Royal British Columbia Museum (Royal B.C. Museum)

 

 If you could time travel, you wouldn't see all these rooms with no people.

Yes, but this is what I'm saying. It's a museum, it's not a theme park attraction.* The museum presents the artifacts and the environment and the atmosphere, and you put yourself in the place of the people. As it is now it's a powerfully subtle appeal to the intellect, to the emotions, and to the imagination. I understand why someone might expect to see period people, since it's such an elaborate and detailed townscape. But it should become obvious right away that the people and their pursuits are only going to be implied by the scenes that we see. As we ponder the scenes, we fill in the blanks. If an actor is standing there beating you over the head with some transparent shtick about how a nickel paid for his hotel room or about how he's confused by all of those "eye pads" you oddly dressed time travelers are using... the entire experience would be cheapened. When you lose the subtlety you lose the impact, and you lose a lot of the educational value, too.

*I love a good theme park attraction, FYI

Edited by todd, 04 November 2015 - 01:50 PM.

Haunted house at Halloween would be interesting like mentioned in the second to last photograph, I don't know if the sheriffs would be able to keep everything in order however.

Haunted house at Halloween would be interesting like mentioned in the second to last photograph, I don't know if the sheriffs would be able to keep everything in order however.

I guess a paint-ball game once a year would be no-go too.

I guess a paint-ball game once a year would be no-go too.

Or a game of pin the tail on the mastodon.

Did you mean to make that mammoth mistake? I don't want to seem icy but I suspect age was a factor.

Did you mean to make that mammoth mistake? I don't want to seem icy but I suspect age was a factor.

a tooth for a tooth for a tusk

The wax museum is tucked away and needs to stay that way.

I have to disagree with you Bingo the Wax Museum was awesome, was just at a Madame Tussauds last month(this one did not compare to victoria's old wax museum)

I have to disagree with you Bingo the Wax Museum was awesome, was just at a Madame Tussauds last month(this one did not compare to victoria's old wax museum)

I've only been to one Madame Tussaud's (London). It was far better than the old wax museum. Maybe we can convince Madame's to setup a franchise here.

^Madame Tussaud's London is probably much more impressive than the outlet I was at, almost put out my back in the 4D theater.

Personally, I'm always ready for a pint by the time I get to Old Town.  Open up the bar, give discounts to those who arrive in period appropriate clothing, and I'll never go to BBJ's again.  (Or at least not as often) 

Bruce Archibald was searching for fossilized insects in British Columbia's southern Interior when he cracked open a rock and found a beautifully-preserved giant horntail wood-wasp.

"I immediately jumped up and split my pants," he recalled with a laugh. "Probably, the species should have been named Latin for pants-splitter, but we went with something a little more technical."

Archibald, a paleoentomologist with the Royal B.C. Museum and Simon Fraser University, had discovered a 53-million-year-old species of giant wasp, which he dubbed Ypresiosirex orthosemos.

The insect, seven centimetres in length, is one of three new wasp species that Archibald and Alexandr Rasnitsyn of the Russian Academy of Sciences identified in an article published online in The Canadian Entomologist.

7 cm? Man, I'm glad those things are gone!

http://www.timescolo...rcher-1.2113954

"I immediately jumped up and split my pants,"

I know it's a giant wasp but geez. Over excited?

New café open at museum

The Truffles Group has partnered with 2% Jazz Coffee to open a new café on the main floor of the Royal B.C. Museum.

Sequoia Coastal Coffee opened last month in Clifford Carl Hall to the left of the admissions counter at the RBCM. The café, which has 75 seats, uses an open concept that allows it to integrate with the regular flow of museum visitors. Open from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m., the café offers sandwiches, soups and salads from Truffles Catering, baked goods from Cascadia Bakery and coffee from 2% Jazz.

 

- See more at: http://www.timescolo...h.eKrIZC1R.dpuf

One of the oldest ceramic sets in the province that once belonged to the wife of a well-known British navigator will soon be on display at the Royal B.C. Museum.

Earlier this week, the museum accepted into its collection a ceramic china set once owned by Elizabeth Cook, the widow of famed British explorer and navigator Captain James Cook, who was the first to make contact with the northwest coast from 1776 to 1779.

The set was originally in the possession of the City of Victoria when a city archivist personally purchased it for $800 from the family who inherited it and donated it to the city, where it was housed in the archives for years.

While much is known about Captain Cook and his voyages as a colonial explorer, seaman and cartographer of the West Coast and much of the southern globe, the china helps shed light on his personal life.

The story of Victoria’s homeless camp will be preserved at the Royal B.C. Museum long after the last tent disappears from the courthouse lawn.

Lorne Hammond, a human history curator, met with camp residents on Saturday and collected a number of items for a possible future exhibit.

“We’re very interested in the families of British Columbia, and there are families of genealogy, but there are also families of association,” he said. “With tent city, I think it’s had a tremendous impact on the question of housing and street-level poverty in British Columbia, and I see a lot of very positive things coming out of it.

“So we decided that the museum should also be active in collecting and preserving part of the story of what’s happened at that location.”

Hammond said he arranged through poverty activists to meet some of the camp residents and, with their permission, gather a number of artifacts from the site.

^I didn't know the BC Museum has a fictional section?