2 oz Creatures of the North Silver Coin

The 2 oz Creatures of the North Silver Coin

Creatures of the North is a Royal Canadian Mint bullion series launched in 2020, struck in 2 troy ounces of .9999 fine silver on extra-thick planchets and celebrating mythological creatures from Canadian folklore and Indigenous traditions. The roster runs from the inaugural Kraken (2020) through the Werewolf (2021), Sasquatch (2022), and Ogopogo (2023). Each coin carries a $10 CAD face value and Canada's legal tender backing, and unlike most themed silver, these are bullion-grade releases with no fixed mintage cap, priced and distributed through the RCM's authorised dealer network rather than as collector proofs.

The series' draw is cultural specificity. Rather than recycling global mythology, the designs are rooted in distinctly Canadian legends: the Kraken from Atlantic maritime folklore, the werewolf from French-Canadian loup-garou stories, the Sasquatch from Pacific Northwest First Nations oral histories, and the Ogopogo from the Syilx people's accounts of N'ha-a-itk, the spirit of Okanagan Lake. The Kraken, designed by Mi'kmaq artist Gerald Gloade, generated particular buzz on release, helped along by the "Release the Kraken" meme.

The 2 oz format itself occupies a niche. It is uncommon in bullion, sitting between standard 1 oz coins and the 5 oz and larger formats, and the 2 oz silver coin class trades more on design canvas than premium efficiency. For buyers who want RCM purity and security features with more visual heft than a 1 oz Maple Leaf, this series is the mint's main answer.

Creatures of the North Specifications

The $10 face value is worth noting: it is only double the $5 carried by the RCM's 1 oz silver coins despite the doubled weight being packed into a roughly standard 38 mm diameter, which is why the planchets are noticeably thick. The extra thickness means these coins stack differently from standard 1 oz pieces and need their own storage arrangements rather than standard tubes.

Security is full RCM specification: a maple leaf laser-engraved privy mark micro-engraved with the year of issue and visible only under magnification, precise radial lines around the border in a pattern unique to the mint and extremely difficult to replicate, and Bullion DNA anti-counterfeiting technology that authorised dealers can use for verification. The obverse carries Susanna Blunt's effigy of Queen Elizabeth II, with the creature design on the reverse; later issues may transition to King Charles III.

Creatures of the North Tax Treatment by Country

As Canadian legal tender struck in .9999 fine silver, the series gets clean treatment in most major markets.

• Canada: GST/HST exempt as legal tender precious metal; the federal exemption covers silver refined to at least 99.9% purity, far below this coin's .9999 standard. Qualifying bullion is also eligible for RRSP and TFSA registered accounts. Capital gains follow the normal 50% inclusion rate.
• USA: IRA-eligible: .9999 fine silver from a sovereign mint comfortably meets the IRS requirement of 99.9% purity for precious metals IRAs. No federal sales tax; roughly 35 states exempt bullion. Long-term gains are taxed at the 28% collectibles rate.
• UK: Subject to 20% VAT as imported silver, and not CGT-exempt since it is not UK legal tender. UK buyers pay tax at both ends.
• Australia and New Zealand: GST-free in both countries as investment-grade silver at or above the 99.9% purity threshold.
• EU: Full local VAT applies to silver, between 17% and 27% by member state, though Germany's margin scheme on imported silver coins can reduce the effective rate to the dealer's margin.
• Singapore and Hong Kong: Singapore exempts qualifying investment precious metals from GST with no capital gains tax; Hong Kong has no sales tax or duties at all.

Four Monsters in Four Years

The series opened in 2020 with the Kraken, a giant tentacled sea creature shown rising from the ocean to attack a sailing ship. The design came from Mi'kmaq artist Gerald Gloade and drew on Atlantic Canadian maritime folklore, where sailors had reported encounters with giant tentacled creatures for centuries. The 2021 Werewolf followed, prowling a moonlit forest and channelling the loup-garou legends that French settlers carried to Canada. The 2022 Sasquatch put the country's most famous cryptid on silver, drawing from First Nations oral histories of the Pacific Northwest, and the 2023 Ogopogo depicted the lake monster of Okanagan Lake, rooted in the Syilx people's stories of N'ha-a-itk.

The original plan called for two releases per year, but the pace slowed to one, and community discussion suggests the series may have been paused or discontinued after the 2023 Ogopogo, with no 2024 release announced. That uncertainty has its own market effect: the 2020 Kraken has become scarcer on the secondary market and can trade at a modest premium over later issues, even though all four coins were technically unlimited bullion strikes whose production was bounded only by demand within each release year.

Whatever the series' final status, it stands as one of the RCM's more distinctive bullion experiments: a folklore programme with genuine local roots, full bullion security features, and a thick-planchet 2 oz format the mint had not previously used for a standing series.

Creatures of the North vs Maple Leaf and Rival Mythology Coins

The in-house comparison comes first. The 1 oz silver Maple Leaf shares the same mint, the same .9999 purity, and the same security technology, but in a generic flagship design at the world's most traded 1 oz weight. The Maple Leaf wins on liquidity and ubiquity; Creatures of the North offers double the silver per coin, thematic variety, and generally lower premiums per ounce than specialty Maple Leaf variants. For stackers, the Maple is the default; the Creatures coins are for buyers who want the design.

Among themed rivals, the Perth Mint has issued mythical creature coins such as the Phoenix and Dragon, but not as a cohesive folklore-based series, which leaves the RCM programme unusual in its narrative consistency. Niue's various mythological issues are typically struck by third-party mints at .999 purity rather than .9999, and the Austrian Mint's mythology coins are .925 sterling silver, a meaningfully lower fineness for buyers in jurisdictions where purity thresholds determine tax treatment.

Within the 2 oz weight class, the obvious alternatives are the Royal Mint's Queen's Beasts (completed in 2021) and its Tudor Beasts successor, which made 2 oz the format's mainstream standard. Those carry UK CGT exemption for British buyers, which the Canadian coin cannot match; conversely, the RCM coin's .9999 purity and Bullion DNA verification are its own differentiators. Both series demonstrate the same point: at 2 oz, the larger canvas and the design are the product as much as the silver is.