1461 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

About half the museum’s exhibit space will be closed, but the IMAX theatre and the natural history floor will remain open. Admission prices to the museum are being reduced by $8 across the various age groups, starting Jan. 1.

 

Paul Nursey of Destination Victoria said he was reserving comment on the potential impact on visitors to the region, saying it’s a “sensitive” topic relating to reconciliation.

 

 

https://www.timescol...mantled-4880069

 

 

 

 

 

The gallery — later renamed Becoming British Columbia — contained Old Town, which replicated the wood-block streets of Victoria, along with Nanaimo’s Royal Hotel and a livery stable in Esquimalt during the late 1800s, among other structures.

 

The gallery also featured walk-through tours of the logging, mining, farming and fishing industries and a model of the bow of Capt. James Cook’s ship and a working gold rush waterwheel, where visitors could dip their pans for real gold.

 

“It set a standard for museums around the world,” said Erika Stenson, acting vice-president of museum operations, during a tour of the gallery.

 

The displays were designed to be interactive, allowing visitors to feel the floors change under their feet, hear the sounds of seagulls, lapping waters and passing trains — even smell the creosote of the docks or cinnamon in the ­pioneer kitchen.

 

“It was constructed to make learning about history fun,” said Stetson. “And it certainly held the test of time.”

 

On Dec. 31, nearly 50 years after it opened, the Old Town and industry e­xhibits will close for what the museum calls a “decolonization” of the displays. Artifacts ranging from a British officer’s sword to a heavy steel-wheeled wheat thresher will be removed, and the gallery will be dismantled down to the bare floors.

 

 

https://www.timescol...ts-time-4880102

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 December 2021 - 08:24 AM.

[Nparker]

...Paul Nursey of Destination Victoria said he was reserving comment on the potential impact on visitors to the region, saying it’s a “sensitive” topic relating to reconciliation....

It takes less than this for the thought police to accuse one of being a racist these days and just like that Paull Nursey will be "cancelled".

[Victoria Watcher]

It takes less than this for the thought police to accuse one of being a racist these days and just like that Paull Nursey will be "cancelled".

 

Ya, that's what I was thinking.

 

So sad that in our society we can no longer speak our opinions openly - either way - for fear of the pitchforks.  Of course we all speak more feely when we are in limited company.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 December 2021 - 08:42 AM.

[Moderation]

With limited space in the museum perhaps they need to refresh a very popular 50 year old space.

Many ideas will be considered through consultation. Experiential exhibits seem to often be popular.

 

Part of the new exhibition could be used to recreate the experience of children from removal from their homes to the realistic residential school experiences.?

 

A journey with a first nations family following them through a typical year pre European contact. followed by a post contact year?

 

There will be no shortage of sometimes extreme ideas. How to decide will be a challenge given the often polarized positions around reconciliation.

[Victoria Watcher]

A journey with a first nations family following them through a typical year pre European contact. followed by a post contact year?

 

That would not be equitable though.  Since lifespans post-contact tripled.

 

Plus the left would have a real hard time portraying the gender roles.  And then of course polygamy etc., sometimes with sisters.  Then you have that whole cannibalism and human sacrifice stuff.

 

I'm pretty sure that the native history will be very selective.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 December 2021 - 10:06 AM.

[A Girl is No one]

It takes less than this for the thought police to accuse one of being a racist these days and just like that Paull Nursey will be "cancelled".

We should be so lucky. That guy has done NOTHING for downtown Victoria. Instead he has chosen to virtue signal over and over again, leaving the downtown businesses he is paid to represent, and the residents who love downtown, without a voice.

[aastra]

They should have sold these exhibits.

[todd]

Even with the eight dollars off still seems like a lot of money for a handful of old dusty taxidermy animals?

[Dexter]

They can’t. They were built with the wonder mineral of the 70’s.

They should have sold these exhibits.

[Dexter]

Life spans tripled? I assume that stat is from after smallpox wiped out 80%.

That would not be equitable though. Since lifespans post-contact tripled.

Plus the left would have a real hard time portraying the gender roles. And then of course polygamy etc., sometimes with sisters. Then you have that whole cannibalism and human sacrifice stuff.

I'm pretty sure that the native history will be very selective.

[Victoria Watcher]

It’s not like Europeans brought smallpox as a weapon. It was much worse on individual Europeans than it ever was on natives.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 December 2021 - 11:06 AM.

[todd]

It’s not like Europeans brought smallpox as a weapon. It was much worse on individual Europeans than it ever was on natives.

The Europeans weren’t exactly brilliant how they dealt with it ?

"The smallpox virus arrived in Victoria in 1862, carried by a man on a steamer from San Francisco. Most of the Songhees had been vaccinated, but the disease was devastating for the First Peoples visiting from the north coast. Police commissioner Joseph Pemberton ordered the removal of all aboriginal people in Victoria, except for those "employed by whites," and people returning home took the disease with them, along the coast and up the rivers to the interior, causing annihilation in village after village. Eventually, smaller numbers of northerners returned to Victoria, but the extent of their influence on the local society and economy was never the same.": https://www.royalbcm...h/city_2_2b.php

[spanky123]

Life spans tripled? I assume that stat is from after smallpox wiped out 80%.
 

 

That was part of it but prior to that there was also constant waring between tribes with the Haida being the most notorious on the west coast. 

 

Since the FN had no written language most we have documented is from European sources which I am sure have bias.

Edited by spanky123, 19 December 2021 - 11:23 AM.

[Benezet]

It’s not like Europeans brought smallpox as a weapon. It was much worse on individual Europeans than it ever was on natives.

I should just post this every month….

https://nationalpost...-of-a-holocaust

[Victoria Watcher]

It was much worse on individual Europeans than it ever was on natives.

 

Its toll throughout history is hard to measure, but in the 20th century alone it is estimated to have killed between 300 million and 500 million people. 

 

https://www.vox.com/...isease-covid-19

 

 

Mooney concluded that approximately 1,115,000 individuals lived in Northern America at the time of Columbian landfall. 

 

https://www.britanni...merican-history

 

 

 

And again it is not like the Europeans brought it as some type of weapon.  No more so than the person that gives you a cold does it maliciously.

 

 

 

The epidemics that resulted have been well documented. What had not been clearly recognized until now, though, is that the general health of Native Americans had apparently been deteriorating for centuries before 1492.

 

___________________

 

In recent examinations of 1,000-year-old Peruvian mummies, for example, paleopathologists discovered clear traces of tuberculosis in their lungs, more evidence that native Americans might already have been infected with some of the diseases that were thought to have been brought to the New World by European explorers.

 

https://www.nytimes....dians-ills.html

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 December 2021 - 01:38 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

If the destruction of the Royal B.C. Museum’s third floor proceeds as scheduled on Jan. 2, it will be one of the most baffling mistakes in B.C. tourism history.

 

Let’s be clear: Modernization and decolonization of the First Peoples galleries — including repatriating ancestral remains and Indigenous treasures province-wide — is important and overdue. Overhauling those galleries, in line with the museum’s June 29 apology for internal racism and discrimination, is understandable and commendable.

 

However, the RBCM board of directors has no convincing, pragmatic reason to dismantle the Becoming B.C. galleries, including the beloved Old Town. They admittedly do not know what will replace these core galleries, how long it will take or how much it will cost. They have released no plans, only vague, non-binding hints of “community engagement and public consultation.”

 

Is it truly necessary to “turn the museum inside out,” as Tourism Minister Melanie Mark put it in the abrupt Nov. 3 renovations announcement? Could the best permanent exhibitions not be updated with more post-colonial narratives and become more inclusive of Indigenous, Black, Asian and other communities?

 

 

https://www.timescol...veryone-4885668

[Nparker]

 

...Overhauling those galleries, in line with the museum’s June 29 apology for internal racism and discrimination, is understandable and commendable...

I am not sure this is entirely true, but clearly the woke folks calling the shots have never felt more empowered.

[todd]

I don’t know I like going through the old gold rush town once every 5 years for a little bit of trippy. But I know Old Town/the museum about as well as the back of my hand. I’m looking forward to something new anything new and hopefully interactive, something that entices the senses(as old town did). The entire museum including Old Town is looking old and dusty and weird smells here and there compared to what I remember.

Would still like to go to “old” town once every five years though.

The temporary orca exhibit seem to be mostly just a bunch of posters on the wall .

[Victoria Watcher]

It would be better with some live orcas for sure.

And if they performed for snacks every hour on the hour.

The carillon tower outside could ring 10 minutes before each show time. Or has that been removed as colonial?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 December 2021 - 09:12 AM.

[todd]

It would be better with some live orcas for sure.

They have some skeletons pretty interesting I suppose.