INSIGHT AIN’T NO MOUNT HIGH ENOUGH
COLLABORATING FOR CONSERVATION
FOCUS FOR CHANGE
The Hidden Artistry of Museum Mount Making
Citizen Science in BC Parks
Culture Shift for the Royal BC Museum
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Ain’t No Mount High Enough
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Collaborating for Conservation
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Focus for Change
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The Royal BC Museum is located on the traditional territories of the Lekwungen (Songhees and Xwsepsum Nations). We extend our appreciation for the opportunity to live and learn on this territory.
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Orca Experiences, Human Sensations Protecting BC’s Biodiversity Including Mammoth Memories Dreams and Dioramas For Our Time Victoria Saanich New Westminster Railway Company Stealing Sugar and Killing for Nitrogen The Motorcycle Naturalist This Week in History What’s On Calendar The Object’s the Thing
WHAT’S INSIGHT
Dear Friends, Erika Stenson E D I TO R - I N - C H I E F
The past year has been one of profound change for the Royal BC Museum as the organization embarked upon a collaborative process to address challenges around equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA).
M A N AG I N G E D I TO R
On February 12, by request of the board of directors, I became acting chief executive officer. My top priority will be to support the museum in its EDIA program, modernization efforts and ongoing operations during these challenging COVID times.
Bhumika Kamra
The museum has launched a number of actions, including reviewing policies and procedures, prioritizing Indigenous knowledge, allocating additional resources to the Indigenous Collections and Repatriation department, and undertaking a full program of cultural training for all members of the museum team.
Jennifer Vanderzee
C O O R D I N AT O R
Irvin Cheung GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Annie Mayse E D I TO R
Shane Lighter P H OTO G R A P H E R
Melanie Grisak P H OTO G R A P H E R
As I take on this role for the next few months, I want to offer a sincere thank you to everyone whose contributions are driving forward this much-needed change. I continue to be inspired by your unwavering commitment to the Royal BC Museum. Thank you for your efforts, support and compassion. John P. Kotter said in his book Leading Change, “transformation is a process, not an event.” Today, as we stand at the cusp of transformational and positive change, we know that there is more to be done, and we are committed more than ever to fostering an environment that is inclusive and safe. While I write this, our exhibitions “pod” is working hard to install the much-anticipated feature exhibition Orcas: Our Shared Future, which opens on April 16, 2021. The exhibition features more than 100 original artifacts and specimens, including a complete skeleton of an adult female orca suspended in the air so visitors can appreciate the size and scale of these remarkable mammals, and is accompanied by the exhibition companion book Spirits of the Coast: Orcas in Science, Art and History. It promises to be a surprisingly emotional exhibition, and one that emphasizes just how inextricably connected humans are to orcas. We hope visitors leave the exhibition recognizing that we are all part of nature, not apart from nature. Sincerely yours,
C O N T R I B U TO RS
Erik Lambertson, Sandra Hudson, Claudia Copley, Shannon West, Dr. Henry Choong, Janet MacDonald, Leah Best, Sally Butterfield, Dr. Ken Marr, Sue Halwa, Julie Ovenell, Bhumika Kamra
Dr. Daniel F. Muzyka Acting Chief Executive Officer, Royal BC Museum
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F E AT U R E Exhibit fabrication specialist Joel Blaicher assembling a mount for the skeleton of an orca fetus.
AIN’T NO MOUNT HIGH ENOUGH The Hidden Artistry of Museum Mount Making By Erik Lambertson Corporate Communications Manager
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hen was the last time you noticed the metal clips that hold a painting to its frame? Or thought about the hours of choreography poured into a live dance performance?
When you’re enjoying a work of art, you usually don’t see the connective tissue, the behind-the-scenes effort or the bolts holding it together. Some things aren’t meant to be noticed—unless, like the steel zippers festooning a black leather jacket, they are.
Most of the time, museum exhibitions try to support artifacts, cultural belongings, specimens, artwork and archival records unobtrusively. At the same time, items like the Bill Reid gold box—a small, intricately carved masterwork in solid gold by the renowned Haida artist—have to be displayed 2
with rock-solid stability and Fort Knoxian security. Objects aren’t simply piled on plinths: they’re safely and elegantly mounted so visitors can see them at their best. Cindy Van Volsem, exhibit fabrication specialist, and others on the Royal BC Museum Exhibitions team are designing and hand-building mounts for hundreds of objects appearing in the upcoming exhibition Orcas: Our Shared Future, just as they do for every feature exhibition built in-house. Chances are that you’ll never notice or appreciate their handiwork—and that’s the way they like it. “Mounts should be something you don’t see,” says Cindy. Building mounts requires more than aesthetic skill. You need to understand physics (especially gravity), the strengths and weaknesses of a vast array of materials, and factors like stress, strain, elasticity and compressibility. Mount making is hands-on engineering and custom manufacturing.
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The mount makers at the Royal BC Museum also learn from each other. The four staff members at work on the rainy November morning when I visited the team have backgrounds in collections management, conservation, jewellery making and fabrication. Although museum practices have changed over the years to accommodate more interactivity in public galleries, limiting touch is a safe approach in a pandemic. But museums don’t want their visitors to feel objects are inaccessible. In fact, museums try to limit the perception of limits. It’s a challenge, but one the Exhibitions team relishes. Most of the artifacts in the Orcas exhibition are from the Royal BC Museum’s collections. “There’s a lot of trust in this work,” said George Field, a retired conservator back in the studio on a contract. “We handle the artifacts more than many other staff.”
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And that trust is paid back with ingenuity and tender care. “Never hurt an artifact” is their mantra, Cindy says. The mounts designed for Orcas also have to be easy to assemble. This is particularly important because the exhibition will travel. For borrowing institutions, placing artifacts on customized mounts needs to be as simple and intuitive as folding a paper airplane—not as frustrating as assembling IKEA kitchen cabinetry. The Exhibitions team makes it look easy. Take a closer look for yourself when you visit Orcas, which opens on April 16. 1. Exhibit fabrication specialist Cindy Van Volsem working on a prototype mount to display argillite totems. 2. George Field, a retired Royal BC Museum conservator on contract for the Orcas exhibition, at work creating a mount for the Killer Whale Portrait Mask (RBCM 15082) created by Nisg_a’a artist Norman Tait.
3. Detail of Norman Tait’s Killer Whale Portrait Mask, containing a mount created by George Field. 4. Kate Kerr, exhibit fabrication specialist, constructing a mount for an artifact featured in Orcas.
EXHIBITION OPEN
APRIL 16, 2021– JANUARY 9, 2022
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(right) Digital lighting and A/V specialist Thomas Shields testing an early prototype of the touch-free interactive game Orca or Not?. (middle) Members of the Exhibitions team see how their choices affect orcas and the surrounding oceans on the Ocean Health Game. (far right) Thomas Shields tests his knowledge of orca vocalization in the Orca or Not? interactive.
ORCA EXPE R IE NCE S, Immersive and Interactive Elements in Orcas: Our Shared Future
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he anticipation is building at the Royal BC Museum as the finishing touches are put on our upcoming feature exhibition, Orcas: Our Shared Future. Part of what makes this exhibition so exciting and unique is the addition of sophisticated interactive stations that strive to translate orca experiences into human sensations. Among the stations is Acoustic Turbulence, by Victoria artist Colton Hash, an interactive artwork that visualizes underwater noise pollution generated by large ocean vessels. An artistic representation depicts the primary sources of noise pollution: engines, sonar and propellers. Their sounds impact the ability of marine organisms to communicate and navigate. Noise pollution is particularly significant to the Southern Resident orcas, as it reduces their ability to hunt through echolocation. Viewers can choose scenes of ships and experience sounds generated by each type.
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Visitors are invited to answer questions and consider where they stand when it comes to the future of orcas and the potential implications of their personal choices on the resident orca population at the Orca Ethics computer kiosk. The Biology 101 Touch Table allows guests to use a stylus, developed with COVID protocols in mind, to explore a large, multi-touch screen and learn more about orcas’ musculoskeletal, reproduction, echolocation and respiration systems. Other stations include Orca or Not?, where visitors listen to a series of sounds and guess if they were made by an orca or something else. In the Ocean Health Game, players move different pieces around a coastal environment and witness the impacts of their choices on the health of the ocean. And of course there’s a selfie station where guests can take a photo and spread the word about ocean health, orca protection and the exhibition.
WHAT’S INSIGHT
HUMAN SENSATIONS Sandra Hudson Communications Consultant
The exhibition also offers dramatic displays, including three life-size orca replicas and the skeletons of Rhapsody (J32) and her unborn calf. Visitors to Orcas: Our Shared Future will explore currents of ecological activism, popular culture and Indigenous beliefs to gain a deeper understanding of how orcas and humans are inextricably connected. Full of new ideas and ways of approaching content, and designed to engage all ages, the displays and interactive stations have been shaped with input from orca scientists, marine biologists, Indigenous and nonIndigenous artists, elders and youth, including high school students and home learners. Visitors to the exhibition and those hoping to visit will want to purchase the beautifully illustrated companion publication that brings together the work of marine biologists, Indigenous knowledge keepers, poets, artists and storytellers.
The best-selling Spirits of the Coast: Orcas in Science, Art and History ($29.95; edited by Dr. Martha Black, Dr. Lorne Hammond and Dr. Gavin Hanke, with Nikki Sanchez), is currently available through local bookshops, the Royal Museum Shop and online at rbcm.ca/spirits. Orcas: Our Shared Future premieres at the museum on April 16 and runs through early 2022. Safety during the pandemic continues to be our priority. COVID-19 health and safety protocols include timed tickets, physical distancing, enhanced cleaning and special hours for vulnerable guests. See full details at rbcm.ca/covidsafety. For more information about the exhibition and to purchase timed tickets visit rbcm.ca/orcas.
AVAILABLE NOW AT
rbcm.ca/spirits
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COLLABORATING FOR
CONSERVATION CITIZEN SCIENCE IN BC PARKS
Photographing plants in Top of the World Provincial Park. Photograph courtesy of Jason Headley.
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F E AT U R E
1. Common loons in Downing Provincial Park. Photograph courtesy of Jason Headley. 2. A male rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) photographed in Bodega Ridge Provincial Park on Galiano Island. Photograph courtesy of Jason Headley.
3. Up close with a mason bee (Hoplitis fulgida) all covered in pollen. This photo was taken in South Okanagan Grasslands Protected Area. Photograph courtesy of Thomas Barbin.
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By Claudia Copley Entomology Collection Manager and Researcher
4. Royal BC Museum research associate Robb Bennett on the prowl for spiders.
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WHAT’S INSIGHT
ritish Columbia has the third-largest parks system in North America, with more than 1,000 protected areas. Our new Pocket Gallery showcases how the work of the Royal BC Museum helps to document and conserve British Columbia’s natural heritage and highlights how our research fits into the larger framework of the BC provincial park system.
The featured collaboration involves three different components. The Royal BC Museum’s natural history researchers have been working with BC Parks to undertake inventories in the province’s park system, primarily through botanical and invertebrate specimen collections; at the same time, field technicians from the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University have been documenting species using an app called iNaturalist. In addition to these physical and digital inventories by researchers, citizen scientists are also being encouraged to submit sightings through iNaturalist. The amount of new information we’ve learned about the biological riches of these protected areas has been truly impressive. The three approaches complement each other excellently, allowing for a much fuller picture than any single effort could provide. We can learn so much more about British Columbia’s protected areas by working together, and every new piece of information adds to the story we can tell about the ecological diversity of our province.
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If you would like to learn more about iNaturalist and how to get involved in this effort, be sure to visit the Pocket Gallery in the Royal BC Museum. And if you enjoy looking at exceptional photographs of wildlife, look up at the images being projected on the big screen in Clifford Carl Hall, as well as the stunning backlit panels lining the wall outside of the gallery. We hope these incredible images, and the story behind them, will inspire everyone to get involved in citizen science! Together, park visitors, students and scientists can build an impressive and accurate picture of the biodiversity in British Columbia and work to protect it.
ON NOW IN THE POCKET GALLERY
PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
UNTIL AUGUST 11, 2021 10:00 AM–6:00 PM S PR I N G 202 1
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Shannon West Manager of Program Development, Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation
PROTECTING BC’S BIODIVERSITY
Dr. Henry Choong Curator of Invertebrates, Royal BC Museum
Celebrating 40 years of Habitat Conservation in BC
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A Culture Shift for the Royal BC Museum The Royal BC Museum is at the beginning of an important journey, one that looks to change the culture of the organization.
1. Habitat is key to healthy fish and wildlife populations. This biologist is monitoring vegetation growth following a prescribed burn in northeastern BC. Photograph courtesy of the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation. 2. This collared grizzly bear is part of a study aiming to reduce human-caused bear mortality, including vehicle collisions. Photograph courtesy of Darryn Epp. 3. Found only on Vancouver Island, the Vancouver Island marmot is one of the rarest mammals in the world. HCTF supports the Marmot Recovery Foundation’s work to restore selfsustaining populations of marmots. Photograph courtesy of Oli Gardner.
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ritish Columbia has the greatest biodiversity of any Canadian province or territory. More large mammal species live here than anywhere else in North America, and some species, like the Vancouver Island marmot, live nowhere else on Earth. Unfortunately, many of BC’s fish and wildlife populations are in decline, for reasons such as habitat loss and degradation, climate change, invasive species, and disease. The Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) is working with partners to address these issues and keep BC’s fish and wildlife populations healthy. Since 1981, HCTF has provided over $190 million for projects benefitting a huge range of species, from wild sheep to sturgeon and goshawks to grizzly bears. HCTF has partnered with the Royal BC Museum to showcase some of the HCTF-funded conservation initiatives happening across BC, including amazing photos of BC wildlife. See Celebrating 40 Years of Habitat Conservation in BC, on now in Clifford Carl Hall until April 30.
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WHAT’S INSIGHT
FOR CHANGE Sandra Hudson Communications Consultant
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he Royal BC Museum is embarking on an ambitious plan to change the culture of the museum by addressing organizational challenges around equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA).
The work is being led by Royal BC Museum board chair and acting CEO Dr. Daniel Muzyka and supported by museum staff and consultants. When asked about the plan, Dr. Muzyka said, “I am very optimistic. Many organizations go through culture change processes, all driven by different circumstances. I believe we will be successful based on the dedicated efforts of everyone in the organization. The museum will learn, adapt and grow in the process. We will come out stronger on the other side.” The recently unveiled plan was developed to directly address the culture of the museum and archives and move it toward becoming a safer and more inclusive place for staff, volunteers, visitors and the community. The museum is committed to continuing the modernization of museum practices and to ensuring all voices are included in the museum, particularly the voices of Indigenous people. The plan prioritizes staff psychological safety, antidiscrimination, a positive and supportive organizational culture, and decolonization.
Staff training has been identified as a major component of the work needed for a culture shift to occur at the museum. Working with EDIA consultant Alden Habacon and his team, a cultural training plan has been developed for all staff. Training sessions for staff include Trust-Building 101: How to Foster Trust Within a Team, Professional Communications 101, Micro-Aggressions, Whiteness at Work, Unconscious Bias, Intercultural Skills, Indigenous Cultural Training and Allyship, and Fostering Psychological Safety at Work. Training sessions have now begun and will run through December 2021. The work of the Indigenous Collections and Repatriation department (ICAR) continues to be central to the work of the museum. The new plan prioritizes increased resources to ICAR, including the introduction of Indigenous cultural advisors and knowledge keepers into key areas of the museum and archives, and increased lines of communication with the museum’s Indigenous Advocacy and Advisory Committee. Further work toward repatriation and decolonization continues to be given precedence, supporting integration of Indigenous knowledge into more collections areas and fostering an interdisciplinary approach.
The board, under Dr. Muzyka’s leadership, has ordered an in-depth review of the museum’s organizational structure and has introduced an interim structure, which is now in place. The interim structure emphasizes the importance of EDIA work across the organization and looks to permanently embed it into the culture of the museum. The Royal BC Museum is at the beginning of an important journey, one that looks to change the culture of the organization. At the same time the BC government has committed to modernizing the Royal BC Museum. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to better tell the stories of all communities in British Columbia. Modernizing how we steward our past will help build a better future for everyone. For more information on the Royal BC Museum’s focus for change and the modernization of the museum, visit rbcm.ca/focus-for-change.
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Janet MacDonald, head of Learning, at the future site of Royal BC Museum’s new Collections and Research Building.
A Community Engagement Roadmap for the Future
» INCLUDING Janet MacDonald Head of Learning
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On September 21, 2020, I stood on a bluff overlooking the future site of our new Collections and Research Building (CRB). It was a ground-zero moment for me in the heart of the Royal Bay community. Surrounded by our closest neighbours, I began to think of all the learners who might come to us here–waves of potential collaborators radiating in and out from this spot in concentric circles of community.
WHAT’S INSIGHT
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ommunity engagement is not new to the museum and archives. So many collaborations have resulted in successful initiatives for the benefit of many. You need only reference these editions of What’s inSight to see the myriad accomplishments. But what we are undertaking now is unprecedented and on a grand scale. Within this new environment, communities will lead in sharing their heritage and their knowledge, working with the museum and archives to increase public understanding of how their histories and values have shaped provincial life. This change requires us to let go of some of the traditional ways of development, and to hope that citizens can and will engage in this new vision. How might we tap into their diverse needs and aspirations for this state-of-the-art facility?
Over 200 members of the Punjabi-Canadian community gathered in the Becoming BC gallery to reimagine the museum’s logging display and submit their ideas for future inclusion. The information gathered resulted in the installation of a new permanent display, November 21, 2015.
We have a plan
Over the past six months, we have put our collective heads together and devised a community engagement road map–defining a high-level framework that encapsulates our strategic aims and our rationale for the importance of involving the community. It is important for us to challenge the assumptions and inherent biases of the CRB project, and we are working with the Royal BC Museum’s equity, diversity and inclusion consultant on key areas that might be barriers to inclusion. We are dedicated to working with underserved audiences and identifying opportunities to engage and provide service to these groups. A top priority is placed on Indigenous input and co-creation—we are specifically working with the Indigenous communities of Songhees and Esquimalt and the adjacent Scia’new (Beecher Bay) and T’Sou-ke nations.
The first in a series of ongoing consultations that continues to inform the present and future Indigenous Artist Program at the Royal BC Museum, January 19, 2019.
Internal questions have been carefully considered with regards to our audiences. Who could be affected (positively or negatively) by our plans? This is an integral aspect of ensuring inclusivity, requiring us to consider implications of background, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, race, age, language, socio-economic status, development differences, education and geography. They all play a role. Do we want to reach as many people as possible, or are we concentrating on specific groups or geographical areas? There are no definitive answers, but we have begun with a focused approach that can expand over time. We will use different approaches to engagement as appropriate, including focus groups, steering groups, public meetings, events, seminars, audits, media campaigns, web-based surveys and a website.
We are committed to transparency, with open and continual communication. We know that keeping everyone in the loop and feeding back engagement results on a regular basis will help the development of trust-based relationships. The decisionmaking processes will give power to communities to make choices about the CRB policies and programs that impact them. This, we hope, will keep relationships strong and increase participation and engagement in all future consultations. We will then be set to initiate actionable strategies and start implementing programs and collaborations when we open to the public in 2024–25. Planning four years out is none too soon! Consultations will begin this year, and we are looking forward to meeting many networks of community members in the first phase. Please visit rbcm.ca for the most up-to-date information.
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Woolly posing for the paparazzi before getting “dressed” in muskox hides.
MAMMOTH M
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Julie Ovenell, Communications Specialist and Bhumika Kamra, Membership and Marketing Coordinator 12
WHAT’S INSIGHT
The Woolly exhibit under construction.
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s we start to carefully pack our collections and prepare for our move to a new collections and research building in 2024, we’re getting nostalgic and reminiscing about what makes this museum extra special!
Back in the mid-‘70s, the Royal BC Museum’s exhibition team was tasked with building a “significant and dramatic” introduction to the new gallery—Living Land, Living Sea—which begins with the ice age when mammoths still roamed the Earth. The exhibition technicians definitely faced new challenges as they approached the construction of a full-scale adult bull mammoth, which stands roughly 3.2 metres tall at the shoulder. First they needed to find a complete skeleton to take measurements. (Although mammoth bones had been found in British Columbia, there were no complete skeletons.) Then they had to figure out how to construct the complex musculature of the body. And finally they had to determine an appropriate “hide” to cover the model. Our Woolly is based on a skeleton first discovered in an Illinois peat bog in 1931 and later moved to the Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska.
In June 1978 a Royal BC Museum taxidermist and curator travelled there for research. From their resulting measurements, the Vertebrate Zoology Division produced a one-sixth scale model. Originally, the fabricators had planned to construct Woolly’s “undercarriage” by covering a steel form with wire mesh and a layer of papier mache and plaster. But there was a late-in-the-game change, and they opted instead for a new method, which involved projecting stereoscopic photos of a smaller working model onto paper and then enlarging them six times. The result was a contour map of the fullsize mammoth. The fabricators then cut Styrofoam blocks along the contour lines with a high-speed drill to shape the sections of the mammoth’s body. Those sections were glued together, supported with a framework of wood and metal, and delivered to the museum. By January 1979, Woolly was in place and ready to be “dressed.”
Visitors admiring Woolly, who adorns our galleries with his “significant and dramatic” presence today.
The resident paleontologist in Nebraska had helped the Royal BC Museum taxidermists settle on muskox hair as an appropriate facsimile for mammoth hair. The Arctic community of Grise Fiord on south Ellesmere Island supplied the nine Arctic muskox skins that form Woolly’s lush topcoat—the taxidermists had to cut the hide into thin strips to reduce the bulk. The tusks are fibreglass replicas from casts made of a pair borrowed from the Centennial Museum in Vancouver (now the Museum of Vancouver). The first phase of the permanent Natural History gallery officially opened in December 1979, and 40 years later, approximately 10 million visitors of all ages have met our Woolly ambassador! The woolly mammoth measures 3.2 metres at the shoulder. The tusks are 3.35 metres along the curve, and the weight of a live mammoth of this size would be approximately 6,000 kilograms. To learn more about mammoths and the construction of Woolly, check out the Mammoth Proportions pathway on the Royal BC Museum’s Learning Portal at rbcm.ca/learning. S PR I N G 202 1
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JAN VRIESEN’S WORK IN THE NATURAL HISTORY GALLERY
Jan Vriesen paints the backdrop for the coastal forest diorama in the Natural History gallery in the 1970s.
Museum visitors examine the completed seashore diorama. Jan Vriesen’s work is visible in the background.
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WHAT’S INSIGHT
Sandra Hudson Communications Consultant
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Jan Vriesen mixes paints while working on seashore dioramas in the Natural History gallery.
n the lead-up to the opening of the current Royal BC Museum galleries in the 1970s, the museum assembled a design team to bring the new displays to life. This team was led by acclaimed museum designer Jean Jacques André, director of exhibits. The new exhibits included the incredible dioramas that museum visitors enjoy to this day.
Jan Vriesen painting the seashore diorama in the Natural History gallery.
Jan Vriesen inspects his work on the seashore diorama in the Natural History gallery.
One of the members of that team was carpenter’s assistant Jan Vriesen, who had immigrated to Canada with his family from Germany in 1958. With a new bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Victoria, Vriesen had hoped to obtain a job as a painter with the design team, but none were available in 1972. Before the end of his first year, however, Vriesen was given the opportunity to work on the diorama paintings. In 1973 he was assigned the job of painting the coastal forest and seashore dioramas in the Natural History gallery, a task that kept him occupied until 1976. Vriesen describes dioramas as the part of the exhibit “that allow museum visitors the opportunity to step right into the setting.” Vriesen remained at the museum until 1982, when an opportunity to paint a mural at the Kwisitis Visitor Centre (formerly known as the Wickaninnish Interpretive Centre) in Tofino presented itself. Vriesen was then hired by the State Museum of New York in 1984, and he has worked as a diorama painter in museums across North America ever since. His work includes dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center in Fairbanks, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. His most recent diorama work, completed in 2015, can be found at the Wanapum Heritage Center in Washington State.
In addition to diorama work, Vriesen has worked with scientists to paint ancient landscape reconstructions, where technical and scientific work is brought to life through art. A series of ten paintings on display at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver is the result of collaboration between Vriesen and palaeontologist Kirk Johnson, formerly of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Each two-and-ahalf-by-three-metre (eight foot by ten foot) painting is a snapshot of what Colorado would have looked like in the distant past—60, 150 or 250 million years ago. Johnson and Vriesen’s work is also presented in the book Ancient Denvers: Scenes from the Past 300 Million Years of the Colorado Front Range. Now 78 years old, Jan Vriesen currently divides his time between Port Alberni, BC, and Minnesota. While computergenerated art has meant less work for diorama painters in recent years, Vriesen continues to paint landscapes and recently held a joint exhibition in Port Alberni at the Rollin Art Centre. Reflecting on his career, Vriesen said, “I am thankful that my career began at the Royal BC Museum. It was a great introduction to museum work and a tremendous opportunity to work with a dream team led by Jean Jacques André.”
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By Leah Best, Head of Knowledge
FOR OUR TIME Collecting BC’s Pandemic Experiences
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or Our Time is the name we’ve chosen for an organization-wide project to contextualize British Columbians’ diverse experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Spanning seven departments and involving more than 25 staff, For Our Time is a pandemic archive that began in March 2020 and will continue for years to come. More than a collecting project, it is also driving changes in our practice, including the creation of our first crowdsourced collection through submissions to the
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project websites rbcm.ca/yourstory. It has also been a flashpoint for discussing the act of collecting material culture. Whose experiences do we collect? What biases must we acknowledge, and how do we ensure they are not reflected as gaps in our efforts to document the pandemic? Should we collect at all, at this time, when so many are living with great hardship? These questions, and many more, have been central to framing the direction and scope of our work.
WHAT’S INSIGHT
Now, nine months in and on the cusp of a new vaccination phase of the pandemic, staff reflect on their contributions to and experiences of the project to date.
“The For Our Time project has connected the staff at the museum and archives to people from all over British Columbia. Assisting folks with their digital contributions (via the project website), I have often found myself on the phone, and our conversations inevitably lead to us discussing the ways in which the pandemic has affected and shaped our lives. I have had the privilege of hearing personal stories about illness and recovery, loneliness and resilience, anxiety and hope.” —Genevieve Weber, Archivist
1. Kate’s brother has Down’s Syndrome and is in a care home. Kate would visit through the window, and her brother could not understand why they couldn’t be together, but the hands against the glass helped. Photograph courtesy of Kate Seymour. 2. Jasse Aujla (in the striped shirt), educator, with her EA and only student in class when school started back up in June. Another student joined after two weeks. Photograph courtesy of Jasse Aujla.
3. Since the pandemic began, Lisa has been creating a drawing or painting every day, as a way to share “hopeful messages.” Photograph courtesy of Lisa Maas. 4. Tywla Exner, an artist in Prince George, brought her interests in the natural world to a mask she created early in the pandemic, Forest Filter.
“In invertebrate zoology, we continue to address the direct and indirect consequences of the pandemic on biodiversity. While it is too early to provide a definitive answer to how the pandemic is affecting biodiversity, we are mobilizing and using biodiversity data found in natural history collections, as well as community-based observations (from the website and app iNaturalist) collected during this project.” —Dr. Henry Choong, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology
“I’ve been working on developing a new content platform. We’ve hired a business analyst to review requirements and research other institutions. Not just who is doing it, but who is doing it well. The benchmark site we aspire to is a partnership between the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian. Their site is communitycuration.org, and it’s a fine example of the design and technology getting out of the way to provide a seamless user experience that visitors would likely find appealing and easy to use.” —Dave Stewart, Digital Manager
“I’ve worked with Genevieve Weber and with my colleague Angie Pass (registrar) to determine the data requirements of registering approximately 260 community-sourced digital materials in our database, IMM. We standardized the input to allow for future researchers to find them in our collections management system. This was an entirely new way of collecting for us, allowing for direct participation and donation into our collection, revealing personal experiences of these ‘unprecedented times.’”
“Along with artwork offered through the website, the museum has also set about collecting works from artists who have responded to this shared moment in history. These will be the first non-Indigenous contemporary artworks to enter the art collection since the 1970s. Artists include Twyla Exner, David Ellingsen and Adad Hannah. Indigenous Collections, which has been working with contemporary artists continually, will add masks by artists Howard LaFortune, Joe David and Dorothy Grant.”
—Caroline Davies, Senior Registrar
—Dr. India Young, Curator of Art and Images
For Our Time is supported by financial contributions from the Royal BC Museum Foundation, the Joan and John Walton Innovation Fund (through the Royal BC Museum Foundation), and BC Parks.
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By Sally Butterfield Archivist
BC Archives Acquisition Documents Forgotten Railway Dreams
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n late 2019, the BC Archives was offered a black metal trunk practically bursting with a mess of papers. These had once belonged to the Victoria Saanich New Westminster Railway Company (VSNW). Some of the records were neatly bound together, while others were crumpled and stuffed in wherever there was room. There was absolutely no discernible order to the mess, and each individual piece of paper was coated with a film of dirt.
The trunk that contained the VSNW records.
Before these records can be made accessible to the public, they will need to be treated by the paper conservator and processed by an archivist. Minimal information is available about the history of the company, and reports in the Daily Colonist and the Canada Gazette are often contradictory. Each document will need to be examined to determine how it fits into the context of the company. Although their provenance and custodial history is unknown, the records appear to be a fairly complete representation of the Victoria Saanich New Westminster Railway Company and its efforts to build a rail link between downtown Victoria and New Westminster, connecting Victoria to the trans-Canada railway. A brief survey of the records shows that the records consist of financial account books, letterhead, board of management minutes and correspondence, drafts of the private bill to incorporate the company, company bylaws, and maps. A railway that linked Victoria to the rest of Canada was a promise of Confederation and, for Amor de Cosmos, the founder
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and president of the company, a particular sticking point. After the rail line was seemingly abandoned by the federal government, de Cosmos created the company to do what the federal government either could not or would not. The company was incorporated in 1891 by a private bill put forward to the Parliament of Canada. Multiple copies of the draft bill can be found among the records, each copy including notations of individuals involved in the project, including John Stuart Yates in Victoria and J.A. Gemmill, the company’s representative in Ottawa. It is interesting that the company was incorporated at the federal rather than the provincial level, and it perhaps indicates that de Cosmos envisioned this project as holding national significance—it would link Victoria not just with mainland British Columbia, but with the rest of the country. De Cosmos had previously incorporated the Victoria Saanich Railway Company in 1886 at the provincial level. The route between Victoria and Saanich would be identical, but this earlier company had no ambitions to connect to the mainland. (continues after next page)
WHAT’S INSIGHT
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Some of the maps included with the records.
A MOR
DE COSMOS
De Cosmos devised a rail link that would operate from central Victoria to New Westminster via a ferry link at Swartz Bay, and that would carry passengers, without the need to transfer, from one city to the next in under three hours. He had meticulously plotted the route, attended land auctions and solicited quotes for steamers capable of transporting railway cars. The plan was presented to Victoria mayor and City Council by de Cosmos as follows, according to the Daily Colonist for March 13, 1892: “When the road was built and in working order, people could get from Victoria to New Westminster, over a route 68 miles in length, in two hours and thirty-three minutes, or, leaving out stoppages, two hours and four minutes. Of this travelling, there would be 45 miles on land and 23 on water. For water transit, fast and handsome steamers, capable of making twenty miles an hour, were to be put on. In addition to these, there were to be transit vessels, capable of carrying forty railway cars, thus doing away with the necessity of transhipment. The items making up the total amount to be expended on the whole line of rail and ferry service were:
Amor de Cosmos was born William Alexander Smith in 1825 in Windsor, Nova Scotia. He came to Victoria in 1858 and founded the British Colonist that same year. He used his newspaper to launch his political career and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Vancouver Island in 1863. He continued to hold various political positions through the colonial period and after Confederation. He was a strong proponent of Confederation and pushed for Victoria to be the rail terminus of the trans-Canada railway, but his legacy is marked by his antiChinese and anti-Indigenous racism. He died in Victoria in 1897.
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SIXTY-SIX AND ONE-HALF MILES
$91,200
BLAINE BRANCH
$243,000
VANCOUVER BRANCH
$243,000
MAIN LINE AND BRANCHES
$1,295,000
CANOE PASS
$108,000
THE POINT
$200,000
The total amount of cash to be expended was $1,703,000.” It was not long after incorporation of VSNW that plans began to falter. The company was unable to secure the necessary capital for the project, and the funding that de Cosmos depended on at the municipal, provincial and federal levels did not materialize. Although we could not find a corporate dissolution document, the records do not date far beyond 1893. It was not until June 1960 that de Cosmos’s vision of a link between the Saanich Peninsula and the mainland would be realized with the construction of the BC Ferries terminal at Swartz Bay.
WHAT’S INSIGHT
STEALING SUGAR AND KILLING FOR NITROGEN
Common butterwort – Pinguicula vulgaris by Björn S..., 2015, Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/ photos/40948266@N04/18350804581/ in/photostream). CC BY-SA 2.0.
British Columbia’s Outlaw Plants
By Dr. Ken Marr Curator of Botany
Illustration of a butterwort plant.
S
ugar is life! Photosynthesis, arguably the most important chemical reaction on Earth, uses the sun’s energy to combine carbon dioxide and water to form sugar and oxygen. Sugar is the energy currency of ecosystems. Complex assemblages of primary producers (plants, algae and some bacteria—the only organisms in which photosynthesis occurs), herbivores and carnivores (animals), and decomposers (fungi and bacteria) depend directly on the metabolism of sugar.
Nitrogen is equally important to life. Soil bacteria convert nitrogen gas into a form that can be absorbed by plant roots. Nitrogen atoms are present in every amino acid— the molecules that form protein—and in DNA, the genetic code of life. Alkaloids, molecules that include a nitrogen atom within a ring of carbon atoms, do a great deal for us: they keep us alert (caffeine) and treat our pain (morphine). Often bitter-tasting, alkaloids also deter insects from feeding upon plants. (continues next page)
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(right) Witches’ broom (a dense cluster of branches near the top of the tree) formed by abnormal branching of the tree caused by mistletoe. (below) Mistletoe growing on lodgepole pine near Manning Provincial Park.
Some of Laing’s work published between 1924 to 1935.
(bottom) Dodder growing on sea asparagus near Crofton. A single branching orange stem can be greater than 700 m long! Photograph courtesy of Greg Suftin.
The Records of Hamilton Mack Laing at the BC Archives By Sue Halwa Archivist
Remarkable adaptations allow some BC plants to secure their nutrition from other plants and even from animals. One of the rarest is a pitcher plant that occurs in the Peace District, though it’s more common farther east. There are also sticky-leaved sundews, which grow in many bogs. Insects that fall into the liquid of the slippery “pitcher” of the pitcher plant or are trapped by the sticky leaves of the sundews provide these species with sugar and nitrogen. Butterworts likewise have sticky, insect-trapping leaves, with enzymes that digest insects, releasing their nitrogen-containing compounds to be absorbed by the plant. Many conifers in British Columbia are infected by mistletoes. Their explosive fruits spread the seeds from one tree to another. These non-photosynthetic plants sprout rootlike structures that penetrate into the conductive cells of the host tree to secure sugar and other nutrients. Infected branches grow in an abnormal manner, forming a dense mass of branches referred to as a “witches’ broom.” Another unusual plant, the orange-stemmed dodder, grows in dense patches, with narrow stems up to hundreds of metres long that coil around the stems of specific host species. As you enjoy British Columbia’s spectacular wild places, keep an eye out for some of these fascinating outlaw plants. Look for witches’ brooms in forests, dodder on beach plants and butterworts on mossy seeps. You never know what you’ll find!
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WHAT’S INSIGHT
THE
MOTORCYCLE NATURALIST I t was through a typical reference request from a researcher that I first encountered Hamilton Mack Laing. Laing was a fascinating Comox resident who lived a remarkable life. He helped promote the natural history of British Columbia to a national and international audience and contributed to the scientific knowledge of western Canada’s wildlife. As I explored his records as part of this inquiry, I realized that I wanted to learn more about him.
Laing and his brother on their US transcontinental bike trip, 1915.
Laing was born in Ontario in 1883 and raised in Manitoba. In 1922 he moved to Vancouver Island, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He was first and foremost a student of nature, which was demonstrated through his prolific writings, drawings and photography. He was also an avid hunter, amateur ornithologist and nut farmer.
The Hamilton Laing collection (PR-0616) comprises almost seven metres of textual records and over 7,000 photographs, most of which depict birds and animals. The collection comprises many unpublished and published books and articles relating to the natural history of western Canada and the United States, a vast amount of correspondence, and many of Laing’s highly detailed drawings of wildlife. In addition, we hold the field notebooks from his research trips, and his private diaries. (continues next page)
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Laing at Chitina River, Alaska, 1925.
The Laing collection is a vast treasure trove continued writing articles for nature of knowledge relating primarily to the magazines such as Field and Stream and natural history of British Columbia. Laing Recreation. Using the proceeds from the wrote extensively about what he knew and sale of articles, he bought his first motorbike, experienced, and brought his world of Brita Harley-Davidson that he named Barking ish Columbia and the great outdoors to Betsy. audiences around the world. He wrote Upon graduating from Pratt in 1915, he numerous articles for scientific publications, used Betsy to make one of the first transconas well as about 700 pieces for various tinental trips across the United States, outdoors magazines in Canada, the USA travelling from New York to Portland, and the UK, many of which are now housed Oregon, with his brother to visit his parents, in the BC Archives. He was also the author who had moved there. The two-wheeled of a few books, including Bird Rambles in trip across the United States gave the British Columbia and a biography of the self-described “motorcyle-naturalist” ornithologist Allan Brooks. the opportunity to sleep under the stars, From an early age, his passion was the see new places and to do what he loved best: outdoors and studying, collecting and study wildlife, particularly birds. The trip drawing wildlife. Combining his love of art also gave him plenty of inspiration for and nature, he attended an art program at his articles. the Pratt Institute in New York from 1911 In 1920, after a chance meeting with Dr. to 1914 with the intention of forging a career Frances Harper of the Brooklyn Museum, as a writer-naturalist and illustrating his Laing was invited to participate in a own work. During his studies he research trip funded by the Smithsonian
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Laing demonstrating the pattern of wing growth of a Bonaparte’s gull for one of his articles, c. 1935.
Institute to study and collect bird life from the Lake Athabasca region for a study of migratory birds. This trip was to be the first of several large expeditions for Laing to study and collect various animal and bird species across western Canada and the United States on behalf of various museums, including the Provincial Museum in Victoria (now the Royal BC Museum) and the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa (now the Canadian Museum of Nature). In 1924 he was invited to work as a naturalist on the HMCS Thiepval expedition to Japan, and the following year he worked as field guide on the trip to summit Mount Logan in Alaska. In the summer of 1930 he was hired for a season by the Dominion Parks Branch (later Parks Canada) as the first park naturalist in a Canadian national park (Banff and Lake Louise).
WHAT’S INSIGHT
Laing feeding a ground squirrel during one of his early field camps, mid-1930s.
T
his Week in History is a weekly televised series that showcases British Columbia’s extraordinary history through two-minute, information-rich episodes. Presented by the Royal BC Museum in partnership with CHEK News, these episodes explore the stories behind artifacts, specimens and documents from our collections that would not otherwise be available to the public. Catch This Week in History every Saturday on CHEK News. Get a sneak peek behind the scenes of Orcas on April 17, and learn about our new pocket gallery, Collaborating for Conservation, on March 27. You can also read about the gallery on page 7 of this magazine.
As an amateur ornithologist, Hamilton Laing contributed to the scientific knowledge of bird and animal life, not just of British Columbia, but also of western Canada more broadly. Five new species were either discovered or named by him, including a new subspecies of mouse in British Columbia called Perognathus parvus laingi. He collected about 10,000 different birds, mammals and plants, some of which are now housed at the Royal BC Museum. The Laing collection is a well-used collection, often requested by scholars researching topics such as bird populations in western Canada and by motorbiking enthusiasts wanting to know more about Laing’s bike ride across the US on his Harley-Davidson. I have only just dipped my toe into the Laing collection, and I look forward to the next time I get a reference inquiry relating to this fascinating character.
Want to learn more about some of the remarkable stories and exciting work featured in this issue of What’s inSight? Check out the following previously aired This Week in History episodes at rbcm.ca/twih. BC’s Outlaw Plants (page 21) Season 9, episode 6
For Our Time (page 16) Season 9, episode 20
The Object’s the Thing (page 28) Season 9, episode 14
The Motorcycle Naturalist (page 23) Season 9, episode 21
Victoria Saanich New Westminster Railway Company (page 18) Season 9, episode 19
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WHAT’S
ON SPRING 2021
For a full listing of what’s happening at the museum visit rbcm.ca/calendar
ONLINE RESOURCES NEW iNaturalist
Interested in becoming a citizen scientist? Check out iNaturalist, a website and app that lets you collaborate with researchers, experts and park visitors around the world. Please tag us @RBCM in your observations! Explore now at inaturalist.org
This Week in History
This weekly series is back for its ninth season. Every Saturday on CHEK News, or see past episodes online. Explore now at rbcm.ca/twih
Learning Portal
The Learning Portal is a dynamic online resource designed to engage learners of all ages. Explore now at rbcm.ca/learning
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EXHIBITIONS Orcas: Our Shared Future
Dive deep into the stories and science surrounding the orca, apex predator of all oceans. Surface with a new understanding of how orcas and humans are connected.
April 16, 2021 through January 9, 2022
Learn more at rbcm.ca/orcas
Orcas Virtual Gala
Join us in celebrating the opening of the Orcas: Our Shared Future exhibition. Starting the evening is a mini version of Artifact or Artifiction. Match wits with museum staff as you try to guess which artifact tales are true and which are false. Then dive deeper into the world of orcas with speaker Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Haida manga artist who will tell us about his watercolour artwork, Orcinus Orca Skannaa, featured in the exhibition.
April 15 | 6:00 PM
For details visit rbcm.ca
THE POCKET GALLERY
Collaborating for Conservation This display highlights the Royal BC Museum’s role in documenting BC’s natural heritage through the collection of biological specimens in BC Parks. It also highlights the roles played by our university colleagues collecting digital observations and park visitors contributing submissions to the iNaturalist app.
On now until August 11, 2021 Clifford Carl Hall Learn more at rbcm.ca/pocketgallery
WHAT’S INSIGHT
PROGRAMS Digital Field Trips
We’re back to offering digital field trips to schools and learners of all ages. Learn more at rbcm.ca/digitalfieldtrips
RBCM@Home Series
Join us every Tuesday at 12:00 pm for a visit with members of the museum staff and staff from other cultural sites around British Columbia. BC Parks iNaturalist Project March 16 | 12:00–12:30 pm Whale Fossils March 23 | 12:00–12:30 pm Goes to the Golden BC Museum March 30 | 12:00–12:30 pm
RBCM@Home Kids
Got little ones? Join us every Wednesday at 11:00 am for online playdates and hands-on activities.
Explore changing perspectives with these upcoming spring courses: • • • • • • •
Conspiracy in the Age of COVID How to be Your Own Protector Living Consciously Expanded Japanese Gardens Keeping a Sketchbook Chinese Brush Painting World Languages
REGISTER TODAY
continuingstudies.uvic.ca/insight
Paper Airplanes March 17 | 11:00–11:30 am Botanical Art March 24 | 11:00–11:30 am Excuse Me, I Have a Question March 31 | 11:00–11:30 am N E W Museum Field Trip Explore a new part of the Royal BC Museum on the first Wednesday of every month. We’ll show you back hallways, secret doors, familiar animal friends and beloved Old Town dioramas. Wherever we end up, we’ll sketch! Bring paper and a pencil—and your curiosity!
RBCM@Outside
Follow along at home as museum staff lead you on an outdoor adventure every second Wednesday at 2:00 pm.
Springtime at the Beach March 24 | 2:00–2:30 pm Learn more at rbcm.ca/calendar
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NEW FROM PUBLISHING
The Object’s the Thing An Excerpt from the Royal BC Museum’s Latest Book
W
hether you know it or not, you’ve probably encountered the work of Yorke Edwards. In the course of his long career in nature and heritage interpretation, which included a stint as the director of what was then the BC Provincial Museum, Edwards’s outlook and vision came to shape park interpretation across Canada in many ways still visible today. In the Royal BC Museum’s newest publication, The Object’s the Thing, editors and Royal BC Museum alumni Dr. Rob Cannings and Richard Kool collect Edwards’s writings— his speeches and notes, and the advice he gave to interpreters and guides across the country—offering an engaging look into the thinking that shaped so many Canadian experiences of nature. The following is an excerpt from “What Is Interpretation?,” a presentation made to the BC Parks Branch training school in Manning Park, BC, in 1965.
People like to use their brains. Dozens of tourist surveys have shown that the places tourists aim for are historic sites, museums and parks. They do not go to these places to be bored. They are looking for interesting things to make their lives interesting, and they know that these places are interesting places. It will help to think a minute about things that are interesting. How important, how valuable, are interesting things? Aside from food and shelter, interesting things are the most important things in our lives. Only interesting things can make life interesting. An interesting life is what makes life worth living. It’s as simple as that. Interesting things are as valuable as our lives. I can think of few things as valuable to me as the interesting things that make life pleasant and satisfying and worthwhile… People want to know more about nature, but most people don’t even know that they want to know more, and many that do know, don’t know how to go about it. Every year we see clear evidence that this is so. We interpret nature in BC parks to over 100,000 people each summer, and we find that the best way to understand people is to watch them. For that matter, what other way is there? We have people who once didn’t know a robin from a cedar coming back every year to learn more—about their parks. Every year parents bring us children who somehow caught fire last summer, or the summer before perhaps, and they have taken something a park naturalist said or showed to them, and they have built it into a lifetime interest that will give them a lifetime of pleasure. It really makes no difference what this interest is. It can be anything. It can be in bugs or flowers, in birds or rocks, in spiders or pine cones, and no matter what the interest is, it is valuable because it will bring a lifetime of pleasure. There can be nothing more valuable than this, and like most really valuable things, money can’t buy it.
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The Object’s the Thing: The Writings of R. Yorke Edwards, a Pioneer of Heritage Interpretation in Canada is available for pre-order at
rbcm.ca/edwards For a limited time save 20% by using code EDWARDS at checkout. Offer ends April 30, 2021.
“To glimpse this diversity is to feel some of the meaning of being Canadian.” —R. Yorke Edwards
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COVER IMAGE Up-close with a mason bee (Hoplitis fulgida) all covered in pollen. This photo was taken in South Okanagan Grasslands Protected Area. Photograph courtesy of Thomas Barbin.
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