JUNE 2, 2023
Explore the art and artifacts of ancient Angkor through the lens of science and Khmer culture.
Tracey Drake editor - in - chief
Erin Belton creative director
Bhumika Kamra production manager
Amanda Richardson editor
Eva van Emden proofreader
Melanie Grisak photographer
Shane Lighter photographer
ON THE COVER:
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.
contributors
Wildlife Photographer of the Year,
1
CEO Welcome Message
3 feature
You Can’t Trace Time: Walking the path toward modernization
What goes into modernizing a world-class museum? Take a look at the future of the Royal BC Museum and how we can rethink our spaces in anintentional and collaborative way.
5 feature Breathing Life into Buster
A deep dive into the life cycle of a model dinosaur, from the spark of inspiration to exhibition-worthy showpiece.
8 museum spotlight The Sound of 7: Shining a spotlight on the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre
9 across the province Beyond the Museum Walls
12 imax® The Future of IMAX ® Victoria
13 human history
Forebears Found in Museums
15 feature Creature Conservation: The messages behind the pictures of Wildlife Photographer of the Year A global showcase of the year’s most awe-inspiring wildlife photos and a look at the competition’s history of using its platform to promote conservation and animal welfare.
Dear friends and supporters,
I am sure you will agree that 2022 was quite a year and 2023 promises to be even busier with exciting new initiatives, a lineup of spectacular feature exhibitions and the rollout of our province-wide community engagement strategy.
I’m delighted to greet you in these pages and am grateful for the warm and generous welcome I’ve received since my arrival at the Royal BC Museum in
Dinosaurs of BC opening in April, and Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia and SUE: The T. rex Experience both slated for June. We are also working hard with partners to confirm a fourth, Indigenous-created exhibition, but more on that in communications to come!
Dinosaurs of BC is an in-house exhibition that showcases the extraordinary depth of our palaeontological collections and the groundbreaking work of our palaeontological team. Angkor is a bona fide blockbuster about a spiritual, cultural and architectural marvel in Cambodia. And SUE is the story of one of prehistory’s most fearsome predators—the reigning tyrant monarch, in all their fantastic, ferocious glory.
February 2022. I have focused much of my attention this past year on the people and culture of the museum: listening to staff members one-on-one over coffee; discussing the organization’s priorities, struggles and ambitions; and working collaboratively in all-day sessions with the staff to understand our values and vision for the future. It’s been inspiring and gratifying to do this hard work because the focus is always on people.
If last year was one of learning, this year is decidedly one of action with new exhibitions and experiences, province-wide engagement and a focus on people and community at the centre of all we do. As such, I’m thrilled to let you know that unlike any year before, we will be hosting multiple feature exhibitions simultaneously in 2023, with
I am pleased to share that SUE: The T. rex Experience will be featured in our third-floor galleries, marking the first time we welcome the public back to engage with an exhibit in this space in over a year. The third-floor experience will be different from how you remember it, and although part of it will continue to be closed off to the public, we are committed to hearing from you about what you would like to see in future galleries.
To facilitate this work on future exhibits, we started the process of province-wide community engagement in January, asking British Columbians to let us know what they imagine for the future of the Royal BC Museum.
We are committed to rethinking the future of the museum in an intentional and collaborative way. By fundamentally changing our approach, we allow the museum to shift from being a storyteller on behalf of others to a facilitator of storytelling. It will
IT’S BEEN INSPIRING AND GRATIFYING TO DO THIS HARD WORK BECAUSE THE FOCUS IS ALWAYS ON PEOPLE.
call on our ability to be relationshipfocused, nimble and open-minded, and in doing so, provide phenomenal opportunities to learn and grow.
I am excited to lead this multiyear commitment to engagement across the province. We have a responsibility to create community connections, welcoming gathering spaces, educational programs and thought-provoking experiences for people of all ages.
Along with the board, staff members and volunteers of the Royal BC Museum, I look forward to creating something new and inspiring together with you.
With my best,
Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia, a bona fide blockbuster feature exhibition about a spiritual, cultural and architectural marvel. Jun 2, 2023–Jan 14, 2024.
It’s the star of SUE: The T. rex Experience, an immersive feature exhibition about prehistory’s most fearsome predator, opening on the third floor. Jun 16, 2023–Feb 16, 2024.
They sure do! That’s why we’re bringing you Dinosaurs of BC, a feature exhibition showcasing the museum’s palaeontology team and the beautiful prehistoric beasts that once called BC home. Apr 17, 2023–Jan 7, 2024.
We want to hear your thoughts and ideas about the future of the Royal BC Museum. We welcome the perspectives of all British Columbians. Connect with us at rbcm.ca/engage
Please do, at the Community Gallery, a new collaborative online exhibition space. You’re invited to explore the gallery and share your beautiful images and big ideas. Visit community.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca
A lot. SUE: The T. rex Experience will reign supreme on the third floor. Some areas remain closed, but we’ll be inviting community engagement participants into beloved gallery spaces to help us reimagine them.
We are here to answer your questions about the Royal BC Museum. Come join the conversation.
During childhood visits to the Royal BC Museum, I always raced to the woolly mammoth diorama to marvel at the replica and touch the wall of ice in the great animal’s foreground. The icy wall (smoothed by thousands of kids’ warm fingers) was one of those small but memorable touches that made the museum feel incredibly well-designed and immersive. The touch of ice—and the scent of spice that wafted from the kitchen in Old Town—continued to be a little highlight for me and for many visitors over the decades.
As the Royal BC Museum moves toward modernization, it’s hard not to fantasize about all the mindful, magical, multi-sensory details we could include to help breathe life into our galleries and exhibits, whether existing or envisioned for the future.
But before we get to the nittygritty genius of creating immersive experiences, we are focused on answering larger and far more challenging questions, like whether we— in our core galleries, learning programs and digital spaces—are reflecting a truly diverse representation of community stories and histories from across BC.
We know the answer: we aren’t yet. But we are determined to get there. This is why we’re welcoming the opportunity to engage with people throughout the province about the museum’s future. We want to do things right. We want to listen to as many people as we can. We want to know what you think a modern Royal BC Museum might look and feel (and even smell) like.
We are focused on modernization because we are passionate about our work and our role. You’d be hard pressed to find a staff member who feels blasé about the impact of the museum, or feels meh about making the museum experience better.
We don’t yet know what “better” means to all people, but we expect it will mean being more inclusive. It might include rethinking how much we tell people’s stories and instead inviting communities to tell their own. It will probably mean more access to the museum and archives collections, and to staff, to plumb their knowledge and expertise.
Our first step on the long, winding path toward modernization is community engagement.
Janet Hanuse, Vice President of Engagement and DRIPA Implementation, and CEO Alicia Dubois, are leading the process of community engagement. We asked Janet a few questions about this process, which launched in January 2023.
Erik Lambertson: Janet, what do you hope that people experience in this first round of community engagement?
Janet Hanuse: I hope that British Columbians get the opportunity to learn more about what the Royal BC Museum provides, in terms of services, programs and stories about BC's history. I also hope that we get to build on and improve existing relationships—and build new relationships—with the general public, with First Nations communities and with other culturally based communities who haven’t yet had the opportunity to share their stories.
Erik: What excites you about the whole process of community engagement?
Janet: The sense of empowerment that communities feel, and the sense of inclusion. Communities feel that they are heard, that their voices are valued and that they actually have a say in the stories. That gives British Columbians a sense of shared ownership of our culture, our stories, and our existence in BC. And it empowers us to tell a better story. I find that exciting.
Erik: When you're heading into a room for community engagement, whether that's a room with chairs or a virtual one like Zoom, what kind of mood or tone are you hoping to set?
Janet: Well, I don't expect to control the mood! But in terms of tone, I hope that we can create space to foster a tone of collaboration, inclusion and shared decision-making. I hope that we create a sense of community, where we’re opening arms to each other.
Erik: Are there any communities or regions that you're particularly
excited to visit and learn more from?
Janet: I’m keen to inform all of our communities whose belongings we have in our collection, whether they're Indigenous or non-Indigenous. My reason for that is to make sure that the Royal BC Museum is relevant in the eyes of British Columbia.
Erik: It seems that so much of community engagement is really about listening. What do you think makes a particularly good listener?
Janet: A good listener, first of all, is somebody who does exactly that: who listens and doesn't necessarily always need to speak or to respond. A good listener is somebody who considers their responses carefully and ensures that they are actually attending to the needs of what's being said or the priorities that are being shared. So, sitting quietly, hearing the good and the bad, leaning in during those tough moments, and committing to the conversation to see it through, so that at the end, whether we agree or disagree or whether it's resolved or not resolved, we at least have enough of a relationship to continue the discussions.
To learn more about community engagement, including details about participating in upcoming in-person and virtual sessions, visit rbcm.ca/engage.
Brian Cooley is a world-renowned artist based out of Calgary, Alberta. His life-size dinosaur sculptures have appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine, in the exhibit halls of the Royal Tyrrell Museum and even at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park in Florida, USA.
Beginning in April, one of his dinosaurs will prowl the halls of the Royal BC Museum and other museums across the province.
I had the great pleasure of working with Brian over the last year on a very special sculpture—a life-size version of “Buster” the Ferrisaurus. Buster is a dinosaur specimen I’ve been studying since 2005. He’s a relative of the iconic Triceratops, but without the
long horns and frill. He’s also much closer to the size of a sheep than his frilled cousin would have been.
In 2019, my colleague David Evans, the Temerty Chair of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, and I announced that Buster was a new species of dinosaur unique to British Columbia. We gave him the scientific name Ferrisaurus sustutensis, which means “the iron lizard from the Sustut River.”
Buster’s bones were displayed in the museum’s Pocket Gallery between September 2019 and March 2020. While no doubt special, Buster’s skeleton is incomplete, which can make it hard to picture what he might have looked like while he was alive. To
help with this, we displayed Buster’s bones on a life-size outline of his body so visitors could see what parts of the skeleton were preserved and roughly what size and shape he was.
When I was asked to develop a new travelling exhibit—what has now become Dinosaurs of BC, set to debut in 2023—I knew I wanted to share Buster with the people of British Columbia in a new way. That’s where Brian Cooley comes in.
In the spring of 2021, the Royal BC Museum contracted Brian to create a version of Buster that would be the next best thing to seeing him in the flesh. But with only a few pieces of the skeleton to work with, how do we know what Buster should look like?
Thankfully, some of Buster’s closest relatives, like Leptoceratops, Montanoceratops and Cerasinops, are known from relatively complete skeletons, which let me fill in many of the missing pieces, like what Buster’s skull would have looked like or how long his tail should be. With a solid knowledge of comparative anatomy, I was able to make some pretty good guesses about the musculature that would have held his skeleton together and what his skin would have looked like over top of that.
To help give us an idea of what position the final sculpture would be in, Brian started out by building a tiny version of the skeleton that could be posed in different ways, so we could decide what pose the final sculpture should take. A series of pencil sketches roughed out the model even further and gave me an opportunity to give detailed pointers on things like how many claws were on Buster’s hand or how thick the tail should be. Then it was time to move on to a full-scale model.
Brian used photos and measurements of Buster’s skeleton and other leptoceratopsids to create a steel armature with the right proportions. A layer of clay creates the muscles over the metal bones, and then he sculpted the details of the skin, including wrinkles and scales. This clay-covered model would be too heavy and easily damaged to display in the museum or take on the road, so an exact replica made of fibrereinforced polyester resin was created to make him nice and durable.
It was then time to paint Buster— but what colour was Ferrisaurus? We don’t know for sure, so Brian took inspiration from modern animals. He looked at species that need to camouflage themselves from predators, but which may also have brightly coloured areas to attract mates.
Buster’s colour pattern is very loosely based on the modern caiman lizard.
What we wound up with is an amazing, lifelike model of what Buster the Ferrisaurus might have looked like when he scurried around the redwood forests of British Columbia 68 million years ago.
As an added bonus, our talented exhibits team is working on creating
a miniature 3D printed version of this model using a special technique called photogrammetry. This process involves taking dozens of photos of the model and using special computer software to align those photos to create a 3D digital model. This mini-Buster will be placed near the life-size model and will be safe to touch, giving visitors one more way to connect with this amazing ancient denizen of British Columbia.
top: Buster sculpted in clay at full size, before scales and other skin textures have been added. beloW: Visitors look at Buster’s bones in the Pocket Gallery at the Royal BC Museum in 2019.
Pencil sketches of Buster capture his proportions, form and personality.
A miniature wire version of Buster helps set the pose for the final sculpture.
Dive into prehistoric British Columbia and get up close and personal with the iron lizard of the Sustut River and the other dinosaurs that once roamed the province’s mountains, forests and rivers.
APRIL 17, 2023
The Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre (SLCC) was built to share the culture of the Squamish Nation and the Lil’wat Nation. Our cultural centre is located in Whistler, BC, where our territories meet. We have become the place to come and learn about the Indigenous people and our history in Whistler, and we were excited to host the Our Living Languages exhibition from February 15 to May 23, 2022. After a two-year break throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibit was well received by Sea to Sky locals and international visitors alike.
We opened the exhibit with an intimate gathering of locals and language speakers from both the Squamish and Lil’wat nations. It was inspiring to hear stories about their personal journeys from learning the languages to teaching them. We were fortunate to hear stories from guests who are also reviving their languages.
While the exhibition was here, I noticed many different groups spending an increased amount of time visiting the exhibit. I even witnessed one child ask her family to stay longer and for her dad to sit with her while she watched the exhibition video.
One of our most frequently asked questions since the SLCC opened in 2008 is, “What does the 7 sound like?” and this exhibit helped us to answer that question for our guests. Having all of the interactives in the exhibit has been a huge benefit to our guests who are interested in learning about Indigenous languages in BC. It’s extremely impactful to hear the differences between the languages and learn of the work being done to keep them alive.
The Royal BC Museum staff have done a great job of making their travelling exhibits very easy to process, from booking, installing and keeping up the exhibit. The exhibit is set up in a
way that’s accessible for smaller cultural centres and community facilities that may have little experience hosting a travelling exhibit and looks so warm and inviting. The SLCC was so happy to host the Our Living Languages exhibition.
left: Members of the Squamish and Lil’wat Nations right: The Squamish Lil’wat Centre at night.
Over the years, the Royal BC Museum has welcomed millions of visitors from around the world to enjoy extraordinary exhibitions and educational programs that transport you across time and space. As BC’s provincial museum, we know it’s important that magic, wonder and excitement be shared with everyone no matter where they live. We have created our travelling exhibitions program, satellite exhibitions and a host of digital learning programs. We reach further across the province through our fieldwork and participation in conferences and speaking events, sharing the important and often groundbreaking work of our curators and collections staff.
Moving beyond the museum walls and into communities across BC is just one way we’re reimagining what it truly means to be a modern museum for all British Columbians.
travelling exhibitions (2018 – present )
Aliens Among Us
A Tale of Two Families
BC’s Marvellous Mushrooms
by the numbers (2018 – present )
Birds of Prey
Canada, Here We Are!
Gold Mountain Dream
map legend
Digital Field Trips
Partner Livestreams Outreach Kits
Engagement Sessions
Travelling Exhibitions
Fieldwork
Haq and History
Hope Meets Action
Our Living Languages
British Columbia’s War, 1914 – 1918
Outreach kits booked
169,923
182 9,993 719 Guests reached by digital field trips Guests reached by livestreams
Total number of learning outreach programs
257 4.3M Public searches of the BC Archives database
Digital field trips
Have your voice heard! Learn about our upcoming community engagement sessions here: rbcm.ca/engage
See this map online: rbcm.ca/beyondthewalls
This is an exciting time for the IMAX® Victoria team and everyone at the Royal BC Museum.
As you may remember, at the height of the pandemic in August 2020, the Royal BC Museum formally acquired IMAX® Victoria. The theatre had long operated under the same roof and been a welcome addition to the museum’s overall offerings, so when the opportunity presented to become one big family, we jumped at the chance.
Since then, we’ve begun welcoming guests back at full capacity, seen the return of the annual pass program and brought back Hollywood feature films like Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water, and are now looking
at exciting new ways of engaging British Columbians and the museum community, beginning with the IMAX® Victoria Film Festival this March.
“What we know is that we want to continue to provide guests with an outstanding moviegoing experience,” says Colin Hardie, Theatre and Box Office Director. “We want to continue to be the leaders in our field that saw us earn the Giant Screen Cinema Association award for best booth in 2019 and be one of the world’s first IMAX® theatres to upgrade to digital laser projection in 2014. We also know that we want to do more to support local, BC-based, Canadian filmmakers.”
That last bit is a big one and something we’re really excited about. Last year while hosting Orcas: Our Shared Future, we screened the locally produced film Saving Luna by directors Michael Parfit and Suzanne Chisholm. The story follows a young orca who gets separated from his family in Nootka Sound, off the coast of Vancouver Island. The film, with its island roots, was an overwhelming hit
with guests and we knew we needed to give British Columbians more opportunities to see their home and its residents up on the big screen.
Earlier this year, we put that thought into action by screening the film Carbon by Victoria-based filmmaker Niobe Thompson and by selecting multiple films from the National Film Board to screen throughout the week leading up to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. In the past, we’ve also opened our doors to members of the film industry—like Great Bear Rainforest’s sound engineer Tim Archer—to run dailies during postproduction or mix the sound on projects.
“These relationships not only make use of our state-of-the-art equipment in new and exciting ways, it helps ensure filmmakers, videographers and sound engineers are able to put out the best product possible,” Hardie says.
Sound Bites Concession and the Shop at IMAX® also continue to be a huge part of the guest experience and another way we are looking at supporting local businesses. We’re hoping to be able to support more local businesses through our retail and concession stand over the coming months to provide guests with unique shopping and snacking experiences they can’t get at other theatres.
We’re excited for the year ahead and can’t wait to welcome regular guests and annual passholders to experience all that IMAX® Victoria has to offer.
WE ALSO KNOW THAT WE WANT TO DO MORE TO SUPPORT LOCAL, BC-BASED, CANADIAN FILMMAKERS.
N othing under the sun is new, but oftentimes what is known becomes lost and must be relearned. Such is the case with many of the paintings at the BC Archives that we are now able to share more complete histories of, thanks to a few recent visitors. Over the last year, three families have come to visit artworks depicting their ancestors, which are housed in the archives’ paintings, drawings and prints collection. Each family came with questions and information that helped us learn more about the artworks in our care.
First, Lynn Ross reached out just as the archives was reopening to the public after its COVID-19 closure. She wondered whether she, her sister Beth and their mother Rhoda could come to see Grafton Tyler Brown’s Giant’s Castle Mountain. Rhoda had been reviewing her family archive and connected some family letters to the painting and wished, for her 90th birthday, to see it in person.
The archives acquired the painting in 2018, shortly after it was exhibited at the Legacy Art Gallery in Victoria, BC, by Dr. John Lutz, a history professor at the University of Victoria. Thanks to Lutz’s research, writing and exhibition, we knew the painting depicted the farmstead of overlander Alex L. Fortune. The overlanders were a group of English-speaking immigrants who travelled across Canada by land to settle BC’s interior in 1862. The farmstead, which became known as Fortune’s Landing, was a rest point for others travelling west to the Okanagan, and it’s thought that Brown first sketched it while he worked on the BC geological survey.
From the Ross family we were able to read first-hand accounts from Bathia Ross (née Fortune) about her commissioning the painting from Brown. She paid $100— around $3,000 today—and, because she purchased it with some of her inheritance, considered it “the last present my very dear and affectionate father has left me.”
The second quest into the archives began when the Honourable Ted Menzies, a former member of parliament, asked if his family might see two miniatures of Archibald and Janet Menzies on a visit to the island. The historian of the family, Graeme Menzies, had recently written a biography on Archibald and alerted Ted to the presence of the paintings here. He was also instrumental in helping us identify the artist and estimate the date the miniatures were created. At the time that Graeme and Ted reached out to the archives, we only knew the subjects of the portraits and little else.
Archibald Menzies was a Scottish botanist and naturalist who sailed with the Vancouver Expedition in 1791. He married his wife, Janet, just before his voyage in 1789. Given the youth of the couple in the portraits, Graeme and I surmised they were likely painted to commemorate the wedding or as mementos to carry while Archibald travelled. We then reached out to a specialist in British miniatures, Emma Rutherford, who was able to identify the artist as Thomas Richmond. Ted, who is the Canadian board
member of the Menzies Clan Society, was able to bring this history back to their family at a recent clan gathering.
Most recently, Nicola Baker was visiting her greatgrandmother’s grave at Ross Bay cemetery with her mother Susan and some family. They realized the cemetery also probably held the grave of her greatgreat-grandfather, Dr. Henry Esson Young. When Nicola attempted to Google the grave’s location, she came across a new article about a painting at the museum. We had just acquired a life-size canvas of the Honourable Dr. Young, and Nicola asked if her family could come see it.
Our storage is a challenging space to see large paintings; nevertheless, Nicola, Susan and I, along with four other family members, squeezed in, tilted our heads sideways, and gazed at the former Minister of Education and Minister of Health. While the Young family didn’t bring new knowledge, I, myself an unrelated Young, had just conducted new research on the recently acquired painting. I noted the similarities between Dr. Henry Young and our current provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, two public health figures keenly interested in vaccination. As a testament to what a small town Victoria can be, the Young family left their viewing and went to Government House where they had a serendipitous encounter with Dr. Henry, who even happened to know of the painting.
In a recent email exchange about this article, Nicola observed, “Who gets to see original Emily Carr work just a few rows down from a painting of your great-grandfather?” Apparently, more people than one might think.
The BC Archives holds hundreds of historical portraits representing generations of people who have called British Columbia home. If you have an ancestor who may be depicted here, come for a visit and meet them for yourself.
This is a perfect example of how animals can adapt to any situation or setting, if we do not interfere with them. Or is it a warning of how things are to be in the future—where wildlife is seen more in urban landscapes, while their own homes are dwindling?
—Sugandhi
The messages behind the pictures of Wildlife Photographer
the Year
LIFE AND DEATH IN FUR FARMING | Jo-Anne McArthur (Canada)
1. Try to buy cruelty-free alternatives to fur and animal products. Examples include fabrics made from recycled plastic and leather alternatives made from pineapple leaves or mushrooms.
2. Keeping animals in such close quarters encourages the spread of disease. Avoid supporting practices like industrialized farming wherever possible.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
3. Use your voice sign petitions, write letters to your elected officials and share this image with family and friends. Encourage people around you to become active supporters of animal welfare too.
1. Try to eat fish and seafood that has been sustainably caught. Pole and line fishing catches fish one at a time, preventing overfishing and reducing the risk of bycatch (accidently catching other species).
2. Try incorporating different types of fish into your diet. Eating a diverse range of foods is important for your health, as well as the health of the oceans.
3. Reduce your food waste at home by storing your food properly and planning your meals ahead of time.
What does it take to capture the perfect picture? Is it hours of patient focus backed by decades of experience? Is it the right equipment? Maybe it all comes down to luck and timing, or maybe it’s something else entirely.
Whatever it is, the photographers selected year after year to display their work in the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition have figured out the secret. And beyond being simply a collection of beautiful and at times heart-wrenching photos, these images carry important messages of conservation, protection and action.
A fan favourite of Royal BC Museum visitors for the past decade, Wildlife Photographer of the Year has been celebrating the best of the best that wildlife photographers have to offer for nearly 60 years. From macro shots of the tiniest insects to sweeping Arctic panoramas featuring some of the largest mammals on
Earth, there are seemingly no limits to what the world’s most talented photographers are able to capture. This year, 99 captivating images are touring the world, and after opening to rave reviews at the Royal BC Museum in December 2022, it’s no wonder the photography exhibition continues to draw crowds. What began as a magazine competition in 1965 has become one of the world’s most renowned photography awards. Upwards of 45,000 entries vie annually for the coveted top spots—a process that has become significantly simplified over the years since the advent of the digital camera. But more than just an accolade for photographers, the Natural History Museum says the competition’s aim from the outset has been to “enhance the prestige of wildlife photography in the hopes that ultimately the awards will benefit the animals themselves by creating greater public interest in them and in that all-important topic: conservation.”
That desire to spark public interest and action is never more clearly exemplified than through Canada’s own Jo-Anne McArthur, who has been photographing wildlife around the world for the past 25 years. No subject has driven her work forward more than documenting and raising global awareness around systemic animal abuse.
Featured in books like HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene, Captive, and We Animals, McArthur has made a career of documenting exploited and abused animals and advocating for animal rights.
This year, McArthur’s photo Life and death in fur farming shows the heartbreaking reality of the mink farming industry. Taken in Lindåsen, Sweden, the picture captures the cramped, inhospitable conditions where these reclusive animals are bred for their fur.
The story accompanying McArthur’s image in the Wildlife Photographer of
the Year gallery acknowledges recent changes in legislation that have seen improvements made to living conditions at factory farms, but as McArthur notes, “Injuries do still occur and the standard of life remains poor. Mink farming is an industry where, traditionally, the welfare of these semiaquatic, naturally solitary mammals has not been a priority unless it affects the fur.”
McArthur also highlights the devastating impact COVID-19 had on the mink industry after it was discovered the small mammals could carry and spread the deadly virus to humans. As a result, some 17 million minks were euthanized in Denmark alone.
The competition has a longstanding history of photographers using their art and platform to raise awareness about pressing global concerns, like unsustainable fishing practices, the impact of urbanization on wildlife, and the ongoing battle between humans and nature. Others use the opportunity to highlight work already being done to preserve vulnerable species, like Australia’s Goongerah Wombat Orphanage which raised orphaned baby wombats before releasing them back into the wild, or one Polish community’s dedicated winter feedings to help its mute swan population survive the area’s harsh winters.
Celebrate 58 years of art with a cause by visiting the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal BC Museum through April 16.
What really makes this image work is the element of surprise. On first glance, the right-hand side of the image looks like a grassy field. But when you realize that it’s water, you immediately understand that something is sorely wrong with this picture—it’s a damaged ecosystem, and something must be done to fix it.”
—Jen Guyton,
photojournalist and judge
Long before the lights go on and crowds are welcomed in to what has become our longest-running return exhibition, the Royal BC Museum’s exhibition team has work to do to bring Wildlife Photographer of the Year to life.
Setting up an almost entirely photograph-based exhibition is more complex than what meets the eye when you walk into the gallery. This deceptively simplelooking exhibition takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work from the exhibitions team to make the show a reality.
The installation starts months before the show, opens to the public. The museum’s exhibition designer first develops the layout of the show as no two years are ever the same. Not only do they have to arrange the order of how the 100+ photographs and videos are displayed, they also have to plot out the position of temporary walls, factor in emergency exit routes, pick new wall paint colours, design a statement making entrance to the gallery, and lay out a seemingly endless number of additional graphic panels for the show.
Once the designer has developed the layout and it’s been approved by the Natural History
Museum in London, England, the fabrication team goes to work.
After having spent a few weeks to empty out the gallery from the previous exhibition—in this case, our duel feature exhibitions Broken Promises and Between Us: Adad Hannah’s Social Distancing Portraits—the team begins to assemble our temporary wall units. Each wall needs to be tied off to the ceiling for seismic safety purposes, have any holes patched up and get a fresh coat of paint. But the walls aren’t finished just yet. Each image requires power to illuminate the internal lighting, and that’s where our audiovisual technicians step in. Running cables and wiring to each frame, they then have to repeat this process along the permanent walls of the gallery underneath a custom-built cable cover. The AV technicians are also responsible for focusing the lights in the gallery to make sure all of the graphic panels are properly lit and there’s ample light in the gallery so the public aren’t bumping into things. Besides the lighting, the AV techs are also responsible for installing all of the accompanying video screens and audio components for the
soundtrack that accompanies the show.
When the walls are ready, it’s time to hang the photos, which is surprisingly the quickest part of the installation. Despite making sure all of the images are at the exact right height, perfectly level and properly spaced, it only takes our team a few days to hang all 100 photos in the show along with all of the additional graphics. We can’t forget about that statement entrance the designer thought up during the planning stage. These large mural-sized images and title graphics are typically printed in house and installed by the exhibitions team, which is no small feat considering the size and complexity of some of the images.
Last but not least, the gallery is given a thorough cleaning before opening day to make sure there are no stray screws on the carpet, objects have been dusted and everything is looking its best before opening to the public.
After close to a decade of hosting Wildlife Photographer of the Year, the exhibitions team is a well-oiled machine when it comes to finding the best ways to display these incredible works of art.
Indigenous women as marriage gifts for their husbands, and they are still made by Indigenous artists today. They are called fire bags because they hold all the tools for making a fire, such as flint and tinder, as well as tobacco and sometimes a small smoking pipe.
This particular fire bag caught my eye because of the unusual basket, butterfly, and heart designs. The size and colour of the beads also make this fire bag unique. The beads are so small they are called microbeads. They are smaller than a size 20/0, meaning that if you lined them up end to end, there would be more than 20 in an inch. The maker used 19 different colours of beads in her work, including two different types of brass beads. This suggests she was able to access the best, highest-quality bead supplies, likely at a nearby trading post or fort.
This beautiful fire bag sat quietly on display in the modern history gallery for more than five decades with no mention of its history. When I looked at our database records, I found a note that simply said: “Made by Susan Birnie for husband J.A. Grahame of the H.B.C. [Hudson’s Bay Company]” I was immediately intrigued—who was Susan Birnie?
wedding gift. The beaded heart perhaps signifies Susan’s love for James. James was a prominent Hudson’s Bay Company employee, and he would have worn this fire bag to important events around the forts. Her husband’s position also likely afforded her the means to acquire the best beads and supplies. The size of the beads and complex designs indicates Susan was a highly skilled beader.
It is important to reunite this history with the fire bag to give voice to Susan Birnie. Generally speaking, it is very rare that we know the identities of the makers of older Indigenous belongings in museum collections, particularly when the artists were women. By reforming this connection, we can bring forward the stories of the people tied to this fire bag in the past, present and future, and remind the world of a wife’s once-forgotten love for her husband.
While working in the modern history collection, I came across a fire bag that had been removed from a display about the fur trade. Fire bags were made by
Susan, also known as Susannah, was a Métis woman born on September 15, 1828, in Fort Vancouver, Wash. Her father was James Birnie, a Scottish fur trader who worked for the North West Company, and her Métis mother, Charlot Beaulieu, was born in Red River, Manitoba— current-day Winnipeg—in 1805.
On September 5, 1847, Susan married James Allan Grahame in Cathlamet, Washington. It is likely that Susan made this fire bag for her husband as a
As we prepare to move the Royal BC Museum’s collections to the new Collections and Research Building in Colwood, BC, we are busy ensuring the collection is getting the best of care. This includes both the physical care of the collections and the important stories these objects tell.collections manager , indigenous collections
Hands-on learning made possible with unique outreach kits
WITH THESE NEW PACKS, WE CAN SEND THE HANDLING COLLECTION ANYWHERE IN THE PROVINCE. Exhibit arts technician Megan Anderson working on the Provocation Pack. Specimens being placed on a removable tray for mounting. Heart crab (Phyllolithodes papillosus) for the Invertebrates Provocation Pack.
Imagine a large container arrives in a classroom. Inside are two beautiful, red stacking boxes. You take them out and open the top box. Nestled into protective foam you see two plaster wall fragments. Each fragment is etched with a language you don’t recognize. But why would a museum collect graffiti? Inside the second box are photographs, letters and documents to help you answer that question.
Educators who borrow outreach kits like the one described above have an opportunity to connect their students with artifacts and specimens from the Royal BC Museum, even if they can’t visit us on site.
Knowing that the real magic of museums lies in our collections, we began to build a suite of outreach kits in 2015. These kits contain a selection of materials chosen to illustrate a topic, theme or issue using reproductions from our collections and archives.
These kits can be borrowed by teachers and other educators anywhere in British Columbia and are shipped out for them to use to supplement and enhance their lessons.
The first outreach kit I worked on—the one with the beautiful red boxes and mysterious wall fragments— was in response to then-Premier Christie Clarke’s apology to Chinese Canadians for historical wrongs. With support from the former Ministry of International Trade and Minister Responsible for Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism, we were able to work with Open School BC, the Ministry of Education and the Legacy
Initiatives Advisory Council to hear from teachers about what they needed.
Working with a local educator and Dr. Tzu-I Chung, our curator of history, I selected topical images and objects of cultural significance. The exhibits team then got to work creating reproductions of the selected images, objects and documents.
The kit was a success and has served as a baseline for all future outreach kits. Throughout the process, we also learned a few things with regard to best practice.
By using reproductions, we aren’t putting any of the museum collection at risk. However, if the materials looked like reproductions—like a photocopied document or a cheap plastic facsimile of a wooden tool— it wouldn’t be handled with the same degree of care and wouldn’t be robust enough to go through all the hands that it sees in a year.
In our most recent kit, Building Community: Paldi and the Legacy of South Asian Canadians in British Columbia, we were able to respond to a need from the South Asian Canadian Community and work with our partners at the South Asian Canadian
Legacy Project at the University of the Fraser Valley. They were able to find images, provide objects and suggest people that we could talk to and work with to create the resource.
Because we work with classroom teachers and teacher advisors, we are able to apply contemporary teaching practices and historical thinking concepts when creating our lesson plans and educator guides. This method allows students to not just learn history, but interact with it as well. They learn how curators and historians determine if something is historically significant, how to read a historical photograph for evidence and get experience in using primary source documents. This experience allows them to hear first-hand accounts of the past and teaches them important skills for critical thinking and future research.
Next up, we are developing some new kits we are calling Provocation Packs. Instead of using reproductions, these packs will use objects and specimens from our handling collection. We have found that teachers are interested in a flexible array of materials that they can use for their own projects. In the past, our handling collection has only been available to educators who lived locally and could pick up their loans. With these new packs, we can send the handling collection anywhere in the province. We anticipate they will be used in classrooms, by Girl Guides and Boy Scouts, artists, and in programs for seniors living in care.
Last year more than 1,600 students used outreach kits in classrooms all over British Columbia.
Every year, members of the Royal BC Museum’s botany and entomology departments team up to do alpine field work, and this past summer was no exception. As in every year before, this one found us in the middle of yet another unexpected and memorable situation. We’ve experienced snow in August, wicked windstorms, grizzly bears wandering through camp and torrential downpours. This year it was massive, merciless swarms of mosquitoes.
While some aspects of field work in the alpine are not obviously linked to the climate crisis, last summer’s work was heavily influenced by this rising, global concern. Our first location this year—Mt. Hewitt Bostock, southeast of Lytton, BC—coincided with the province’s first heat dome, which followed an unusually wet spring.
Field workers are no strangers to biting, buzzing, winged insects, but we can usually count on breezes and cool temperatures to control their numbers. Heat domes, however, mean extremely warm, still air—incidentally, a mosquito's dream. We were surrounded by a constant, torturous hum for the entire three days we were on site. The hum was inescapable, following you into your tent at night, invading your
Taking a look at the impacts of climate changeClaudia Copley entomology collections manager and researcher Darren Copley collections manager , mammal and bird preparator Heidi Guest collections manager , natural history Dr. Ken Marr curator of botany
dreams, and greeting you the moment you emerged in the morning. Not to mention the biting! We ran out of bug repellant by day two and resorted to wearing thick layers to survive the onslaught, which is not most people’s first choice of clothing in 35 Celsius sun. Unfortunately for the helicopter pilot, he arrived wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a conspicuous lack of bug spray. Needless to say, he was very eager to load us up and depart!
The bigger picture that’s becoming increasingly evident is that species are literally losing ground due to the climate crisis.
The treeline—the transition point between where trees can and cannot grow—is determined by temperature, not altitude or latitude. As the treeline moves higher with rising temperatures, the suitable habitat options diminish for species of alpine plants and animals that are not adapted to grow in forests.
Although we do not have this sort of information for many invertebrate species, our spider collection efforts have revealed that 10 per cent (92 species) of the spider species reported from British Columbia are found at average elevations of 1,800 metres or higher. Of those, 30 species are only found at or above this elevation. There is a similar story from a botanical perspective. Approximately 650 species of vascular plants grow in BC’s alpine, 130 of which grow exclusively in the alpine.
While spiders may not be at the top of many people’s list of at-risk creatures to save, the rapidly diminishing alpine ecosystem undoubtably impacts other more well-known alpine-adapted animals, like the hoary marmot or the white-tailed ptarmigan. Any loss of alpine habitat is bound to have negative impacts on other, less well-known species that rely exclusively on this ecosystem as well.
For a list of actions you can take to reduce your carbon emissions, check out Future Learn’s 20 top tips: bit.ly/3iGymuc.
Invasive species are one of the main causes of biodiversity loss, and billions of dollars are spent worldwide to mitigate the effects of these pesky, and sometimes destructive, intruders.
The introduction of the common wall lizard in Cincinnati in 1951 and British Columbia in 1967 and again in 1970 was well documented at the time, though little if anything was done to control its spread. Cincinnati went so far as to embrace the wall lizard as a mascot.
A second wall lizard species, the Italian wall lizard, was found in Vancouver in 2019. It was caught and preserved for the Royal BC Museum collection and is now known as RBCM 2187. This species is native to a wide area from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Switzerland, and was introduced to Spain and Turkey. They also were introduced multiple times to the United States with populations in California, Kansas, New Jersey, Missouri and New York. There also is a population on Orcas Island, Washington, which has been there for a decade and a half.
Was our lizard from Orcas Island? Was it from the populations in the US mainland? Or did it originate in Europe? Using analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences (cytochrome-b 17 gene) from a liver sample taken from RBCM 2187, we found that the Vancouver specimen is similar to lizards from the Tuscany area and lizards from Kansas and New York. It’s possible our lizard came from New York or Kansas, or straight from Tuscany itself.
The population in New Jersey is from the Adriatic region, and those
in California originated in Sicily. It’s thought that the majority of Italian wall lizard introductions in the USA stem from the pet trade. That being said, we have no idea where the Orcas Island population originated—at least no one has owned up to it. The Vancouver specimen could have come from Orcas Island—it’s only a short trip—but we won’t know until we analyze an Orcas Island lizard liver.
Wall lizards pose a unique threat considering how comfortable they are in industrial areas, farmland and gardens, and have lived with people throughout our occupation of Europe. They also come from a climate that is similar to that of southwestern BC, and are dietary generalists, meaning they’ll eat whatever they can stuff down.
They are the perfect invader. Keep your eyes out for them and report sightings on the iNaturalist app. Your garden may be next.
bottom to top: Silene acaulis / Trees growing at 2,000 metres in the Graham-Laurier Provincial Park in the Northern Rockies. Note the local treeline on the slope in the background at 1,750 metres. / The Italian wall lizard / Crepis nana
This is a photograph of a mining lamp found during the investigation into the No. 3 Coal Creek Colliery explosion in Fernie, BC. The colliery, owned and operated by the Crows Nest Pass Coal Company, exploded on April 5, 1917, and all 34 men working at the mine were killed.
—Katy Hughes archivist
There are a lot of photos of horses in the BC Archives, and this isn’t even the best of them. What I like here has nothing to do with the image, but of the work of a previous staff member. Breaking with archival standards, the scope and content note for this portrait details only the most important information— that this is a horse. The title, date and access points provide the useful information, but the scope is simple, elegant and straightforward: Horse.
—Kate Heikkila archivist
This promotional photo for the Smith family’s Victoria bakery (1858–1909) shows a model wearing a dress delightfully decorated with biscuits. I would look unimpressed too if I had to gingerly pose in a cookie dress without so much as a snack!
Lorinda Fraser government records archivist
This photograph was taken on the Ingram estate in Grande Prairie, BC, now known as Westwold. The man holding the rope is W. H. Smith. The man on the camel is either A. McPhail or Adam Heffley. Camels were introduced into the Cariboo in May 1862, with the last camel dying around 1905. I grew up in this area and I recall the Kamloops Museum had a copy of the same photograph.
Sarah Jensen archivist
This 1948 aerial photo of the Fraser River was taken shortly after one of the most damaging floods ever recorded in the lower Fraser Valley. Surrey, left of the river, is connected to New Westminster by the same Pattullo Bridge in use today. Richmond is the large island where the river meets the ocean.
I discovered this photo in the Hamilton Laing fonds a couple of years ago and thought it was amazing. Sadly, the date, location and names are not identified. Laing (1883–1982) was a prolific hunter, amateur ornithologist and writer who contributed greatly to the knowledge of the natural history of British Columbia.
—Sue Halwa archivist
Every day, we experience plants— enjoying them for their smells and tastes and relying on them for our food, clothing, housing and medicines. Plants, and their flowers and fruits, are an integral part of our lives and are crucial for our survival. We are intimately familiar with the plants we find in our own backyards and neighbourhoods, even if we don’t know their official scientific names.
So why press plants for science?
Because plant biodiversity research needs you! Botanists cannot properly document plant biodiversity on their own, and it takes motivated and curious people like you to help build comprehensive research collections. Over the past 50 years, plant collections have seen a steady decline in donations, but in just the last five years we have started to see a revival in people’s curiosity to create specimens of the natural world. We all rely on plants, and by collecting and donating plant specimens, we can help scientists to better understand how to protect the world’s plant biodiversity.
Humans have always been collecting and using plants, yet the idea of collecting a plant, pressing it and attaching it to a piece of paper with its name and details of habitat and location has been around for only about 500 years. It was a way of recording a species’ existence along with its variation and location to share with others, as it was not always easy to capture such fine plant details with
words or illustrations—and of course a way to capture one’s discoveries. Since then, collectors have been documenting plants from all over the world. The passion of plant collectors taking the time to observe nature, collect specimens and donate the diversity they have experienced has led to a wealth of information about the Earth and our intertwined history. We continue to catalogue plant life, which is no small task, since plant distributions and ecosystems change—much to do with human interactions. These early plant collections tell stories of the past, but the present and future story of life on Earth will be built by you.
This book is a guide for anyone who is curious about plants and has the desire to preserve them and note their place on Earth. I decided early on to leave algae, lichens, fungi and bryophytes to be covered in their own books, as they are just different enough that they deserve their own spotlight. I will get you on your way to understanding how to collect plants and why, and how to make useful and beautiful specimens.
Pressed Plants: Making a Herbarium is on sale now, from Royal BC Museum Books. Purchase a copy from your local bookstore, the Royal Museum Shop or at rbcm.ca/books.
BROWSE COURSES continuingstudies.uvic.ca/insight
Grow your perspective.
Explore new ideas with a course in diverse areas of interest such as:
• Anthropology, Archeology and Sociology
• Art History
• Horticulture and Nature Tours
• Photography
• World Languages
Visit the Royal Museum Shop in person or online for all of your gift-giving needs! With a wide selection of unique gifts and souvenirs, including the work of local artisans, there is something special for everyone on your list!
shop in person or online at rbcm.ca/shop
Members and IMAX® Victoria Annual Passholders receive 10% off all purchases.
shop hours : 10 am–5 pm daily (closed Christmas Day and New Year’s Day)
Dec 16, 2022–Apr 16, 2023
exhibition
Showcasing a global selection of outstanding nature photography, the beloved competition is back for its 58th year with a remarkable visual journey through the natural world.
Dinosaurs of BC
Apr 17, 2023–Jan 7, 2024
exhibition
Dive into prehistoric British Columbia and get up close and personal with the iron lizard of the Sustut River and the other dinosaurs that once roamed the province’s mountains, forests and rivers.
Jun 2, 2023–Jan 14, 2024
exhibition
Explore the art and artifacts of ancient Angkor through the lens of science and the Khmer culture. Discover what science has revealed and the foundation of Angkor's enduring resilience.
Jun 16–Feb 16, 2023
exhibition
Come meet SUE, the most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever found and journey through Hell Creek, one of the most well-documented communities from the age of dinosaurs.
For a full listing of what’s happening at the museum, visit rbcm.ca/calendar
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 at inaturalist.org.
The Learning Portal is a dynamic and intuitive online resource designed to engage learners through spectacular
audio and video content, fascinating images and compelling articles. Explore now at rbcm.ca/learning
Digital Field Trips
Digital Field Trips are live, twoway, interactive, virtual learning experiences. We can adapt Digital Field Trips for different grade ranges, home learners, or for adult, senior, community-group or post-secondary audiences. Learn more at rbcm.ca/digitalfieldtrips
March 3–26, 2023
film
Experience cinematic wonders with the IMAX® Victoria Film Festival. Each of our documentary films will transport you to wondrous places with breathtaking cinematography that can only be experienced on the Giant Screen. Enjoy past favourites or discover amazing films that have never been shown at IMAX® Victoria before. Here for a limited time!
animals
Oceans: Our Blue Planet ocean
Animal Kingdom: A Tale of Six Families
new to imax® victoria
Beavers
people ’s choice vote
Hidden Universe space
Unarchived feature documentary
The Scattering of Man feature documentary
Haida Modern feature documentary
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