Canadian Museum of History & Tulip Festival

Since living in Ottawa, one of the museums that I have not yet visited is the Canadian Museum of History.  This afternoon, I took advantage of the free Thursday admission and visited the museum for the first time.  It is very similar to the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at UBC with a primary focus on the history and culture of Canada's First Nations.  Personally I thought the collection at MOA is more diverse and interesting.

Here are some of the things that caught my attention (most of them are associated with animals in some way).

One part of "Poo wiltso; Whaler's Dream" (silkscreen) by Ron Hamilton.

"Moose" (screen printing) by Gerald Marks.

"First Hunter" (screen printed) by Stanley Greene.

That is a lot of weasels.

Button blanket (Tsimshian) - before 1916.

The Grand Hall with some private event set-up in progress.

Morning Star by Alex Janvier.

There are currently two special exhibitions, one of them is about gold rush in BC, which I thought is very interesting because my grandfather used to be a jeweler and one of my childhood memories is of him melting gold nuggets.

My weight in gold!

Nobel Prize medal (for Dr. Bertram N. Brockhouse).  The closest I'll ever come to an actual Nobel Prize medal.


Haida box by Bill Reid.  Incredibly beautiful and intricate.

The Canadian Children's Museum is also in the same building.  This will be me in 18 days as I depart for fieldwork.

'namaxsala by Mary Anne Barkhouse,

Another reason why I was at Gatineau is because today is the first day of the Canadian Tulip Festival, and I wanted to take some pictures of Parliament Hill with tulips in the foreground, like two years ago.

Parliament Hill.


The flowers are different from two years ago, but red and white tulips do seem more fitting.

Back on the Ontario side, here are the tulips at Major's Hill Park.

Pretty.

Walking through a sea of tulips.

The weather is suppose to be poor for the next few days.  Sigh.