Visiting the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa During the Tulip Festival

Every year, Ottawa, the capital city of Canada hosts an annual Tulip Festival to welcome the arrival of spring in May.

We took advantage of the fine weather and visited our beloved capital city during the festival recently.

We stayed a few days in Ottawa and visited a few other places, one of which was the Royal Canadian Mint.

The Royal Canadian Mint is located  only a stone throw away  from the Byward Market in downtown Ottawa.

American Embassy Building, Ottawa, Canada

After stopping by at our favourite cafe at the  Byward Market and  enjoying our afternoon coffee and treats, we strolled to the Canadian Mint. 

We passed by the American Embassy building.

Kuwait Embassy, Ottawa, Canada

We also passed by the Kuwait Embassy  and  other magnificent buildings.

We arrived at the entrance of the Royal Canadian Mint at around 3:30pm.

A display on the grounds of the Royal Canadian Mint

We made it in time to purchase our tour tickets to join in the last tour of the day.

Unfortunately, there were no cameras allowed during the tour therefore I did not have any pictures about the tour.

But I tried to take a few pictures outside the Royal Canadian Mint before we went into the building.

The Royal Canadian Mint, Ottawa

I liked the Canadian Mint building as it looked like a castle from the outside with  turrets.

We went through a thick set of doors and were led upstairs to the gift shop where we waited for our tour guide.  

The Gift Shop at the Royal Canadian Mint

While waiting , we had some time to look at  some of the coins made at  the Royal Canadian Mint.

The Canadian Mint melts down gold bars such as this one to make gold coins.

The tour of the Mint took about  an hour. 

The tour guide took us through the process of how gold and silver coins were made in the Mint including melting the gold bars.

The Mint in Ottawa produces gold/silver decorative coins such as these

We were given  a tour of the facility and  a lot of interesting and useful information .

Lots of hours spent on designing and crafting these beautiful foins

We learned that  there are two locations for the Royal Canadian Mint, the one we were visiting and another one located in Winnipeg.

The main difference between the two mints is that the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa makes beautiful, decorative  and commemorating coins whereas the Canadian Mint in Winnipeg makes the regular coins Canadians use daily.  

Some interesting information we learned on this tour :

1. To minimize the risk of robbery, there is another mint that produces paper currency at a non disclosed highly secretive location where nobody knows where it is!

2. We saw a display of coins and flags of numerous countries that employ the know how and technology of the Royal Canadian Mint which produces coins for them.

The tour of the Canadian Mint was an interesting and educational one!

 I now have a greater appreciation of the artistic work and efforts that put into making these beautiful coins!

R.T.

Royal Canadian Mint

Ottawa, Ont. Canada
Week of May 14, 2018