Royal BC Museum

Coming from the "Land of Museums" one would think I'd be blase about the whole museum thing. And I must admit, during our 10 years of marriage, while Graton was rhapsodizing about his hometown museum, I was duly unimpressed. After all, how great can a museum be?

Turns out, pretty great!!

Not that my poor photography even begins to capture it, but the Royal BC museum is unlike any museum I've ever been to (sorry Smithsonian). Because it's not just a really cool museum with lots of neat exhibits, it's a whole experience. You feel like you've stepped into another place and time, which is pretty crazy considering most of it doesn't look like it's been updated since the 70s.

I loved the exhibits that recreated parts of Victoria: They had a forest, tidal pools, coastline, etc.. complete with taxidermied animals indigenous to the habitat. each exhibit felt like you were visiting part of Canada.

I loved their ocean room.The computer monitors looked like old portholes, the microscopes were so cool, they had drawers and drawers of marine things to explore, the whole room felt like you'd stepped on a submarine 100 years ago. There was even a huge, comfy, leather couch for parents to lounge on, while the kids enjoyed the exhibit. I think we could have all stayed in that room the entire day.

View of downtown Victoria from the museum window.

Lizzy and Ava holding hands, as we'd explored the First Nations exhibits. This exhibit went up and down and around and through. You never felt like you were in a building, but more like you were exploring an actual Native American village.

They had several factories/industries exhibits with a water wheel, fishery, etc...

Probably my favorite exhibit was the turn-of-the-century city. It reminded me of a movie set at Universal Studios. There was a movie theater, railway station, ship. and  hotel. You actually walked up the red carpeted stairs of the "Grand Hotel" and toured through the rooms and the hotel kitchen (picture below). The movie theater was featuring Charlie Chaplin.

So in summary, the Smithsonian Museums are really, really great, and we love them, but the Royal BC museum is in a class of it's own. You felt less like you were looking at great exhibits, and more like you'd stepped back into time and were visiting different cultures and habitats. So glad we were able to see it!