A temporary post office was provided at Canberra for the Twelfth Pacific Science Congress (18th-27th August, 1971).
The Pacific Science Association’s emblem, shown on the postmarker, is an ancient Tahitian twin-hulled voyaging canoe. A deck connects the two hulls, with a thatched house on it. Drawn by Bishop Musuem artist-historian Joseph Feher, and based on sketches made by the artists who accompanied early European viyages of discovery, the design was adopted by the Pacific Science Council in 1966 during the Eleventh Congress.
These wooden canoes made with stone tools were the vessels in which the Polynesians explored and settled the Pacific islands. Voyagers carried fresh and dried food, fowls, pigs and dogs, and supplemented food supplies by fishing. Food plants, slips of paper mulberry for bark cloth and slips of cordage plants were also carried to the new lands. Navigation was by the stars; and wave patterns, cloud formations and bird behaviour indicated the presence of land.
Details
- Date: 18 August 1971 – 27 August 1971
- Quantity:
- 3667 (ordinary articles)
- 46 (registered articles)
