Hawk Wings reader Jesse Schooff emails to send in an updated Canada Mail stamp icon for Mail.app.

He writes:

After being teased one too many times about the “dated” 45-cent Canadian stamp, I’ve made an updated version. A bit of trivia: Canada Post’s current-run stamps have no defined value, so you can keep using them even if the price of postage goes up. Hopefully that will please the sticklers! It still bears the postmark from Markham, Ontario, Apple Canada’s HQ.

It’s a PNG file, which you can download from Hawk Wings. I had to run it through img2icns before it would do its thing.

I’ve added it to the Hawk Wings list of Alternative Mail Stamp Icons.

To round off this post, I’m trying to think of something witty to say about Mounties, beaver tails, lacrosse and the odd concentration of excellent Mac apps that come from Canada, but inspiration fails me.

If you are feeling patriotic, but not Canadian, check out this excellent collection of 30 national flag mail stamp icons on deviantART. mail.app, apple mail, mail stamp, icons, hacks, canada

I noticed yesterday that 40% of the plugins and addons on the Hawk Wings Top Ten list — MailTags, Mail Act-on, Mail Stamps, Spell Catcher X — are created by developers living in Canada.

Even if you count MailTags and Mail Act-on as one, that’s still 30% or almost a third.

Obviously Canada is a terrific country (maple syrup, Mounties, lacrosse, etc), but this seems extraordinary to me.

I wonder why. Is it simply the energy created as a result of being overshadowed by a powerful neighbour? Is the market penetration of Macs in Canada greater? Or is it just coincidence?

A puzzle.