Starbucks Québec mug: Discovery Series
The Québec mug from Starbucks' Discovery Series sets the province name in yellow-orange over a dark green circle, with a snowmobile, a puffin, a crêpe with strawberries, a skier and a snow-covered town.
- Series
- Discovery Series
- Place
- Québec, Canada
- Type
- Mug
- Released
- Not confirmed
- Capacity
- 14 fl ozstandard mug size
- SKU
- Not confirmed
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The garage in Valcourt where the snowmobile began
In January 1934, Armand Bombardier's two-year-old son Yvon fell ill with appendicitis in Valcourt, Québec. The nearest hospital was more than twenty miles away in Sherbrooke, and the roads were buried in snow [1]. The boy died. Bombardier, a mechanic who had long been working on over-snow vehicles, kept going: in 1937 he patented a sprocket-and-track system [2], and it became the B-7, a seven-passenger snow coach used for rural mail delivery [3]. In 1958 he built two small machines for one or two riders and called them Ski-Dogs, after the husky teams they were meant to replace. One went to his friend Father Maurice Ouimet, a priest in northern Ontario [1]. By the 1963–64 season the factory was building 8,352 of them a year [4]. The rider on the Québec mug (2) sits on one of their descendants.
The mug does not label its drawings, so connecting this one to the story is our reading.
What's on the mug
- 1Lettering
QUÉBEC in yellow-orange capitals over a dark green circle.
- 2Snowmobile
A rider in a helmet on an orange snowmobile sits at the upper left of the circle.
- 3Puffin
A puffin with a white face and a blue-grey body perches at the lower left of the circle.
- 4Crêpe
A folded crêpe topped with whipped cream and strawberries sits at the upper right.
- 5Skier
A skier in a yellow jacket and purple trousers slides down a pale blue slope at the right.
- 6Snowy old town
Rows of snow-capped houses in orange, blue and yellow stand along the base, with a church spire at the right.
- 7Blue iris-like flower
A blue flower with long orange leaves rises at the left edge.
The photo shows one side of the mug. The back and the area behind the handle are out of view.
Collector notes
- The word on the mug is spelled with an accent, QUÉBEC, in yellow-orange capitals.
- The snowmobile and the puffin sit at the left of the circle, and the crêpe, the skier and the church spire at the right.
Before you buy
Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta also have Discovery mugs in this style, so match the accented word QUÉBEC before you buy. Our photo shows only one side, and the handle side is unseen.
