Museum sights in Canada
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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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Biodôme
At this captivating, kid-friendly exhibit you can amble through a rainforest, the Arctic Circle, rolling woodlands or along the raw Atlantic oceanfront – all without ever leaving the building. Be sure to dress in layers for the temperature swings. The four ecosystems house many thousands of animal and plant species; follow the self-guided circuit and you will see everything. Penguins frolic in the pools a few feet away from groups of goggle-eyed children; the tropical chamber is a cross-section of Amazonia with mischievous little monkeys teasing alligators in the murky waters below. The Gulf of St Lawrence has an underwater observatory where you can watch cod feeding alon…
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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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Centre Canadien d’Architecture
A must for architecture fans, this center is equal parts museum and research institute. The building incorporates the Shaughnessy House, a 19th-century grey limestone treasure. Highlights in this section include the conservatory and an ornate sitting room with intricate woodwork and a massive stone fireplace. There’s also a busy, well-stocked bookstore. The exhibition galleries focus on remarkable architectural works of both local and international scope, with a particular focus on urban design. The CCA’s sculpture garden is located on a grassy lot overlooking south Montréal, but separated from the main grounds by busy Blvd René-Lévesque.
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Musée du Fort
Not really a museum at all, the Musée du Fort houses a 30-minute multimedia show on the many attempts over the centuries to take Québec City. It’s all played out on a model/diorama that lights up in the middle of a minitheater. The breathless narration and anemic smoke-puffs that pass for special effects are a bit hokey but it does give a quick, enjoyable, easy-to-grasp audiovisual survey of the city’s battles and history, making a good introduction to it. English-language shows are held on the hour (French-language versions on the half-hour).
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Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
Part of this impressive waterfront Maritime Museum of the Atlantic was a chandlery, where all the gear needed to outfit a vessel was sold. You can smell the charred ropes, cured to protect them from saltwater, and try pumping a hand-operated foghorn. There's a wildly popular display on the Titanic and another on the Halifax Explosion. Outside at the dock you can explore the CSS Acadia, a retired hydrographic vessel from England.
The last WWII corvette HMCS Sackville is docked nearby and staffed by the Canadian Navy.
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Eskimo Museum
The Eskimo Museum is really just a bunch of stuff in an unexciting room with linoleum floors, but there's no denying its charm. The obvious standouts - stuffed polar bear, musk ox, wolf and walrus - are immediate attention-grabbers, but closer inspection reveals tiny arrowheads, big harpoon blades and hundreds of carvings. The staff are informative and approachable, and recorded narratives elicit new appreciation for the people who survived and prospered on such a desolate landscape.
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Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre
A top-notch introduction to the NWT is at Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, off 48th St overlooking Frame Lake. Here, displays address natural history, European exploration, Northern aviation and, especially, Dene and Inuit ways. Particularly cool is the 30ft-long moosehide boat.
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Dawson City Museum
The Dawson City Museum houses a collection of 25,000 gold rush artifacts. Engaging exhibits walk you through the hard-scrabble lives of the miners. The museum is housed in the landmark 1901 Old Territorial Administration building. It was designed by noted architect Thomas W Fuller.
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Founders' Hall Exhibit
The high-tech multimedia Founders' Hall exhibit, housed in an old train station, deluges your senses with facts and fun about Canada's history since 1864. It's sure to entertain children, and the child in you.
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Newfoundland Science Centre
A rainy-day option for the kids is the Newfoundland Science Centre with dinosaurs, a planetarium and space exhibits (check out the astronaut toilet or calculate your age on Mars).
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Musée des Beaux-Arts
Montréal's Museum of Fine Arts, the oldest in the country and the city's largest, is housed in two buildings: the classical, marble-covered Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, and the modern annex across the street, the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion. The latter plays host to works by European and Canadian masters but also ancient artifacts from Egypt, Greece, Rome and the Far East; Islamic art and works from Africa and Oceania.
The Old Masters collection has paintings from the Middle Ages stretching through the Renaissance and classical eras up to contemporary works. Exhibitions change but some great painters (such as Rembrandt, Picasso or Matisse) and sculptors (Henry…
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Musée Ferroviaire Canadien
The Canadian Railway Museum contains more than 150 historic vehicles, ranging from locomotives, steam engines, Old Montréal streetcars and passenger cars to snow plows. It’s widely acknowledged as one of North America’s most outstanding collections. Not particularly well known by Montrealers, this museum gets raves from those who make the trek, especially families, and many claim it’s the best museum in the Montréal area. The aerodynamic steam engine Dominion of Canada broke the world speed record in 1939 by clocking over 200km/h. A special sight is Montréal’s famous Golden Chariot, an open-air streetcar with tiers of ornate seats and gilt ironwork. Another goo…
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Musée d'Archéologie et d'Histoire Pointe-à-Callière
Built on the very spot where European settlers set up their first camp, the Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archaeology & History provides a good overview of Montréal's beginnings. Visitors should start with Montreal, Tales of a City a 20-minute multimedia show that illustrates the centuries with the aid of film, hologram characters and real drizzle.
For the most part the museum is underground. Head to the archeological crypt in the basement where you can explore the remains of the city's ancient sewage and river system and the foundations of its first buildings and first public square. Interactive exhibits include video monitors that allow visitors to ask questions of the…
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Canadian Museum of Civilization
This must-see museum documents the history of Canada through a spectacular range of exhibits. The stone exterior has been sculpted into smooth ripples – like the undulating wave of a current. In fact, you won’t find any corners at the museum, as it is believed in aboriginal lore that the evil spirits live in these angled nooks. Allow at least an entire afternoon to explore the museum and to take in the stunning views of the Parliament across the river.
The Grand Hall, with its simulated forest and seashore, illuminates the northwest coastal aboriginal cultures with towering colorful totem poles. Kids get a passport when they enter the Canadian Children’s Museum, a v…
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Canada Science & Technology Museum
This hands-on museum, about 6km southeast of downtown, is a wonderful place to tickle the senses. Ambient squeaks and boinks fill the air as contented visitors gingerly turn knobs and push buttons.
Clever displays are designed to teach visitors about the basic scientific laws that govern our world. Permanent collections explore optical illusions, the laws of physics, and Time, with a capital ‘T.’ A walk through the Crazy Kitchen is a must – the lopsided galley dips at a 10-degree angle causing passers-through to cling to the railings as they try to stumble from start to finish. Climb aboard the heavy-duty trains at the back of the museum to learn about the science beh…
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Royal Ontario Museum
The multidisciplinary ROM was already Canada’s biggest natural history museum, even before embarking upon the ‘Renaissance ROM’ building project, which should be complete by the time you read this. The new work involves a magnificent explosion of architectural crystals on Bloor St, housing an array of new galleries. ROM’s collections bounce between natural science, ancient civilization and art exhibits. The Chinese temple sculptures, Gallery of Korean Art and costumery and textile collections are some of the best in the world. Kids file out of yellow school buses chugging by the sidewalk and rush to the dinosaur rooms, Egyptian mummies and Jamaican bat-cave replica. Don’t…
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Musée des Ursulines
The fascinating story of the Ursuline nuns’ lives and their influence in the 17th and 18th centuries is told in this thoughtful, well-set-out museum. The sisters established the first girls’ school on the continent in 1641, educating both aboriginal and French girls. Marie de l’Incarnation, the founder, was one of the most intriguing figures from the order. Leaving a young son in France after she was widowed, she joined the Ursulines and moved to New France and lived well into old age. She taught herself aboriginal languages and her frequent and eloquent letters to her son back in France are held by historians to be some of the richest and most valuable material available…
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Western Development Museum
If you only go to one museum in Saskatchewan, the Western Development Museum should be it. With stunning detail and nothing overlooked, this is a faithful re-creation of Saskatoon c 1910. Displaying the longest indoor street of any museum in Canada, you can roam through the buildings, from a dentist's office that looks like it was taken from a horror film to the pharmacy where hundreds of vintage bottle line the shelves, and find countless treasures.
There are trains, steam tractors, a sod house, buggies, sleighs and even a jail. Beyond the street is the excellent exhibition 'Winning the Prairie Gamble,' chronicling the rise from hardship that gave birth to the province. …
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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 f…
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Fur Trade in Lachine National Historic Site
This 1803 stone depot is now an engaging little museum telling the story of the fur trade in Canada. The Hudson Bay Company made Lachine the hub of its fur-tradingoperations because the rapids made further navigation impossible. Visitors can view the furs and old trappers’ gear, and costumed interpreters show how the bales and canoes were schlepped by native trappers. A little office display near the Fur Trade site relates the history of the Canal de Lachine, and guided tours are conducted along the canal on request. This museum has a gorgeous little location, kissing Lac St-Louis, making it lovely to wander the side streets, particularly behind the Collège Ste-Anne nunne…
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Musée de la Civilisation
The Museum of Civilization wows you even before you’ve visited the exhibitions. It is a fascinating mix of modern design that incorporates pre-existing buildings with contemporary architecture. The permanent exhibits, like the one on the cultures of Québec’s Aboriginals and the one titled ‘People of Québec: Then and Now, ’ are unique and well worth seeing. Many of the exhibits include clever interactive elements. The changing shows are also outstanding and this is really the only museum in town that regularly focuses on contemporary issues and culture. This is a big place with lots to see, so you should concentrate on only one or two exhibitions if you’re not planning to …
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Museum
Be sure to join Babe Ruth as one of the visitors who've signed the guest book at the Banff Park Museum - he did so in 1922. Near the Bow River Bridge at the southern end of town, this lodge-style wood building was built by the CPR in 1903. Check out the surprising inner atrium.
Before trails first led curious wildlife watchers into the bush, the museum housed a zoo and aviary, so Victorian visitors to Banff could catch a safe glimpse of the park's wildlife. The museum, a National Historic Site, contains a collection of animals, birds and plants found in the park, including two small stuffed grizzlies and a black bear, plus a tree carved with graffiti dating back to 1841. …
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Dionne Quints Museum
North Bay has never seen the mining-related booms and busts inherent to most towns in northern Ontario. In fact, the area was rather unremarkable until five little girls briefly turned the city into the most visited destination in Ontario after Niagara Falls. These little girls were the Dionne Quints – identical quintuplets. Born during the Great Depression, they were exploited as a tourist attraction by the provincial government. Their fame became so widespread that they even starred in four Hollywood films. Today, the Dionne Quints Museum contains a fascinating collection of artifacts from their early years. (Their later years haven’t been such a happy story – growing u…
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Musée McCord
With hardly an inch to spare in its cramped but welcoming galleries, the McCord Museum of Canadian History houses nearly one million artifacts and documents illustrating Canada’s social, cultural and archaeological history from the 18th century to present day. The eclectic collection has large sections on Canada’s earliest European settlement and the history of Québec’s indigenous people; other display highlights include embroidered gowns, toys, prints and First Nations’ works. The 2nd-floor gallery neatly encapsulates French-Canadian history in Québec. There’s also a gift shop and an inviting café. In summer it’s also open Monday.
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