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CULTURAL GOLD BC TREASURES HEADING TO BOGOTÁ REPATRI-ACTION THE JOURNEY TOWARDS RECONCILIATION CONTINUES RESEARCH ROUNDUP COLLECTIVELY DIVERSE THE POWER OF POLLEN TINY PARTICLES REVEAL BC’S ANCIENT LANDSCAPES
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FALL 2017 Coast to Coast to Coast FEATURE Cultural Gold FEATURE Repatri-Action at the Royal BC Museum FEATURE Breathing Life into Language FEATURE Research Roundup A New Era of Discovery The Power of Pollen Let’s Talk Family Excavating the Royal Jubilee Hospital Centre of Arrivals Rolls Model What’s Your Story? GOING DIGITAL Stop the Letterpresses! CURIOUS This Is My House on Display; This Is My Law What’s On STAFF PROFILE Steve Lewis, Exhibition Designer PARTNERSHIP PROFILE Driftwood Brewery When Vision Meets Inspiration, Great Things Can Happen
MANAGING EDITOR Jennifer Vanderzee Marketing & Sales Manager
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MAGAZINE COORDINATOR Melissa Hogg Membership & Marketing Coordinator
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EMBERSHIP M EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Erika Stenson Head of Marketing, Sales & Business Development Michelle van der Merwe Publisher Erik Lambertson Corporate Communications Manager
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Nathan Oickle 2D Graphic Designer
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Annie Mayse Editor
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Shane Lighter Photographer
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What’s inSight is an electronic magazine released four times annually, in March, June, September and December, by the Royal BC Museum.
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In the interest of keeping our administrative costs low—and our carbon footprint small—this print version is also provided to members in digital format at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/magazine To switch your What’s inSight subscription preference from print to digital format, please email membership@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca or call 250-387-3287.
COVER IMAGE Tlingit mask representing a dancer wearing a hawk headdress, 1980. Dempsey Bob. 16610. Part of an exhibition travelling to Colombia. 2
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Dear friends, A silver thread runs through our collections and archives, connecting them to the research and imaging that takes place in each of our departments. Whether mapping the flora of the province, stewarding ancient biodiversity data, exploring waves of mobility from east to west and south to north or analysing government records, our mandate and our commitment is to better understand British Columbia. The museum’s research strategy for 2016 through 2021 is now available online. It documents our values, our position and our role, and it explains how we have set our priorities for developing the museum in line with these. Our ambition is to be recognized internationally as a world-class research museum. Each of our programs, gallery renewals, exhibitions and publications is underpinned by careful study, and all are aimed at furthering the understanding of our collections and our province.
The museum plays an important role in enriching young people’s learning experiences. That is why we are developing a new learning centre and raising additional funds to deliver it.
Through international cooperation and a focused approach to research, we believe we can achieve excellence. Our plans for the next 12 months centre on refreshing the First Peoples gallery and creating a Learning Centre for all our users. This will require additional finances, which our program of temporary exhibitions helps to provide. We intend to excel in each of our research fields and to stand among the best museums in North America. I look forward to seeing you at the museum soon. Yours,
Professor Jack Lohman, CBE Chief Executive Officer, Royal BC Museum
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Coast to Coast to Coast Connecting Canadians, Science and Culture along BC’s Coast By Dr. Henry Choong, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology, and Dr. Joel Gibson, Curator of Entomology
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anada has the longest coastline of any country in the world. Over 200,000 km of shoreline and thousands of islands define our nation’s link between sea and land. This year, one of the Canadian government’s Signature Projects to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada’s confederation is the epic Canada C3 (‘coast to coast to coast’) expedition—a 150-day journey from Toronto to Victoria through the Northwest Passage, beginning June 1 and ending October 28. This expedition will inspire a deeper understanding of our land, our peoples and our country. A diverse group of remarkable Canadians have been invited on board, including scientists, artists, Indigenous elders, historians, community leaders, youth, journalists and educators. The trip is divided into 15 legs, each featuring different research projects on topics like pollution, biodiversity, wildlife and the effects of climate change. In October, Royal BC Museum curators Henry Choong and Joel Gibson will explore BC’s coastline as members of the expedition. Joel will join the expedition at Prince Rupert and travel to Haida Gwaii,
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the Hecate Strait and Bella Bella. Henry will come aboard at Bella Bella for the penultimate leg of the journey, sailing along BC’s central coast with stops including the Hakai Institute Research Station and God’s Pocket Marine Park. The C3 voyage is a valuable opportunity to survey and explore BC’s coastal biodiversity. Insects, spiders and other invertebrates make up a significant part of the coastal ecosystem. Joel will explore shoreline insect and spider communities, which have been largely overlooked by researchers. Henry will conduct invertebrate surveys, scouring the coast
for species on floating debris and those that have settled on structures in coastal environments. The curators’ participation in the Canada C3 project underscores not only how crucial it is to document and study BC’s biodiversity but also the importance of building our shared knowledge base by creating human connections. Their work during the voyage will be carried out alongside other scientists, students and people from local communities, including many coastal First Nations. The Royal BC Museum is one of 15 leading Canadian museums that will act as interactive hubs to connect Canadians with the expedition’s participants throughout their journey. Canada C3 is projected to engage over 20 million Canadians through a combination of digital platforms, social media and traditional media. We look forward to sharing this transformational journey with you. The C3 research vessel, Polar Prince. Originally built in 1959 as a class 100A medium-duty icebreaker for service in the Canadian Arctic as the Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Mark Graham photograph.
Cultural Gold BC Treasures Heading to Bogotá By Dr. Martha Black, Curator of Ethnology
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n 2015, the Museo del Oro of the Banco de la Repύblica in Bogotá, Colombia, loaned 137 spectacular pre-Columbian gold objects to the Royal BC Museum for the exhibition Gold Rush! El Dorado in BC. In exchange, an equally spectacular but very different collection from BC is going to Bogotá for exhibition at the Museo del Oro: 28 works of modern Northwest Coast art, historical images and works of graphic design, with bilingual text (English and Spanish) in digital format.
The Colombian objects in Gold Rush! came from ancient civilizations. The First Nations objects we are sending to Bogotá are also associated with ancient cultures, but this is not an exhibition about the ethnographic past. Rather, it presents contemporary works that are simultaneously modern and traditional, looking back to honoured ancestors and forward to new expressions. These works document a pivotal 20thcentury moment when Indigenous artists invigorated age-old art forms and brought First Nations art to new prominence in BC. Most of the works in the exhibition were made between 1971 and 1995. All are by modern masters: Mungo Martin, Henry Hunt, Tony Hunt, Richard Hunt, Tony Hunt Jr., Doug Cranmer, Bill Reid, Florence Davidson, Robert Davidson, Freda Diesing, Gerry Marks, Tim Paul, Art Thompson, Joe David, Vernon Stephens, Walter Harris, Dempsey Bob, Norman Tait, Charles Elliott, Susan Point. Accompanying texts present traditions and philosophical concepts, histories of oppression and survival, crests, the potlatch and the Nisga’a Treaty. There is a lot in it!
The Museo del Oro adapted parts of the exhibition text to suit their specific audience. For example, their curator created a diagram to show the many connections between artists in the exhibition. Some carved together; some went to the same school; many carved in Thunderbird Park; many are related by blood. Indeed, the collection can be understood as part of a dynamic network of activism and creativity that has shaped today’s BC. One of the quotations in the exhibition, from Nuu-chah-nulth artist Art Thompson,
expresses this sense of community and the essential message of this exhibition of living arts and cultures: “I am anxious to give things back to the community . . . . I think that it is important for First Nations artists to be in the world and still work on the cultural aspects of their production. The work makes people aware that our Native people did not go away and will not go away”. Human face mask, 1980. Freda Diesing (Haida). 16606.
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Repatri-Action The Journey Towards Reconciliation Continues By Lucy Bell, Head of First Nations and Repatriation Program
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he Indigenous Perspectives on Repatriation symposium, held in Kelowna in March 2017, was a time for listening. The new First Nations and Repatriation Program department (FNR) arrived at the symposium eager to learn from Indigenous participants and from other museum colleagues about new directions towards repatriation and reconciliation. The 200 participants had practical, honest and meaningful requests, and the Royal BC Museum staff came away with numerous requests. Now is the time for action—repatri-action, as Tracey Herbert of the First Peoples’ Cultural Council would say. At the symposium, we heard Indigenous people from BC voice their concerns and their desire for repatriation from museums around the world. Their number one priority is the repatriation of ancestral remains and burial items. The Royal BC Museum takes this request seriously and has been diligently preparing for the return of the ancestral remains. The FNR team immediately rolled up our sleeves and got to work preparing to send information to all of the nations with connections to the ancestral remains at the museum. Nothing would make us happier than respectfully returning ancestral remains to their homelands. Since the symposium, we have been consulting with other museums in Canada and abroad who wish to return ancestral remains to First Nations in BC. Change is in the air! I was first involved in repatriating Haida ancestral remains from the Royal BC Museum 20 years ago, and since
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then I have experienced more and more Canadian, American and European museums working proactively on repatriation. The new First Nations and Repatriation Program department has also been busy on other initiatives. We developed a strategic plan to guide the new FNR. Highlights of the plan include creating a First Nations Advisory Committee, prioritizing the repatriation of ancestral remains and revitalizing the First Peoples gallery. In the past few months, we have been busy processing and fulfilling repatriation requests. Recently, we repatriated cultural treasures to the Nuu-chah-nulth and Tla’amin Nations and historic songs to the Haida, and we have consulted a number of communities about nominating Northwest Coast songs for UNESCO’S Memory of the World registry. We have also begun planning the digitization and duplication of a number of First Nations language audio recordings and photographs. We are connecting with many First Nations representatives pursuing repatriation of tangible and intangible heritage from the Royal BC Museum and from other museums. In June, I had a chance to meet with the repatriation departments at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the National Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act office in Washington, DC. I received great advice on implementing change and creating programs. I also had the honour of participating in the Breath of Life workshop at the NMAI. This workshop brought together community researchers and linguists from across North America to search for and utilize linguistic archival materials in their language revitalization. For a learner of Xaad Kil, the Haida language, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend two weeks digging in the archives, listening to old recordings and seeing over 2,000 cultural treasures from
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3. my Haida homeland. As the head of FNR, I had the chance to examine how to host a language revitalization workshop at the Royal BC Museum. These are exciting and challenging times as we move towards reconciliation through repatriation, and it is such an honour to be a part of the journey.
1. In 1967, the whale scapula armlets (DhRs-1:9482) shown in this reconstruction and the ancestral remains they were found with were removed from an old village site at False Narrows on Gabriola Island. 2. A revitalization of the museum’s First Peoples gallery, shown here, is a priority for the First Nations and Repatriation Program department. 3. Syilx dancers welcome delegates to the Indigenous Perspectives on Repatriation symposium.
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Breathing Life into Language By Lucy Bell, Head of First Nations and Repatriation Program
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magine if there were no more speakers of your language. How would you revive it? In June, I had the opportunity to explore a unique way of reviving endangered Indigenous languages at the National Breath of Life workshop in Washington, DC. This workshop brought together community researchers and linguists from across North America to find, share and use linguistic archival resources in the DC area. I wore two hats while I was there: my Haida hat as a language learner and my museum hat as the head of the First Nations and Repatriation Program department. My mother tongue, Xaad Kil—the Haida language—is critically endangered. I have been learning my language for 10 years and I have a master’s in language revitalization, so I am very passionate about Indigenous language revitalization
strategies. My two weeks in Washington were spent digging through archival materials, listening to old recordings and looking at more than 2,000 Haida treasures. I held the handwritten notes of John Swanton, who visited Haida Gwaii in 1900 and whose books of Haida stories I have been learning from. I listened to Haida songs from 1950 and saw many wordlists, stories and other documents in my language. Listening to old versions of happy birthday or chief commemoration songs, I felt as though I was going back in time. I had wanted to see if museums and archives really could help revitalize my language, and I came back to the Royal BC Museum feeling hopeful. Many of our repatriation requests come from Indigenous people learning their languages and traditions. The repatriation
of intangible treasures is an important part of the repatriation movement, and the museum’s response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings includes providing free access to archival materials for First Nations people in BC. This is an incredible step towards meaningful linguistic and cultural reconciliation. There are 34 Indigenous languages and 61 language dialects in BC, and many of them are endangered. We have over 2,600 audiovisual recordings in our First Nations and Repatriation Program department collection. Digitizing and providing recordings to First Nations communities is important work, work that the museum has done for many years and will continue to do. We are also planning to host a series of small language workshops—the first participants will be graduate students from the Haida, Heiltsuk, Tahltan, Kaska, Secwepemc, Squamish and Sto:lo Nations who are enrolled in Simon Fraser University’s Indigenous language programs and are searching for resources. I am excited to learn about, study and share our recordings. Today I learned that we hold an 1885 recording of a Skidegate Haida man reminiscing about his childhood and talking about his traditions in the Haida language. This is just one of the many treasures in our collection. The Royal BC Museum is a box of traditional knowledge, stories and songs just waiting to be opened. For more about the National Breath of Life conference, visit nationalbreathoflife.org. Lucy Bell in the First Peoples gallery.
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Research Roundup Collectively Diverse
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he breadth of research at the Royal BC Museum is almost as great as that of the collections in our care. At first glance, the projects presented in this edition of the Research Roundup may seem unrelated. But they are strongly united in their focus on our collections (rather than, for example, our fieldwork) and in their relevance to BC communities—coastal communities affected by tsunami debris; First Nations; Canadians of Japanese descent; and the community of scientists who rely on the museum’s historical collections to conduct research on BC’s biodiversity.
LANDSCAPES OF INJUSTICE By Dr. Kathryn Bridge, Curator of History and Art The Royal BC Museum is a major partner in the seven-year Landscapes of Injustice project (2014–2021), which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The project focuses on the seizure of property from Japanese Canadians during the Second World War and its ramifications. Japanese Canadians’ bank accounts, private possessions, personal property and real estate were confiscated and sold by the government. This dispossession epitomized the collision of racial ideology with a core principle of liberal society: the right to own property. Although the Canadian government apologized for the forced sales and other offences in 1988, the dispossession has never been adequately researched or comprehensively considered.
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The Provincial Records cluster, a unit of graduate students embedded within the Knowledge Department, is tasked with identifying and digitizing materials of significance to our topic within the BC Archives. The guiding question of the research is: What role–either direct or indirect—did the provincial government play in the dispossession of Japanese Canadians living in BC during the Second World War?
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1. Girls skipping, ca. 1939. Nikkei National Museum photograph. 2010.23.2.4.236. 2. Fishing boats owned by Canadians of Japanese descent, confiscated (and later sold) by the government, 1942. BC Government photograph. C-07293.
We have one year remaining in the research phase. In spring 2018 the Museum Exhibition cluster will begin creating storylines and content for a travelling exhibit curated by the Nikkei National Museum and designed and fabricated in association with the Royal BC Museum.
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AGING GRACEFULLY By Dr. Erica Wheeler, Collections Manager and Researcher Resting safely in the cabinets of the Royal BC Museum’s herbarium are thousands of fragile, century-old botanical specimens. To ensure that we can preserve these historic specimens for centuries to come, we occasionally assess their condition, make necessary repairs and review our storage and handling practices.
Dr. Daniela Toriola-Lafuente repairing a historic specimen of Poison Oak (Rhus diversiloba).
RAFTING THE PACIFIC By Dr. Henry Choong, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology When debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami began washing up on the west coast of North America in 2012, it carried with it nearly 400 species of Japanese marine invertebrates, many still alive. As the museum’s curator of invertebrates, I specialize in the taxonomy of hydrozoans, a group of animals related to corals and jellyfish. Many hydrozoans undergo a life cycle stage in which they become polyps called hydroids, which attach directly to substrates—materials upon which they live. Hydroids are found in all marine habitats as well as in brackish and freshwater environments. They are
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Volunteer Dr. Daniela Toriola-Lafuente recently completed an assessment of 9,500 historic specimens in the herbarium, a task that took a daunting 60 days. She kept careful notes about each specimen, including the year it was collected, the plant family it belongs to and the sort of damage she observed, if any. The assessment shows
abundant on the marine debris from the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, which washed into the north Pacific Ocean following the catastrophic event. The large debris field, which brought numerous alien and potentially invasive species to our waters, provides a unique opportunity to study long-distance rafting and the potential for biological invasions. Together with colleagues from Canada, the United States and around the world, I am participating in a project to study marine invertebrates found on the debris and to characterize their biodiversity. The results from my hydroid research, together with concurrent studies by other biologists, will form part of the larger collective knowledge base on species dispersal and ecosystem change. This work complements our efforts to document and study existing BC biodiversity.
that our historic botanical specimens are in excellent condition: less than three per cent show any signs of damage. This is consistent with good storage and handling practices. Daniela also discovered that some plant families have higher rates of breakage than others—information we will keep in mind when handling the specimens in future. To prevent or at least mitigate further damage, Daniela repaired the unstable and broken specimens. We also removed the plastic bags that covered specimen bundles, which may have contributed to breakage, and we placed soiled specimens in separate archival folders to contain soot and dust. Safe and sound, the historic specimens in the Royal BC Museum herbarium are again aging gracefully.
A hydroid (Aglaophenia sp.) found on a Japanese rope buoy, which landed on the Hawaiian island of Kauai on December 7, 2016, now in the museum’s collection.
THE IDA HALPERN FONDS By Genevieve Weber, Archivist The Ida Halpern fonds is a remarkable collection of audiovisual, textual and photographic records of the songs, ceremonies and culture on the northwest coast of Canada. From the 1940s through the 1980s Ida Halpern, an ethnomusicologist, recorded an unprecedented number of cultural creations from elders in Kwakwa ḵ a ̱̕ wakw, Nuuchah-nulth, Tlingit, Haida and Coast Salish communities. Her textual records include musical analyses of songs and a wealth of information about the ceremonies gleaned from interviews with the elders. My research is intended to deepen our understanding of these communities and their ceremonies—and of the cultural restrictions surrounding the use of the ceremonial materials—through consultation and language research. One outcome of the work will be a more culturally appropriate and respectful treatment of the records in our online descriptions. This work is part of the Royal BC Museum and Archives’ preparations to submit the collection for inclusion on the UNESCO Memory of the World register in order to share this unique and culturally valuable collection with the world. 1. Ida Halpern at home in Vancouver. J-00616 2. Ida Halpern audio reel of Billy Assu songs, ca. 1951.
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A New Era of Discovery The Royal BC Museum Research Strategy By Leah Best, Head of Knowledge
wealth of information, and we have barely scratched the surface of this bonanza of human and environmental data collected over the last 130 years in British Columbia.
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cholarship is among the least understood areas of museum practice. Timely and relevant research, when communicated to a wide audience, is one of the most powerful things that museums contribute to society. At the Royal BC Museum, a new research strategy is providing fresh direction and a solid framework for revitalizing the museum’s core research program. Over the next five years, the museum will increase its research efforts and focus on communicating results more effectively across a variety of platforms, including exhibitions, public programs, publications and digital media. THE TEAM The Royal BC Museum research team includes a talented group of curators, archivists and collections managers from four departments: First Nations and Repatriation Program, Knowledge, Collections, and Archives. Our scholarship is amplified by contributions from research associates, emeritus staff, university students and external partners.
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Increasingly, the team looks beyond conventional research methods and towards innovative approaches that incorporate diverse forms of knowledge, particularly through collaboration with First Nations and other cultural communities. The Punjabi Intercultural History Project and the PEACE project, both featured on the Royal BC Museum’s online research portal, are two recent examples of community-engaged research. RESEARCH FOCUS Royal BC Museum research expertise is divided between natural history (including botany, entomology, earth sciences, and vertebrate and invertebrate zoology) and human history (including First Nations, archaeology, images and paintings, and contemporary histories). Our historical collections are the research strategy’s main area of focus, along with current and future collecting. Each of the millions of specimens, objects and documents in the collections contains a
RESEARCH STRATEGY Unlocking the research potential of the collections is one of the many ways the Royal BC Museum inspires interest in the social history and the natural wonders of the province. It’s the research strategy’s job to provide guidance for the research team and to set priorities for scholarship. Most importantly, the strategy requires all research to be mission driven and values based and whenever possible to be collaborative and interdisciplinary. The end goal, as with all activities at the Royal BC Museum, is to strengthen our collective understanding of the province and its uniqueness in the world. You can read the strategy in full at rbcm.ca/research-strategy Left to right: Dr. Henry Choong, Don Bourdon, Dr. Lorne Hammond, Dr. Richard Hebda, Grant Keddie, Dr. Kathryn Bridge, Dr. Kendrick Marr, Dr. Joel Gibson, Marji Johns, Dr. Gavin Hanke and Dr. Genevieve Hill. Not pictured: Dr. Martha Black, Dr. Tzu-I Chung, Emma Wright, Genevieve Weber and Heidi Gartner.
PLEASE HELP US UNDERTAKE WORLD-CLASS RESEARCH. To make a contribution today, contact our Fundraising and Development team at 250-387-7222 or donate@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca. Your gift makes a difference!
The Power of Pollen Tiny Particles Reveal BC’s Ancient Landscapes By Dr. Richard J. Hebda, Curator of Botany and Earth History
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icroscopic pollen grains may be irritating, but they are vital to the sexual reproduction of many plants. They also open a window onto the ancient history of our landscapes. Pollen grains and spores are made of tough waxy stuff called sporopollenin, which can persist for millennia in mud and peat. In order to reconstruct past climates and environments and their botanical histories, we extract the grains layer by layer and then determine the age of each layer. In this way, we can uncover key events that have shaped the natural world around us. Because different plants produce different types of pollen and spores, we can use pollen to track the history of individual species and ecosystems. Years ago, while studying cedar pollen with Dr. Rolf Mathewes of Simon Fraser University, I determined that the iconic carving of the northwest coast cultures arose only after Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) trees became abundant 4,000 years ago. More recently, Kristen Miskelly and I investigated pollen on southern Vancouver Island sea cliffs in order to describe the Ice Age steppe habitat of the Woolly mammoths that lived here 22,000 years ago.
One of the most important lessons from pollen studies concerns climate change. Plants and their signal pollen change dramatically in response to small fluctuations in climate. Our modern forests arose only 4,000 years ago when the climate cooled slightly, by about one degree Celsius, and there was a slight increase in precipitation. Only 9,000 years ago, when the climate was one to two degrees warmer, grass and sage pollen were abundant, indicating widespread grasslands in the BC interior where forests stand today. These ancient plant communities may foreshadow future conditions as the climate warms. But climate change isn’t the only thing ancient pollen can reveal. Using pollen from more than 7,000 years ago, I was able to reconstruct the impact of a huge volcanic eruption that buried southern interior BC in ash. In the aftermath, I discovered, trees declined widely and sagebrush covered the landscape. David Mazzucchi and I were even able to study the favourite foods of Vancouver Island marmots using the pollen in their droppings—we discovered that they love the flowers of native heather species. These days, University of Victoria student Carl Jonsson and I are investigating BC landscapes from 800,000 years ago, after the earth entered the Ice Age. Along with studies on Vancouver Island, this will help reveal the extent and timing of the great glaciations of the last million years. Considering its small size, it’s impressive how much pollen can tell us about our natural world and its history. It’s nothing to sneeze at!
2. 1. A pollen grain from a plant of the aster family, typical of Ice Age steppe ecosystems on southern Vancouver Island. 2. Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta) pollen is widespread in 13,000 year old lake sediments in Coastal BC and in many interior BC samples of all ages.
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Let’s Talk Family A Visitor Experience and Learning Update By Janet MacDonald, Head of Learning
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n June 1, 2017, the Royal BC Museum and Archives ‘family’ gathered together to celebrate an accomplishment that meant a great deal to us: the opening of our newest exhibition, Family: Bonds and Belonging. Record numbers of family and friends were invited to experience the exhibition’s meaning and to discover for themselves how we define our most important connections. Reflecting on that night of murmured reminiscences, laughter and pensive silence, I came to understand the immense richness of our personal and provincial stories—and the difficulty of categorizing them. Family: Bonds and Belonging forces 14
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us to look at our own narratives afresh, with new awareness and acceptance. It allows us glimpses into other histories—other families—beyond individual memory and narrative. I encourage you to visit the exhibition, which is open through the summer and into the fall. There are a variety of learning activities intended to represent the diversity of what family means to all of us, to explore further the legacy of families and to dig deeper into the emotions that the exhibit so strongly evokes. Storytelling is an instinctively human activity, and the Community Voices gallery
provides a space for it. An interactive listening station and recording booth invites you to record family stories by prompting you with a series of provocative questions. This is a great way to share personal connections and spark dialogue. That brings me to another unique interactive experience. The exhibition’s Kid’s Zone was designed by our home learners, who insisted that this place be a welcoming space for everyone. Imagine a blanket fort equipped with a giant TV, where shadow theatre can reproduce the stories of our lives both real and imagined: this is our Kid’s Zone. We are all kids at heart, and I encourage you to connect with your inner child and with
the kids in your lives through play and conversation. Our learning programs keep the conversations going outside the exhibition. It’s Complicated, a community discussion series, interrogates the more serious aspects of family life—from legal issues to controversial subjects like repatriation and gender. These dialogues tackle perspectives and definitions, upending assumptions to help us better understand ourselves and our family roles. Have We Got a Story to Tell, our popular storytelling series inspired by The Moth Radio Hour, presents lighthearted, heartwarming and tragic tales of family in the Home Movie Theatre of the exhibition. Keep a lookout for Night at the Museum in October and come spend the night with us as we camp, tell stories, watch home movies, play board games and even have a pillow fight or two.
Bonds and Belonging” (Grades 9-12) are the first modules to be designed with particular grades in mind. We’re excited to share these modules with the teachers and students in your lives! Museums often present a grand narrative of history, ignoring the private sphere. This exhibition and its learning programs include the gaps and silences not present in metanarratives. The tangible and intangible aspects of our histories reveal basic intimate human interchanges to find the voices of the past—a true legacy for future generations. Special thanks to Dr. Kathyrn Bridge for our many conversations and treasured imaginings.
1. Traditional 19th-century oil-on-canvas paintings and up-to-the-minute social media pictures create a shimmering wall of family portraiture. 2. Learning Program Facilitator Kate Adams demonstrates the recording process in front of the Community Voices recording booth.
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We are also talking about families online, through our Learning Portal for students K–12. This school year two new pathways, each supported and complemented by learning modules, were developed in partnership with Open School BC and the Ministry of Education. All resources are related to the Family: Bonds and Belonging exhibition and link directly to the new BC school curriculum. ”Family: What does family mean to you?” (Kindergarten to Grade 3) and ”Family:
PLEASE HELP US INSPIRE YOUNG MINDS. To make a contribution today, contact our Fundraising and Development team at 250-387-7222 or donate@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca. Your gift makes a difference!
Find your Fall/Winter
PROGRAM GUIDE September 2017 – March 2018
online today!
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
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Excavating the Royal Jubilee Hospital University of Victoria Students Revive a Historic Collection By Dr. Genevieve Hill, Anthropology Collections Manager and Researcher
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f you have ever been to Old Town at the Royal BC Museum, then you know how exciting it can be to look in a window and see the past staring back at you. Archaeological material, fresh out of the ground, presents a much muddier picture—usually literally—and it takes a lot of elbow grease and creative thinking to make the material tell a story. Once in a while, though, a collection is recovered that speaks for itself. The artifacts recovered from a salvage excavation at the Royal Jubilee Hospital (RJH) are one such collection. At once familiar and foreign, these objects speak to us from the past, but the issues they raise are as relevant now as they were 127 years ago.
On April 8, 2017, the Royal BC Museum’s archaeology staff and students from Dr. Katherine Cook’s Historical and Contemporary Archaeology class at the University of Victoria hosted a pop-up exhibition of artifacts from the Royal Jubilee Hospital. The well-attended event allowed members of the public to get up close and personal with objects that represent an important part of Victoria’s history. Visitors were able to interrogate the collection in a way that is rare in museum exhibitions, with students and staff on hand to answer questions and explore ideas.
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Residents of Victoria will likely be familiar with the Royal Jubilee Hospital, which stands at the corner of Richmond and Bay Streets. Opened in 1890, the hospital was constructed to meet the needs of a growing and diverse population. While the buildings were designed with the latest medical science in mind, the hospital was also bound by social norms of Victorian society. Class and gender conventions were perpetuated at the hospital, which had separate wards for men and women and a number of private wards for paying customers. These societal concerns, and many others, are reflected in the material that was recovered from the excavation. The Royal Jubilee Hospital has been trying to keep pace with the demands of an ever-growing community since it opened, and there have been many additions to
emporium, newly opened in the early 1890s. Glass bottles contained everything from medicine to sauce and elixirs to French perfume. Bottles bearing Royal Navy markings were common, reflecting the maritime history of the city of Victoria. China doll parts and glass marbles remind us that children were present in the hospital too. The experience of children is rarely represented in the archaeological record, but we can imagine what a comfort these toys might have been to convalescent children. Items of personal hygiene, such as toothpaste and toothbrushes, were also common, and though they are familiar in form, we have certainly come a long way from early toothpaste formulations, which sometimes included abrasives such as crushed brick.
the hospital campus. In 1991, workers preparing for a major construction project uncovered a unique and unexpected archaeological deposit. Under the direction of Grant Keddie, the Royal BC Museum’s curator of archaeology, over a dozen volunteers from the Archaeological Society of BC were offered the opportunity to conduct a salvage excavation. Several thousand artifacts were recovered, and an analysis of the artifacts and their context indicated that the site was a refuse pit from the earliest days of the hospital. The artifacts were dated to a very tight window of time—between 1890 and 1893—providing a snapshot of a late 19th-century Victorian hospital and the people who spent time there. Objects in the RJH collection speak to a multitude of experiences at the hospital. Differences in the quality of glass and ceramic objects are characteristic of a hospital with separate wards for the wealthy and poor. Plain white ‘ironstone‘ ceramic vessels contrast with delicate and carefully decorated Japanese ceramics, perhaps purchased from a local Japanese
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In 2015, museum volunteer Tom Bown revisited the collection to take photos and complete the artifact catalogue. The collection was revisited again the following year, when Dr. Cook and her students undertook an intensive study of the collection that focused on themes such as ‘modern’ medicine (circa 1890), global connections and personal histories. In order to share the collection and their findings with the public, the students organized a pop-up exhibit. Among the visitors to the exhibit were alumnae of the Royal Jubilee Hospital School of Nursing, who were delighted to see objects that their predecessors would have used, such as glass syringes. Artifacts like these speak directly to the roles of nurses and doctors. Indeed, some of the individuals pictured in the photo (facing page), probably taken in the 1890s, may have handled and discarded the very same objects that were excavated from this site and put on display during the pop-up exhibit.
1. Staff on the steps of the Royal Jubilee Hospital, ca. 1890s. G-00236. 2. Toothpaste Jar, Cat. No. RJH 190. 3. Mercury syringe, Cat. No. RJH 491. 4. Doll head, Cat. No. RJH 497. 5. Blue Bottle, Cat. No. RJH 439.
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Centre of Arrivals Intercultural Initiatives at the Royal BC Museum By Dr. Tzu-I Chung, Curator of History
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he Royal BC Museum’s Centre of Arrivals project explores, preserves and shares BC’s diverse cultural histories with the world, producing publications, online and on-site educational programming, galleries and exhibitions. During the past year the museum has made real progress on multicultural and intercultural initiatives. We worked closely with Ukrainian Canadian communities to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Ukrainian immigration to Canada with Bread and Salt, an exhibition which continues to travel the province. Two of our resources on the Chinese Canadian experience, The Writing on the Wall outreach kit and our travelling exhibition Gold Mountain Dream!, developed in partnership with the Ministries of Education and International Trade, continue to travel as well. Gold Mountain Dream! appeared at many museums in the province of Guangdong, China, throughout 2016, and it is currently booked until early 2018. The outreach kit, which provides hands-on
learning experiences to students, has already reached more than 1,100 kids in 40 classrooms across the province. Last year we conducted community consultations for a Punjabi Canadian Legacy Project, to be created under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Royal BC Museum and the South Asian Studies Institute (SASI) at the University of the Fraser Valley. From November 2015 to November 2016, we worked with museums and research centres in six provincial regions with significant Punjabi Canadian roots: Vancouver Island, northern BC, the Kootenays, the Okanagan, the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland. The reports from these consultations are available online at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/punjabilegacy. Community recommendations for the legacy project included continuing engagement and provincial outreach, as well as creating travelling exhibitions, oral history collections, digital platforms and diverse learning tools and publications.
We again partnered with SASI—and with the provincial government’s Heritage Branch—on the South Asian Canadian Historical Places Recognition Project in 2016. This project officially recognized historic places significant to South Asian Canadian communities in BC. We have also developed a Learning Portal pathway on Punjabi Canadian experiences, a small online digital interview collection and a number of conference presentations. We are supported by a BC Museums Association Canada 150 Legacy grant to continue the provincial outreach and collection of family history, and a Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Connections Grant, which will fund a symposium intended to kick-start the national conversation on building a South Asian Canadian digital archive. Our research informs the growth of our multicultural collections and advances the public, academic and community understanding of our intercultural history. It aims at building the legacy of the province’s collective heritage and highlighting this heritage for regional, national and global audiences. Support for this project generously provided by:
Bread and Salt celebrated the 125th anniversary of Ukrainian immigration to Canada in 2016.
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What’s inSight
Fall 2017
Rolls Model Loaning the Iconic Lennon Limo to Rolls-Royce By Erik Lambertson, Corporate Communications Manager
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his year, venerable luxury auto manufacturer Rolls-Royce will debut a new model. To generate excitement, whet consumer appetites and reinforce the brand’s historical ties to cultural moments and personalities, the car company reached out to a short list of Rolls-Royce owners—including the Royal BC Museum. What captured their interest was a Rolls-Royce Phantom V Touring Limousine in our collection, perhaps best known as John Lennon’s Rolls-Royce. Soon after taking possession of the car—purchased in a conservative matte black—Lennon commissioned British artist Stephen Weaver to repaint it in a kaleidoscopic Romany style. This was pure John Lennon: a dramatic, beautiful subversion of British values and conservative expectations.
the countercultural values of Lennon, the Beatles and the 1960s. Rolls-Royce clearly appreciates Lennon’s saucy customization. The car is in the Rolls-Royce marketing campaign alongside other original Rolls-Royces, including those owned by Field Marshal Montgomery and Fred Astaire. In July the Rolls-Royce flew to London, England, in a purpose-built container for The Great Eight Phantoms, a Rolls-Royce exhibition. We’re happy to report that it’s back in BC, safe and sound. The Royal BC Museum gratefully acknowledges Kermode Group patron Gwendolyn Page’s financial support, which has allowed the museum to conduct significant conservation work on this artifact.
5 FUN FACTS 1. John Lennon couldn’t drive when he bought his Rolls! He used wife Cynthia’s Mini Cooper for his road test. 2. When the Beatles were ’Fab’, the car was black. It took them to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen. 3. The Rolls was there behind John when he sang “I Am the Walrus” on the BBC’s Magical Mystery Tour. 4. The car had a television, a fridge, a record player, a double bed, tinted windows and a radio-telephone. 5. BC billionaire Jim Pattison, OC, OBC, donated the car to the province for a nominal fee of one dollar after Expo 86.
A photo shoot of the Lennon Rolls-Royce in Victoria, BC, conducted by a London-based advertising firm.
Now the car is proudly embraced by Beatles fans, Rolls-Royce aficionados and Royal BC Museum–goers alike precisely because the artwork so poignantly reflects
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NEW from the Royal BC Museum
The Language of Family Stories of Bonds and Belonging
Edited by Michelle van der Merwe
Available online, at the Royal Museum Shop and at your local bookstore. 978-0-7726-7052-6 paperback | $27.95
In The Language of Family, twenty contributors from across British Columbia—museum curators, cultural luminaries, writers and thinkers young and old from First Nations, LGBTQ+, Japanese Canadian and Punjabi communities, amongst others—share their vastly differing perspectives on what family means. This superb collection of personal narratives, poems and essays will provoke, tease, enlighten and infuriate. Isn’t that what family does best?
For more information visit royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/publications
What’s Your Story? Dr. Evan Adams Finds Family at the BC Archives By Emma Wright, Archives Manager
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ack in February, when a chill still hung in the air, the BC Archives was lucky enough to receive a visit from actor, physician and First Nations Health Authority Chief Medical Officer Dr. Evan Adams. We had invited him to come and unearth some new information about his family history and to uncover the stories of his ancestors, some of whom he knew very little about. Our mini-documentary What’s Your Story? traces Evan’s journey of discovery through the BC Archives collections. By consulting death registrations, archival film footage, maps, medical files, photographs and a variety of other sources, archivists were able to reveal the lives and experiences, often traumatic, of Evan’s family members. Evan’s visit to the archives allowed him to gain a new understanding of his identity and of the history of his wider community, the Tla’amin Nation (located near Powell River, BC). As Canada celebrates the 150th anniversary of its confederation, and as the devices in our pockets allow us to interact daily with friends and family across the globe, many of us are increasingly curious about how we all connect and belong. For those whose ancestors have lived on this land for thousands of years, the celebration of the 150th anniversary can strike a nerve. As Evan discovered, when we step into our pasts, we find that history is complicated: nothing is as black and white as we thought, and we are all connected. Our ancestors’ experiences are relatable, despite the difference in time. Facing up to our past may be an emotional—even overwhelming—journey, but it can also
be extremely rewarding. Our family stories root us to our culture, country and personal identity in a way that is humbling, empowering and entirely unique. You can watch What’s Your Story? on the Royal BC Museum’s YouTube channel or find out more at rbcm.ca/whatsyourstory. If you are interested in discovering more about your own family history—to use Evan’s words, “those people whose shoulders we stand on”—you can visit the BC Archives reference room in Victoria, consult our online archives catalogue at searchbcarchives.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca and do a genealogy search of vital statistics records at search-collections.royalbcmuseum. bc.ca/Genealogy.
PLEASE HELP US MAINTAIN OUR PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES. To make a contribution today, contact our Fundraising and Development team at 250-387-7222 or donate@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca. Your gift makes a difference!
Dr. Evan Adams researches his family history with Archivist Genevieve Weber at the BC Archives.
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GOING DIGITAL
Stop the Letterpresses! New Scanner Preserves and Makes Accessible Fragile Letters By Ember Lundgren, Preservation Manager
using a special transferrable ink. The original letter was covered with a piece of lightly dampened tissue paper, often called onion skin, then placed in a mechanical press. After a few minutes, the ink had transferred from the original page to the tissue paper. The result was a true facsimile. Transcription errors were all but eliminated.
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ver two hundred years ago, the invention of letterpress copying revolutionized the duplication of business correspondence. Now a modern scanner is helping the Royal BC Museum provide access to that correspondence. The Indus 9000L may look like it was pulled out of a Cold War bunker, but this high-quality scanner will allow the Royal BC Museum and Archives to digitize bound volumes without damaging them. With this machine, we will be able to offer digital access to almost any bound volume within the collection, including our fragile correspondence files, which are found in letterpress copybooks. Copybooks have an interesting history. Once, government offices hired clerks to hand copy each piece of outgoing correspondence. This ensured a record of all activities and decisions. But the process was slow and prone to transcription errors. The letterpress copy method, developed in 1780, industrialized the duplication of correspondence. The method was simple: a letter was written or typed
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Offices with a large volume of correspondence often used pre-bound books of tissue paper called letterpress books. A clerk would gather the day’s correspondence, insert the letters between the onion skin pages and press the book, adding letters daily until the book was full. The most important part of a copybook was the index. Mounted inside the cover and made of standard paper, it allowed a reader to locate a single letter within a large volume.
The index, often arranged alphabetically by recipient’s name, included information like page numbers, dates and brief descriptions of the subjects. Letterpress volumes in the BC Archives are often the only evidence of government agencies’ actions and decisions. But copybooks are difficult for archives to preserve and provide access to. Traditional black-and-white copying methods like microfilming struggle with faint or bleeding ink, making pages nearly illegible. A scanner like the Indus 9000L is much more sophisticated. Currently we are creating and testing workflows for digitizing our letterpress copybooks, and we hope to begin the process this fall. Auxiliary Archivist Emily Feduk scanning a diary.
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CURIOUS
This Is My House on Display; This Is My Law By Maxine Hayman Matilpi, Curious Contributor
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urious is an online publication and app which collects essays, research, archival items and photography from curators, archivists and other experts at the Royal BC Museum. Each issue of Curious engages with a particular theme that is important to British Columbia residents and visitors. In this issue, members of First Nations in British Columbia join Royal BC Museum staff to explore themes of belonging, self-discovery and community. A member of the Ma’amtigila and Kwakiutl First Nations, Maxine is the project manager for the RELAW Project
(Revitalizing Indigenous Law for Land, Air and Water). Her social activism began on Tsleil-Waututh territory, where she grew up. She is the eldest grandchild of Willi Hunt and his wife Violet (née Matilpi) and the great-grandchild of the late Jonathan Hunt. This is an excerpt from her article: When I was working on my graduate law degree at the University of Victoria we were required to lead a seminar and encouraged to be creative and try out different pedagogies. Because the seminar topic was Indigenous Legal Systems, I knew that I wanted to teach with Kwakwaka’wakw protocols: to acknowledge the importance of relationships, Indigenous territories and
practices. I hit on the idea of doing this teaching assignment on the third floor of the Royal BC Museum and Archives, in the guxxi-bidu (little Bighouse) of my late greatgrandfather Jonathan Hunt, a.k.a. Grampa Odi, Chief Kwakwabalasami “People Come From Everywhere To Sit And Feast With Him”. My great-grandfather was a Kwakwaka’wakw chief who was born and lived his life in our community of Tsaxis (Fort Rupert) on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island. His father was George Hunt, the same George Hunt who worked with Franz Boas. Grampa Odi’s ‘house’ on the third floor of the museum is a replica of his ceremonial house and is nothing like the two-storey frameconstruction house I remember in Fort Rupert where he lived with our Great-Granny Abusa. That house had interior walls with separate rooms, windows looking onto Beaver Harbour, a TV and a couch. The house in the museum was designed and constructed by my grandfather’s brother and nephews, Tony and Richard Hunt. It has adzed walls and a smoke hole, a pebble floor and a pretty good fake fire in the middle of the room. The museum house would turn out to be a very different place to have a seminar. For one thing, it has no table or chairs and, for another, a sound track plays the sounds of a crackling fire and Kwak’wala ceremonial speeches and songs. Join Maxine and the rest of the Curious contributors and continue to explore Grampa Odi’s ‘house’ online at curious.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca. A detail shot from inside Jonathan Hunt House.
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What’s on FAMILY PROGRAMS NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM SLEEPOVER September 30 I 6:00 pm – 9:30 am $80 per person I 10% member discount ARTSY FARTSY: A YOUTH-CENTRED DAY OF PLACE MAKING AND DESIGN THINKING October 7 I 10:00 am – 2:00 pm Included with admission or membership. WONDER SUNDAY Every Sunday from September to May. Included with admission or membership. It’s All in the Family September 3, 10, 17, 24 I 1:00–3:00 pm Canada C3: Coast to Coast to Coast October 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 I 1:00–3:00 pm Microorganisms November 5, 12, 19, 26 I 1:00–3:00 pm KIDS’ CLUB September 3, October 1, November 5 1:00 and 1:30 pm Included with membership.
ADULT PROGRAMS PERFORMANCE AS MEDICINE: INDIGENOUS PERFORMANCE ART SYMPOSIUM Workshop and lunch October 14 I 9:00 am – 3:00 pm $40 per person I registration required Performance and panel discussion October 14 I 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm NIGHT SHIFT: DARK CIRCUS October 28 I 8:00 pm – 12:00am $35 per person I 10% member discount 19+. Two pieces of ID required for entry. MUSEUM HAPPY HOUR $10 per person I 10% member discount 19+. Two pieces of ID required for entry. Natural History Pub Quiz November 9 I 5:15–7:00 pm Natural History gallery Archives Pub Quiz November 16 I 5:15–7:00 pm Becoming BC gallery
For a full listing of what’s happening at the Royal BC Museum, view our calendar online at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/calendar MUSEUM HOURS: 10:00 am – 5:00 pm daily Open late until 10:00 pm on Fridays and Saturdays until October 7.
Music History Pub Quiz November 23 I 5:15–7:00 pm Old Town IT’S COMPLICATED: A DISCUSSION SERIES By donation I Newcombe Conference Hall Tent City September 20 I 5:15 – 7:00 pm New Immigrants October 18 I 5:15 – 7:00 pm RESEARCHING FAMILY HISTORY: WRITING YOUR STORY September 16 I 1:00–3:00 pm GVPL Central Branch CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION September 22 I 7:00–9:00 pm
ALL AGES FIELDTRIPPERS: ARCHAEOLOGY AND BOTANY WALK October 14 I 1:00–3:00 pm By donation I $5 per person suggested Cowichan Garry Oak Preserve HAVE WE GOT A STORY TO TELL: STORIES FROM THIS LAND AND ITS PEOPLE November 8 I 7:00–9:00 pm $12 per person LEST WE FORGET: REMEMBRANCE COMMEMORATIONS November 11 I 12:00–3:00 pm Included with admission or membership.
LECTURES LIVE @ LUNCH First Wednesday of each month By donation I Newcombe Conference Hall Legacy of Terry Fox September 6 I 12:00–1:00 pm Prohibition in British Columbia: How the Prohibitionists Won the Battle but Lost the War October 4 I 12:00–1:00 pm From Marshes to Mountains: Historical and Wetland Ecology Join Forces November 1 I 12:00–1:00 pm
Information correct at time of printing. Subject to change. Please visit royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/calendar for most up-to-date information. Prices do not include applicable taxes.
FRIENDS OF THE BC ARCHIVES LECTURE SERIES $5 per person I Free for Friends of the BC Archives Newcombe Auditorium British Columbia by the Road: Car Culture and the Making of a Modern Landscape September 19 I 2:00–3:00 pm Early BC Filmmaker: A.D. “Cowboy” Keane October 15 I 2:00–3:00 pm I Want Nothing but the Best: A History of Breweries in BC November 19 I 2:00–3:00 pm
EXHIBITIONS & INSTALLATIONS TERRY FOX: RUNNING TO THE HEART OF CANADA On now until October 1 FAMILY: BONDS AND BELONGING On now until October 31 WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2017 December 8, 2017 – March 25, 2018 OUR LIVING LANGUAGES: FIRST PEOPLES’ VOICES IN BC On now In partnership with
MEMBERSHIP Royal BC Museum members enjoy up to 20% off admission at more than 25 partner attractions. Just flash your membership card to receive your discount! View the full list of partners at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/reciprocalpartners
Did You Know? • The Fannin building houses more than 7 million artifacts. • You can listen to the card game in China town. • You can practice saying welcome in one of 34 First Nations languages in Our Living Languages. • Helmcken House is the oldest house in Victoria still on its original site. •
Walking the cobbled streets through Old Town takes you through two time periods—one side of the street has electricity and the other doesn’t. What else do you think you can find?
STAFF PROFILE
Steve Lewis, Exhibition Designer Tell me how you first got involved in exhibition design. What inspired you? I stumbled upon exhibition design while studying industrial design at the University of Alberta. I went to university thinking I was going to study graphic design, but as soon as I found out that there was something called exhibition design, I was hooked. What has surprised you most about working here? The incredibly talented and diverse staff that I’m fortunate enough to work with on a daily basis. The skills and abilities that our
exhibition team possesses are amazing! The fact that our department is able to build and produce almost everything that you see on display here in the museum still surprises me to this day. What do you find most rewarding about your position? Seeing my designs come to life. Working with our ridiculously talented fabrication team to take a quick sketch that I might have done on the back of a napkin and turn it into a reality that the public gets to enjoy still excites me, and I find it tremendously rewarding.
What might someone be surprised to know about you? I have a tattoo of Terry Fox’s prosthetic limb on my right leg. I used to be a pretty hardcore marathon runner, and Terry Fox is a hero of mine so, in 2005, which was the 25th anniversary of the Marathon of Hope, I had the tattoo done. It helps to remind me of Terry Fox’s determination and sacrifice and that no matter how much I might be ‘suffering’ on a training run, it is nothing compared to what people who are dealing with cancer have to endure.
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PARTNERSHIP PROFILE
Driftwood Brewery By Marika Veldink, Ambassador of Good Times and Great Taste
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n a world filled with mass-produced products, being connected with the things we consume and participate in brings great satisfaction. At Driftwood Brewery we aspire to create a unique profile in every beer produced. From the moment we sold our first keg, we have upheld a commitment to never cut corners on quality, character or style. Currently employing 28 staff, using local tradespeople, suppliers and fabricators whenever possible, we realize the direct benefit and value of partnering with locally based business. The brewery opened its doors in 2008 and has grown on the integrity and commitment instilled by original partners Jason Meyer, Kevin Hearsum and Gary Lindsay. Our vision has always been to provide world-class beer and help elevate the local food and beverage scene, which Victorians can be proud of on a global scale. While quenching the thirst for distinguished, locally produced beer has always been paramount to our business, supporting cultural diversity has always been one of our goals. A strong, vibrant, diverse community is key to the success of all independent businesses. The Royal BC Museum is a cornerstone in the environment of cultural pride that continues to evolve and thrive in Victoria, and Driftwood Brewery is honoured to partner with this world-renowned curator of cultural awareness and continue Victoria’s reputation for uncompromised standards. Driftwood Brewery is proud to support the Royal BC Museum and its Happy Hour and Night Shift events. Join our Facebook page to receive updates.
Braeden Papp fills a growler at Driftwood Brewery on Hillside Avenue.
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250-480-4887 imaxvictoria.com IMAX® is a registered trademark of IMAX Corporation
When Vision Meets Inspiration, Great Things Can Happen Introducing the Learning Centre Fundraising Committee By Jeff Bray, Chair of the Learning Centre Fundraising Committee and Vice-President of the Royal BC Museum Foundation Board of Directors
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ed by Professor Jack Lohman, a trailblazer and a true visionary, the Royal BC Museum is heading into a new era. His plans for a modern and inspired museum will turn what is already a world-class institution into an even more engaging community asset. This exhilarating vision begins with the new Learning Centre. I jumped at the opportunity to lead the new Learning Centre Fundraising Committee and to help fundraise for the first phase of the museum’s redevelopment because I know how great this museum already is, and I am excited to help the museum do more to reach the entire province of British Columbia. This is an exciting opportunity to create a leading-edge, world-class Learning Centre that can engage students young and adult. This project will bring the museum’s vast collection and staff expertise to every corner of British Columbia. The use of state-of-the-art technology will allow students and teachers to participate, engage and discover fascinating information about our unique part of the world. The Learning Centre will be the central hub for all of these needs. Through this space, we will show the world what learning in the 21st century should look like. To do this, we need to raise $2,200,000. Joining me on the Learning Centre Fundraising Committee are active community
leaders, philanthropists and seasoned fundraisers who have already spent years as ambassadors for the museum: • Wendy King, Royal BC Museum Board of Directors
Robert Wilband, and Angela and Gerald Wesley. I hope you will join them in building one of British Columbia’s most important cultural projects. Please give generously to the Learning Centre.
• Robert Peterson, Royal BC Museum Foundation Board of Directors
To donate today or to find out more about the Learning Centre, please contact me through the Royal BC Museum’s Fundraising and Development Department at 250-387-7222 or donate@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca. I would love to hear from you.
• Raymond Protti, Vice Chair, Royal BC Museum Board of Directors
Jeff Bray, Chair of the Learning Centre Fundraising Committee
• Susan Knott, Chair of the Royal BC Museum Board of Directors • Gwen Page, Royal BC Museum Foundation Board of Directors
• David Schneider, Vice-President of National Bank Financial • Anuja Varshney, Royal BC Museum Board of Directors I am grateful for their help, and I am also grateful to the early supporters who have made substantial donations to help get this project off the ground, including Peeter and Mary Wesik, Anthony and Darlene Southwell, Gary and Susan Braley, Pauline Rafferty and Bob Plecas, Daphne Corbett, Olga Ilich, Christopher Considine, Audrey Johnson, Andrew Mahon Foundation, Anne Mayhew, Tommy Mayne, Pete Seward, Margaret Vandenberg and
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K L AR C BAOPU ND P A BY DEM
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
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EXHIBITION OPEN
DEC 8, 2017 – MAR 25, 2018 Showcasing the world’s best images! GET TICKETS AT ROYALBCMUSEUM.BC.CA/WPTY