Tuesday, 3 January 2017

Royal BC Museum

On the second day of our short visit to Victoria we had the pleasant experience of spending a whole morning in the city's great museum focusing on two particular exhibitions. One was on Mammoths and the other on nineteenth century colonial history. The mammoth display covered the evolution of the species and its relatives ... the elephants etc. ... and the ways in which environmental  changes especially in the last 10,000 years or so and human activities affected the spread and or decline of the species. As an aside I found the section on how elephants and their cousins could become dwarf when isolated on islands because of rising sea levels particularly interesting because some stupendous research by colleagues of mine into Homo Floresiensis - the dwarf hominids from the island of Flores in the Indonesian archipelago - and how they hunted Stegadon, which were dwarf elephants on that island. Have a look at these photos which will give you an impression of the exhibits:


Apologies for the first photos which show two cuties, Ella and Flynn, playing with a hands-on exhibit - with the former impersonating a Panda. Their mother was also caught explaining in simple language the nature of mammoths.



And here's a lovely reconstruction of a mammoth, which was apparently preyed on by very large bears and cats.

 

And here we see Ella and Flynn having a wrestling match with two artificial mammoth heads each armed with long tusks. There were many hands-on exhibits, which made the displays interesting for young kids, and these included identifying the  species to which the various examples of poo belonged.



And finally we saw a whole mammoth skeleton.


After a short break, we then headed for the colonial exhibits, which were very well done and highly reminiscent of early Australian society and its relations with first nations people. Canadian and Australian economy, society and polity have much in common even today. The most impressive displays for me were not so much about indigenous society and culture as the reconstructions of 19th century settler life and their struggles to survive. Here are some more images:

Elements of native society and life ... which were admittedly well-done.



Vancouver's cabin on his ship.


Reconstructions of urban life.





The hardships and fragility of rural life - both mining and agriculture.







All in all a great experience.

AS

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