When Canada made plans to replace its $1 bills with a coin in the mid-1980s, the RCM (Royal Canadian Mint) wanted to use the so-called "voyageur"* design that had been on olde
…r dollar coins. Dies were prepared and shipped from the factory to the minting facility, but somewhere along they way they were either lost or stolen. The RCM couldn't take a chance that criminals would be able to make 100%-accurate counterfeits by using the real dies, so they quickly prepared new ones using the second-runner-up design featuring a loon. It's actually quite similar to the voyageur design, with the same lake and trees, and the loon in the same position as the voyageur's canoe. The whole mess created tons of publicity for the new coin and helped make it a lot more popular than it might have been when first introduced. It was quickly nicknamed the "loonie" and has become as much a symbol of the Canadian dollar as the "greenback" is for the U.S. dollar. In fact, some Canadians view it as a symbol of superiority because the coin has been incredibly successful whereas the U.S., due to many bureaucratic fumblings, has never been able to make a dollar coin circulate widely. (*) The voyageurs (voy-ah-ZHURRs), meaning "travellers", were trappers and hunters who opened up the Canadian wilderness and helped establish trading posts. (MORE) 
