The Royal British Columbia Museum , 675 Belleville St
(museum: daily 9am-5pm; National Geographic IMAX Theatre daily
10am-8pm; museum $9.65, IMAX Theatre $9.50 (double feature $14.50),
combined ticket $15.50; museum tel 356-3701 or 1-888/447-7977, IMAX
tel 480-4887, www.rbcm1.rbcm.gov.bc.ca ), founded in 1886,
is one of the best museums in the Northwest, and regularly rated,
by visitors and travel magazine polls, as one of North America's
top ten. All conceivable aspects of the province are examined, but
the aboriginal peoples section is probably the definitive
collection of a much-covered genre, while the natural-history
sections - huge re-creations of natural habitats, complete with
sights, sounds and smells - are mind-boggling in scope and
imagination. Allow at least two trips to take it all in.
From the word go - a huge stuffed mammoth in the lobby - you can
tell that thought, wit and a lot of money have gone into the
museum. Much of the cash must have been sunk into its most popular
display, the Open Ocean , a self-contained, in-depth look at
the sea and the deep-level ocean. Groups of ten are admitted into a
series of tunnels, dark rooms, lifts and mock-ups of submarines at
thirty-minute intervals. You take a time-coded ticket and wait your
turn, so either arrive early or reckon on seeing the rest of the
museum first. Though rather heavy-handed in its
"we're-all-part-of-the-cosmic-soup" message, it's still an object
lesson in presentation and state-of-the-art museum dynamics. It's
also designed to be dark and enclosed, and signs wisely warn you to
stay out if you suffer even a twinge of claustrophobia.
The first floor contains dioramas , full-scale
reconstructions of some of the many natural habitats found in
British Columbia. The idea of re-creating shorelines, coastal
rainforests and Fraser Delta landscapes may sound far-fetched, yet
all are incredibly realistic, down to dripping water and cool, dank
atmospheres. Audiovisual displays and a tumult of information
accompany the exhibits (the beaver film is worth hunting down),
most of which focus attention on the province's 25,600km of
coastline, a side of British Columbia usually overlooked in favour
of its interior forests and mountains.
Upstairs on the second floor is the mother of all the tiny
museums of bric-a-brac and pioneer memorabilia in BC. Arranged
eccentrically from the present day backwards, it explores every
aspect of the province's social history over two centuries
in nit-picking detail. Prominently featured are the best part of an
early twentieth-century town, complete with cinema and silent
films, plus comprehensive displays on logging, mining, the gold
rush, farming, fishing and lesser domestic details, all the
artefacts and accompanying information being presented with
impeccable finesse.
Up on the mezzanine third floor is a superb collection of
aboriginal peoples' art, culture and history
. It's presented in gloomy light, against muted wood walls and
brown carpet - precautions intended to protect the fragile
exhibits, but which also create a solemn atmosphere in keeping with
the tragic nature of many of the displays. The collection divides
into two epochs - before and after the coming of Europeans -
tellingly linked by a single aboriginal carving of a white man,
starkly and brilliantly capturing the initial wonder and weirdness
of the new arrivals. Alongside are shamanic displays and carvings
of previously taboo subjects, subtly illustrating the first
breakdown of the old ways. The whole collection reflects this
thoughtful and oblique approach, taking you to the point where
smallpox virtually wiped out in one year a culture that was eight
millennia in the making. A section on land and reservations is left
for last - the issues are contentious even today - and even if
you're succumbing to museum fatigue, the arrogance and duplicity of
the documents on display will shock you. The highlights in this
section are many, but try to make a point of seeing the short film
footage In the Land of the War Canoes (1914), the
Bighouse and its chants, and the audiovisual display on
aboriginal myths and superstition. The National Geographic
Theatre in the museum plays host to a huge IMAX screen and a
changing programme of special format films. Outside the museum,
there's also Thunderbird Park , a strip of grass with a
handful of totem poles.