50 Cents - Elizabeth II Eskimo Dog

The Eskimo Dog — more precisely the Canadian Inuit Dog — was the fourth subject in the Royal Canadian Mint's twelve-coin sled dog breed series running from 1997 to 1998. The series was conceived partly to satisfy a booming collector market for commemorative fifty-cent pieces, a denomination that had effectively ceased to circulate by the mid-1990s, making the entire run purpose-struck from the outset.

Mintage for individual breeds in this series varied, and some issues were struck in quantities low enough to generate immediate secondary market premiums on release.