A Canadian icon is helping June Steube realize a long-held dream.

The former Sault Ste. Marie resident's artwork of a beaver is featured on a new Royal Canadian Mint coin.

The Sault Collegiate Institute graduate's illustration of a beaver appears on a silver coin with a face value of $10. It's part of the mint's O Canada! series.

"It was very exciting for me," Steube told The Star of her accomplishment. Having the mint share her artwork on a coin was "like a bucket-list item.

"I think the idea of actually holding one in my hand that I had designed was important to me," she said during a telephone interview from Kanata, Ont. "I knew it would matter to my parents."

Steube is the daughter of Lotte and the late Bert.

She still has a coin featuring an eagle she received from her grandparents, Berthold and Margarethe Steube, when she was a child.

Steube's work was chosen through a competitive process.

"Her design is iconic, detailed and visually appealing all at once," said public affairs co-ordinator Pascale Poulin in an email.

Steube had researched the beaver's history of Canada for a planned book for children.

"Her understanding of the theme translated very well into an iconic composition of the beaver," said Poulin.

Steube wanted to show how "very feisty and determined" beavers are in her illustration that was done by pencil on paper.

"I research for a couple of days and gather books, photos, and videos," said Steube of her approach. "When drawing an animal I usually try to see it from all angles and points of view so I can imagine it in three dimensions. I will even look up its skeleton and musculature. The habitat needs to be accurately portrayed including the appropriate species of tree, for example."

The beaver is the first mint coin to feature Steube's artwork. She competed for consideration for two other coins in 2002 and 2012.

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New coin features Steube's artwork(https://www.saultstar.com/news/local-news/new-coin-features-steubes-artwork)