Museum sights in British Columbia
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BC Sports Hall of Fame & Museum
Located inside BC Place Stadium, the small but perfectly formed Sports Hall of Fame showcases top BC athletes, both amateur and professional, with special galleries devoted to each decade in sports. There’s a wealth of medals, trophies and sporting memorabilia on display (judging by the size of their shirts, hockey players were much smaller in the old days) and there are tons of hands-on activities to tire the kids out. Check out the stirring exhibits on Terry Fox and his ‘Marathon of Hope’ run across Canada, plus Rick Hanson and his ‘Man-in-Motion’ worldwide wheelchair journey.
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Museum Of Anthropology
With Canada's best display of northwest-coast First Nations artifacts in a spectacular waterfront setting, this is Vancouver's best museum. The totem poles alone - displayed against a wall of glass overlooking the coastline - are worth the admission. Technically speaking, the focus is global cultures - you'll be able to dip into Asian, African and Pacific artifacts - but the best exhibits showcase the intricacies of BC's coastal First Nations, including many works by legendary Haida artist Bill Reid. Take one of the free tours to get the most from your visit, and save time for the Haida village, an outdoor re-creation of a traditional settlement, complete with a longhouse…
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Science World & Alcan Omnimax Theatre
Nestled under the city’s gleaming geodesic dome (or ‘silver golf ball’ as the locals often call it) are two levels of hands-on science, technology and natural-history exhibits aimed at satisfying the most enquiring of minds. It’s an ideal place to bring kids – the gallery that explores sustainability issues is recommended, along with the water course of ball cannons and bridges. Expect to spend at least a few hours here. Level 3 holds the 400-seat Omnimax Theatre (tickets $10), showing large-format documentary movies to those who need a sit down.
Level 3 holds the 400-seat Omnimax Theatre (tickets around C$10), showing large-format documentary movies to those w…
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Exploration Place
Exploration Place has a public atrium and 1115 sq m of exhibition space devoted to nature and history. Once you get past the gloss designed to attract people afraid of the word 'museum' the center is an engaging stop. There's lots of good historical stuff - especially on First Nations groups like those confluencers, the Lheidli T'Enneh - and it's fun to check out the Nature Exchange, where kids can trade rocks and other items they've found.
Kids also seem to love the SimEx ride simulator (where you get shaken up like a can of paint at the hardware store; no big chili lunches first).
It's southeast of the downtown area on the corner of 20th Ave and Queensway.
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Revelstoke Railway Museum
Don't miss the great Revelstoke Railway Museum, which houses restored steam locomotives, including one of the largest steam engines ever used on CPR lines. Photographs and artifacts document the construction of the CPR, pay tribute to its hardy workers and relate the railway's original financial woes. Volunteer railway engineers are often on hand to offer yarns about the heyday of rail travel.
You'll be forgiven if you get a bit wistful pondering the noble past of railway dining - there's not a paper plate in sight. The museum bookstore carries a huge selection of books about the building of the CPR, which was instrumental - if not essential - in linking Canada.
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Vancouver Police Centennial Museum
Colorfully charting the city’s murky criminal past, displays at this excellent little museum include an autopsy room with pieces of damaged body parts posted on the wall (note the brain with a.22 caliber bullet in it) and an exhibit describing how to determine a corpse’s age via insects (blowflies appear in 15 days, cheese-skippers in 40 days). Visitors can see what a 1oz lump of heroin looks like or peruse bad-ass weaponry, including a gangster-era Thompson submachine gun. Also consider the gripping Sins of the City walking tour ($12), which escorts curious visitors through the dodgy Downtown Eastside’s eye-popping vice and crime-fighting history.
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Chinese Cultural Centre Museum & Archives
Check out this museum for a deeper understanding of the often-turbulent history of Vancouver’s Chinese immigrants. Changing exhibits are on the main floor, while the 2nd floor’s permanent collection highlights Gold Rush history and Chinatown settlement. It also houses the Military Museum, showcasing the sometimes unsung role of Chinese-Canadian soldiers in both world wars. The museum is linked to the Cultural Centre (50 E Pender St) where you can sign up for short workshops in calligraphy, t’ai chi and Chinese music. The centre also offers museum tours (adult/child $4/3) and Chinatown walking tours (adult/child $8/5).
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Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre
Those interested in Canadian Pacific Railway heritage should visit the Roundhouse, formerly a CPR repair shed. It now houses the handsome and highly historic Engine No 374, which trundled the first passenger train into the city in 1887. Parked in a smashing little volunteer-run museum (www.wcra.org/engine374; admission free), it’s a great trainspotter’s pit stop. On special occasions, the engine is pulled outside onto the antique turntable. The complex’s main building is a busy community center and performance space, with a wide array of shows and cultural events on offer – check the website for listings.
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Vancouver Museum
One of the three well-established educational attractions clustered together in Vanier Park, the Vancouver Museum recounts both distant and recent city history. It includes some colorful displays on 1950s pop culture and 1960s hippy counterculture - a reminder that Kits was once the grass-smoking center of Vancouver's flower-power movement. Permanent exhibits include a look at the everyday life of First Nations people; passenger quarters on a groaning life-sized immigrant ship; and a full-scale sawmill wheel. The temporary exhibits are usually intriguing - check the museum's website to see what's coming up.
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Vancouver Maritime Museum
This library-quiet attraction, a five-minute walk west of the Vancouver Museum, combines dozens of intricate model ships with some detailed re-created boat sections and a few historic vessels. The main draw is the St Roch, a 1928 Royal Canadian Mounted Police Arctic patrol sailing ship that was the first vessel to navigate the legendary Northwest Passage in both directions. The A-frame museum building was actually built around this ship and evocative free tours of the vessel are offered.
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Museum of Northern BC
Don't miss the Museum of Northern BC , which resides in a building styled after an aboriginal longhouse. The museum shows how local civilizations enjoyed sustainable cultures that lasted for thousands of years – you might say they were ahead of their time. The displays include a wealth of excellent Haida, Gitksan and Tsimshian art and plenty of info on totem poles. Special tours of the museum, walking tours of town and the bookshop are all excellent.
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Prince George Railway & Forest Industry Museum
Prince George Railway & Forest Industry Museum is beside Cottonwood Island Nature Park and features a big collection of train memorabilia, including many old cars and cabooses, a unique 1903 wooden snow plow and a 1913 steam-powered crane. On the forestry side of things, there's an antique chainsaw display and a logging arch truck, used to push around logs. And no, they can't tell you why the railroad named the place Prince George either.
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Whistler Museum & Archives
The small but fascinating Whistler Museum & Archives details the region's history and development, from its days as a pioneer outpost to its 1970s emergence as a ski resort. The diverse and eclectic exhibits include a rare collection of stuffed BC birds, an assortment of ski gear and equipment through the ages and an archive of documents and artifacts relating to the six bids Whistler has made to host the Olympic Games.
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Penticton Museum
The Penticton Museum is an excellent small-town museum with well-done, delightfully eclectic displays, including the de rigueur natural history exhibit with stuffed animals and birds. Showing a tad more spunk than many of these places, it has a fun display on a typical Penticton living room from the 1960s. Speaking of spunk, check out the history of the Peach Festival and its many spunky contestants.
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BC Orchard Industry Museum
Located in the old Laurel Orchards packing house, the BC Orchard Industry Museum recounts the conversion of the Okanagan Valley from ranch land to orchards. The exhibits have great appeal and show just about everything you can do with fruit. Note the displays of beautiful old packing crate labels such as the mouthwatering art for Earl's Court brand apples.
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Touchstones Nelson
Once a baronial old city hall (1902), an enormous renovation transformed it into Touchstones Nelson, a museum of local history and art. Every month there are new exhibitions, many of which celebrate local artists. The history displays are engaging and interactive, banishing images of musty piles of poorly labeled old junk.
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Maritime Museum
The Maritime Museum explores the region's salty past and present. Exhibits include 400 model ships dating back to 1810; displays on piracy, shipwrecks and navigation; and the Tilikum, a converted dugout canoe in which John Voss sailed almost completely around the world from 1901 to 1904.
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Revelstoke Museum & Heritage Garden
The Revelstoke Museum & Heritage Garden holds a permanent collection of furniture and historical odds and ends, including mining, logging and railway artifacts that date back to the town's establishment in the 1880s. Gardens out back bloom through summer.
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Nanaimo District Museum
Overlooking downtown, the colorful Nanaimo District Museum explores the growth of the city, from its First Nations heritage to its Hudson's Bay Company days. There are regular temporary exhibitions to keep the lineup fresh.
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Kelowna Museum
A part of the civic center complex, the Kelowna Museum has everything from the bones of early valley inhabitants to displays on the roots of local agriculture. Special exhibits may draw you in on a non-rainy day.
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Wine Museum
In the same building is the Wine Museum. The knowledgeable staff can recommend tours, steer you to the best wineries for tastings and help you fill your trunk with examples of the myriad of local wines on sale.
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Nickelodeon Museum
Thrill to The Titfield Thunderbolt and other silent classics at the Nickelodeon Museum, which demonstrates the intricate workings of old Victrolas, player pianos and movie projectors.
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Kamloops Museum
Kamloops Museum is in a vintage building and is known for its excellent collection of historical photographs. Come here for the scoop on river-namesake David Thompson.
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Model Trains Museum & Model Ships Museum
Of the twin museums discreetly housed here under one roof, the train museum wins hands down. With one of the world’s largest toy locomotive collections – there are so many that only a lucky few get to rattle around the giant BC railway layout – it will be rare if you don’t spot a reminder or two from your childhood. There are no similarly exciting moving displays in the downstairs ship museum, but there are still some intriguing, highly detailed model freighters, frigates and submarines – check out that Nautilus. Expect to see several excited fathers trying unsuccessfully to interest their kids in schooner rigging and double-O gauges here.
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Black Nugget Museum
The Black Nugget Museum, a treasure-trove of memorabilia in the former Jones Hotel. Down the hill is Transfer Beach Park it attracts swimmers and picnickers and has summertime live music in its amphitheatre.
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