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Royal BC Museum
Today, we went to the Museum to have a wander around. The weather was much milder today, too, so we didn’t have to wrap up super warm!
The museum is split into many, rather large, sections. The first section we went to was a temporary exhibition for widlife photography.
Wildlife Photography Temporary Exhibition
The exhibition began with photos from children aged under 10. These were incredible, considering the age of the photographers!
There was then photos from children 12-14 and 15-17, which were, again, amazing.
This was a decent sized room which also had photos of incredible natural wonders and incredible close shots of predators.
Mammoths & Fossils
The 2nd area was mammoths and fossils. The mammoth re-creation they had stood out the most with its incredible size.
The, rather large, Mammoth
We had a discussion on the size of a mammoth in comparison to elephants and Kim had said it was the same size as a African elephant and Curtis thought it was much bigger, but, with the help of Google, we confirmed that Kim was correct.
Weather & Climate Change
We entered a small area discussing the effects of climate change and a well known heatwave in Kelowna 2003, causing fires and multiple houses were destroyed.
Read More About The 2003 Kelowna Fires Here
Wikipedia.org
Forest Animals
After the weather facts, we entered the forest animals section, which included many facts about bears, elk, deer and more, as well as their habitat and their ways of life.
A Deer
The Sea Mammals
Just out from the forest area, there was the sea mammal section. This area primarily showed the difference between the sealion and seals, as well as the true scale of a sealion, especially in contrast to a seal which looks very small beside it.
Sealion Compared To Seals
Birds
We then came to our least favourite section of the museum, which was the birds section. This only included ‘regular’ birds such as ducks and swans, but there was a bold eagle, though, which looks incredibly majestic.
Floor 2 – The First People & Becoming BC
The second floor was based around the ‘First People’ of British Columbia as well as ‘Becoming BC’ which is all the history of BC from 1700.
First People
Languages
The first area on floor 2 that we arrived at was a room filled with many columns with speakers in them with ‘hello’ and ‘how are you?’ in each of the 36 indigenous languages of British Columbia. These languages often had odd sounds in them and some interesting letters, too.
More On The Languages Of The First People
thecandianencyclopedia.ca
Culture, History & Life
Totum Poles & Housing
After learning of the languages of the First People, we moved into a tall room with many totem poles in. These were mainly used as decoration around houses, but the carving usually had some meaning or significance.
Indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca
After the totum poles, we walked through a re-creation of a standard home of the First People, which was a simple wooden shack with seating and a fire in the centre.
Tools, Clothing, Masks & Weapons
The next few areas were largly displays, but these were of crafts, tools, weapons, masks and clothing of the First People.
Masks were not too dissimilar from totum poles, in which they all had different meanings.
The clothing was fairly simple, but could often be heavy and uncomfortable due to it being made of bark or heavy threads.
Tools aren’t too dissimilar from what is used today, but just more basic, as you would expect from the time frame, and the same goes for weapons and hunting equipment.
Treatment of the First People
Later in the exhibits, it explains the history of ill treatment of the first people, once the non-indigenous became powerful. This was hard to read, but an example was a law to stop traditional dances being performed as well as traditional celebrations.
Small Pox
Small pox was the cause of a lot of the First People population dwindling. Over 1/3 of the population were killed by small pox (around 20,000 people) whilst the people in charge of the country were unwilling to help. There was a couple of walls of writing explaining the timeframe and what happened, which was incredibly interesting but also hard to read.
The Past 100 Years in British Columbia
After the hard hitting history of the First People, we moved onto the past 100 years of BC.
This room included multiple easy-to-read yet informative boards regarding the history of BC, starting from the 1800s.
There were multiple glass displays showing items from each era, including a 1990 section, which we found facinating as it was when we were young. It was amazing to hear children saying “what is this?”, “That’s not a computer!” & “That’s a big phone!”.
An Old Town
The last area of the museum was styled like an old town. We were able to look around the town and see through the windows, but we could also enter some places!
One Angle Of The Old Town
We entered the old style movie theatre which was showing Charlie Chaplin, which we watched for a bit.
After this, we walked up some stairs into a recreation of an old hotel, which was incredible and felt just like a hotel.
We took a look at the remaining areas of the old town and then left the museum, having gained in knowledge and had a great time!
Another Section Of The Old Town
The museum was just $17 and we would highly recommend!
The Evening
We got a starbucks on the way back as a reward for taking in a lot of knowledge!
We walked back to the apartment and got ready to go out for dinner.
The Steamship Terminal
Linda was kind enough to take us for dinner to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary!
The restaurant is an old Steamship Terminal, hence the name. This is the former customs building for the steamship and it is now both a Starbucks and a restaurant.
Linda had mentioned the steak, so we all just had to get one!
Curtis got the filet with whiskey crab sauce and shrimp and Kim got just the filet.
Filet Steak With Crab, Shrimp, Mashed Potato & Asparagus
We loved our steaks, but Kim’s was a little too rare.
We left here and walked Linda home and then we went out for an evening stroll and some dessert.
Dessert
We had been scouting a chocolate place for a while and decided to get dessert there today.
They do a ‘sweet poutine’ which isn’t even really poutine. This is basically churos with ice cream, marshmallows and melted chocolate. This was the perfect amount for us to share and then walk back to the apartment.
Research & Booking
We spent the rest of the evening researching for other locations we are traveling to as well as booking accomodation.
Mr & Mrs Hale
Mr & Mrs Hale 
We love the museum. Sounds like you really enjoyed it too. Xoxoxo
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