There are more than 2,200 active subscriptions to this newsletter -- which is great. And on any given day, we have an "open rate" usually around 50 per cent but sometimes as high as 60 per cent. That, I'm told by those in the newsletter business, is exceptional. I know many of my subscribers personally and I can tell you they include members of federal and provincial parliaments; political staffers; lobbyists, government relations pros, academics, journalists and many students. A good group.

But in the last few days, there have been some technical hiccups that, it seems, resulted in subscribers from certain domains, including gmail.com and outlook.com, who saw this newsletter get dumped into their spam folders or not delivered altogether.

Together with the third-party developer who runs this goodbits.io platform, I took some steps Thursday which should smooth things out. Please get in touch if there are still some issues at your end.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a closer look at completely transitioning to Substack. You should, if my fixes work, continue to receive this newsletter from goodbits.io but if you want to sign up at my Substack, please feel free to do so. Consider doing so as being part of a soft-launch there. (Also: I'll likely post "Notes" there which I can't do here on Goodbits.io)  It may mean you receive duplicate copies of The Roundup in the morning but, hey, it's just an e-mail. Click delete and it's gone.

Why not just move everything to Substack, some have asked? The biggest reason: Goodbits features toold that Substack does not that allows for very rapid creation of a clippings newsletter. I do, after all, have a day job, and so a newsletter that can be assembled quickly over morning coffee is helpful.. But I'm going to experiment over the coming days with some workflow possibilities and, perhaps one day, we'll all migrate over Substack.

As always -- your feedback and suggestions are very helpful.

in 1998. Sc 1753a. Legendary Canadians. Design: Catharine Bradbury. Illustrations: Dean Bartsch. 

Here’s the Canada Post bios of the four individuals honoured with these stamps, working clockwise from top left:

Sc 1750 Napoléon-Alexandre Comeau (1848-1923) was known throughout the province as the King of the north Shore. His love of nature, his role as fish warden on the Godbout River, his uncommon talent of bringing people together in nature and his regard for the Native People in his community made him a folk hero from the earliest days. His unparalleled knowledge of the flora and fauna of the northern shores of the St. Lawrence River was legend, and his articles for the American magazines Forest and Stream and National Geographic led to international recognition by American scientists. In the woods beyond his home, the self-educated Comeau served as a turn-of-the-century paramedic, performing minor surgeries and amputations and assisting at over 250 births. While his name is still known to many beyond the borders of his native province, his legend is kept alive in Baie-Comeau - the town which bears his name.

Sc 1751 Phyllis Munday (1894-1990) was a scientist, cartographer, naturalist, athlete, humanitarian and adventurer. Munday spent her life climbing B.C.'s remote Coast Mountains. In her climbing career she scaled some 100 peaks, nearly a third of which were first ascents, and many being first ascents for a woman. In 1924, Phyllis Munday with her colleague Annette Buck became the first women to reach the summit of Mount Robson - the highest peak in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Humorous, generous and caring, Munday was granted the Order of Canada in 1973 for her pioneering efforts, and for her dedicated service to the Girl Guides, St. John Ambulance and the Alpine Club of Canada.

Sc 1753 Harry "Red" Foster (1905-1985) was born in Toronto and got involved as a teenager writing advertising copy for sports events and got hooked. In 1931, he took his fondness for sport one step further, joined the swelling ranks of sports announcers, covering every event from wrestling to hockey, lacrosse to baseball, and swimming to cycling. In the 30s, his bi-weekly radio program, "Sporting Aces", brought celebrated athletes into the living rooms of Canadians. In the 1940s, the Victory Bonds radio program gave Foster a platform from which to promote top name sports figures and entertainers. By 1964, Foster Advertising was billing more than $70 million a year. Foster's philanthropic spirit was renowned, and his generosity supported community-based concerns such as the Canadian Special Olympics, The Alzheimer's Society of Canada, and the Salvation Army and the Metropolitan Toronto Association for Community Living.

Sc 1752 There's no question that William Clifford Mason (1929-1988) was the most successful filmmaker in the history of the National Film Board of Canada. During his career, Mason created 18 spectacular films, attracting huge audiences and earning some 60 honours including two British Academy Awards and two nominations for an Oscar. Mason's films were borrowed, purchased and seen by more people than those films of any other NFB filmmaker. His Cry of the Wild which opened in New York City in 1974 was a hit, outgrossing Papillon, The Sting, American Graffiti and even The Godfather in its first week. Quill and Quire called this Canadian canoe enthusiast "a symbol of the joy of the wild to an entire generation". In a career that brought nature to the screens of the world, Mason created 18 films, among them Paddle to the Sea, Death of a Legend and Path of the Paddle.