUNA & NATURE and sold by l'Imaginaire, a store and specialised website.