Musée de L’amérique Française

On the grounds of the Séminaire de Québec (the Québec Seminary), this excellent museum is purported to be Canada’s oldest. (The Musée Scientifique du Séminaire de Québec opened here in 1806.) The museum that stands here today has brilliantly atmospheric exhibits on life in the seminary during the colonial era as well as religious artifacts and temporary exhibitions on subjects like endangered species. The priests from the Québec Seminary were avid travelers and collectors and there are some magnificent displays of the scientific objects they brought back with them from Europe, such as old Italian astronomical equipment. The exhibits are capped off by a wonderful short film on New World history from a Quebecer’s perspective.