The original design shows a polar bear walking against a northern backdrop. The design was selected by a national competition. Public survey showed that wildlife was consistently a desired theme. The reverse shows Queen Elizabeth's profile. Canada-Two Dollars appears in block lettering around the bear design.

The first day of introduction of the coin was February 19th, 1996 -- coincidentally the same day the $2.00 note was officially withdrawn from circulation. This includes $2.00 uncut sheets. The first $2.00 coins were struck from 60,000,000 pre-assembled blanks manufactured in Germany, just to get the circulation going. Then gradually, the mint began gearing up for local production by linking plugs and rings together by vibration and then stamping the design, with the pressure expanding the plug into a lock against the ring.

These different methods of manufacture have resulted in a spate of different errors being known. These errors range from totally empty blanks, to varying degrees of plug misplacement to missing plugs or rings. Test tokens of this issue were widely distributed to the collecting public. The edge features interrupted milling, or in other words alternating sections of smooth and channeled edge.
The mint also released the new coin in several collector formats, including 22kt gold with silver.

To commemorate Canada's newest Territory, a 1999 Nunavut $2 coin was minted. To celebrate the changing of the millennium, the Royal Canadian Mint released a special "Path of Knowledge" edition of the $2 coin. Instead of the single bear of the original design it features a mother polar bear and two of her cubs. The coin is intended to convey the "passing of knowledge from generation to generation." A gold variant of the Nunavut and Knowledge coins is also available.