One of Vancouver's best museums, the Museum of Anthropology (moa.ubc.ca; adult/child $26/13) is the main reason many visit the University of British Columbia campus. The MOA is home to one of Canada's finest and most important collections of Northwest Coast Indigenous art and artifacts. But that's just the start; the ambitious collection here goes way beyond local anthropological treasures, illuminating diverse cultures from around the world.
The Great Hall is a forest of towering totem poles and carved ceremonial figures, house posts and delicate exhibits, all set against giant floor-to-ceiling windows facing forest and mountain views. Many of the ornate carvings are surprisingly vibrantly colored: look out for some smiling masks as well as a life-size rowing boat containing two figures that look ready to head straight out to sea.
Nearby, the jam-packed Multiversity Galleries showcase more than 10,000 fascinating ethnographic artifacts from cultures around the world. Closely packed into display cabinets, they're a sensory immersion: you'll find everything from Kenyan snuff bottles to Maori stone knives and ancient Greek jugs to Swedish lace doilies. And a visit to MOA wouldn't be complete without seeing the Bill Reid Rotunda, displaying the Haida artist's famous sculpture, The Raven and the First Men.
Then pop into the European Ceramics Gallery. Sometimes overlooked by visitors clambering to see the totem poles, it's a subtle stunner, created from a private collection of hundreds of pieces of delicately beautiful pottery and porcelain made between the 16th and 19th centuries.
