Tag: Museums

Coastal Sooke, just 35 minutes from Victoria, is a tranquil refuge from the bustle of city life. The area enjoys a relaxed casual lifestyle in a rural setting but still affords many of the amenities of city life. Sooke offers some of the mildest climate in Western Canada, with warm and dry summer months and wet and mild winter months. Sooke, the gateway to the West Coast Road, winds 74 km along the coast to Port Renfrew and the starting point for the world-famous West Coast Trail. This is one of the South Island’s most spectacular drives – it winds […]

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Bella Coola’s Hidden Hot SpotsThese easy-access activities are suited to 15 minute to 1-2 hour self guided excursions in Bella Coola, or hire a guide for a more challenging adventure! Clayton FallsThis 5 minute walk takes you behind the BC Hydro generating plant to see the cascading Clayton Falls up close. Across the road, you can walk to the mouth of Clayton Creek, where Alexander Mackenzie canoed past in 1793, to watch the seals bobbing their heads in and out of the water waiting for fresh fish. Talleho CanneryCharter a boat over to Talleho Cannery and explore the historic fishing […]

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A museum of anthropology doesn’t sound like a mass market kind of place. Yet the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology draws respectable and diverse crowds, if the tour we just took there in early July is any indication. The reason (my guess) is that it largely devoted to the cultures of what Canada politely calls the First Nations. This name is a straddle between historical accuracy and condescension, the latter embodied in the name of the American Indians or Native Americans. Like the First Nations peoples, there is not much to prove whether they originated in North America […]

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We looked at the parking meter in the lot behind Victoria‘s Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM). We figured two hours would be enough time. Ha! I have watched the RBCM grow since it moved out of the Legislature building across the street to its new quarters in the 1960s. I even work there briefly in the early 70s. So I knew of its renown throughout both Canada and the world for its permanent displays in the Natural History and Human History Galleries. This renown has enhanced its ability to attract world class traveling displays like the Egyptian treasures and the […]

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