2003 $100 The Discovery of Marquis Wheat, 100th Anniversary - 14-kt. Gold Coin

Prairie winters are quick to descent and slow to depart, providing Canada's farmers with a formidable challenge: one of the shortest growing seasons in the world. Right from the start, Canada's pioneering community was ripe with ingenuity and determination to reap prosperity from a fertile but unwilling land. Success would rest upon the development of hardy and fast-maturing wheat. By the late 1800s, the Canadian hardy wheat known as Red Fife was fast becoming the grain of choice for its excellent yield and baking quality, although it could offer little protection against frost. At the central experimental farm in Ottawa, William Saunders set to work with his two sons to improve upon this almost-perfect wheat. Over a period of some 10 years, they evaluated hundreds of possible strains, and in 1903, Charles Saunders began testing the offspring of a cross between Red Fife and Hard Red Calcutta, and knew he had found a winner: Marquis.