Royal British Columbia Museum

The Royal British Columbia Museum is a history museum located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, founded in 1886. It was given the "Royal" title upon a visit by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986, and merged with the British Columbia Provincial Archives in 2003.

The museum is one of the centre-pieces of Victoria's tourist industry. It includes three permanent galleries and an IMAX theatre. In addition, it often hosts touring exhibits from around the world. In recent years, these have included exhibits about the RMS Titanic, Leonardo da Vinci, Egyptian artifacts and Genghis Khan.

The museum is located in Victoria's Inner Harbour, between the Empress Hotel and the Legislature Buildings. The museum anchors the Royal BC Museum Cultural Precinct, a surrounding area that contains a number of historical sites and monuments including Thunderbird Park.

Permanent galleries

The natural history gallery on the second floor displays the features life-sized displays of the diverse geography of the province (such as the Fraser River delta, and prehistoric life (including a towering woolly mammoth), and a simulated journey to the depths of the ocean. More recently, a section on climate had been added, including information on the effects of modern climate change.

The modern history gallery on the third floor begins with "Century Hall" which displays collections of artifacts of the 20th century. Vistors then pass into a replica of a cobblestone streetscape of early 20th-century Victoria (complete with silent movie theatre, a hotel, a train station, old automobiles, and Chinatown). The display then shifts to a tour of early forestry, fishing, and mining industries (including a mine shaft and water wheel), and then a history of exploration (which includes a model of the original Fort Victoria and a large scale replica of Captain George Vancouver's ship the HMS Discovery.

The First People's gallery, also on the third floor, is a First Nations exhibit, portraying life both before and after contact with Europeans. The gallery includes a large collection of masks, totem poles, and a Kwakwaka'wakw longhouse built by Henry Hunt, and grandsons, Tony Hunt and Richard Hunt. The gallery is popular, but has been criticized by indigenous scholars for its portrayal of First Nations people, and its extensive use of controversial images and film from Edward Curtis. [Gloria Frank, "'That's my dinner on display': First Nations Reflection on Museum Culture," BC Studies 125/126 (2000)]

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Thunderbird Park with the museum in the background

References

ee also

* List of Canadian organizations with royal patronage

External links

* [http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/ Royal BC Museum]
* [http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/visit/location/culturalprecinct.html Royal BC Museum Cultural Precinct]