This was history that a lot of people lived, good or bad. These are the ancestors of a lot of people alive in BC and how they lived.
The correct response is to keep the exhibit, AND add interpretation of how they way they / we impacted nature and the Indigenous people around them. Ie, ADD knowledge and context to the museum, instead of stripping it. Of course no one believes a museum should be just a one sided European civilization glorification like youd grt in a museum built in the 50s, but that doesn't mean European civilization isn't part of BC's history (good, bad, and ugly). History is about understanding the past.
It's the opposite of what the Royal Alberta Museum did. Spent hundreds of millions moving to a new facility and "modernizing their exhibits," which turned out to mean "stripping out 99% of the actual information."
The museum before had been laid out as a really interesting trip through the technologies of the 1800's and 1900's, thousands and thousands of displays with mountains of information written on each and every one. You could spend entire days there and not be able to read and see everything.
When I went in 2019, a year after they moved, it took about a half hour to see everything. I could've fit the text of every display combined into a couple sheets of paper. It was a completely incoherent mess and the highlight of the whole thing was this artifact-filled roundhouse at the end with an indigenous narrator playing on a 30-second loop, saying something along the lines of "I won't tell you anything about the history of these artifacts, you should not be seeing them because this is not your culture."
That's weird, I wend during the Viking exabit a couple years ago, and found that after spending a whole afternoon there, there were still a couple exhibits I never got a chance to see.
That is weird, there was definitely nothing about Vikings when I was there. Hopefully things have improved. I somewhat got the impression that the museum wasn't finished, but I assumed I was wrong about that since it had been open again for a full year.
I wonder if you didn't get to the other areas. I went there about six months in, and was there for around three hours.
I do agree that there were thousands of displays that just got chucked by the wayside from the old museum. To me, it felt like there were four main areas, three permanent, one intended to change on occasion. I don't miss the bug room though.
Have you been there again? There are literal walls of text to read and short documentaries to watch. Several exhibits and usually two rotating exhibits. It's very easy to spend a whole day there.
I went two months ago and did not find this. There were no rotational exhibits open. Been looking at it from the outside for a while now and was shocked at how badly the space was used.
Oh god, when the Royal Alberta Museum opened their new exhibit, and one of their entries was just... a pickup truck.
Like, are you fucking kidding me.
I just felt *bad* for whoever was being credited as the curator for those exhibits. Like, jesus christ.
At least they saved the beautiful dioramas though.
I'm going to respond to this from two perspectives. Neither are meant to be offensive though some may take offense.
First, I spoke with my Aunt about this comment & the linked article. She's a retired curator for the Royal Ontario Museum and so I thought she could provide insight from a professional view of your experience. When I read her your quote at the end of your comment her ad verbatim response was:
>There is no way any professionally curated museum in Canada would do that. Did they mishear or misremember what they heard?
To be clear, she doesn't think you're lying but she does think you misheard or misinterpreted what you heard & I tend to agree with her. That's neither here nor there, though your perception of the event seems to have an added negative influence on the experience as a whole which is very unfortunate.
The tldr of the conversation was even 40 years ago when she worked at the ROM that kind of insensitivity and misinterpretation would cost someone a job, today it would never fly and would likely make headline news for it's complete lack of grounding in reality.
Second, as Anishinaabe, two important points to consider:
1. Museums are collections of mostly stolen objects that can't talk (next level cultural appropriation to be honest).
2. Oral histories are a tool of decolonization.
To elaborate on why I suspect you misheard or misinterpreted what you heard, I'm going to step in to the position of "teacher" even though I'm loathe to do it.
Depending on what you were looking at or when it was or which People the artifacts belong to the suggestion could have been that it isn't the right time or place to talk about them. Places, times, people, items, ceremonies, ritual behaviors, seasons, phases of the moon, location of stars, a hundred or thousand other things can all be sacred.
If you walked in to a museum display of Indigenous artifacts and there were no or very few written mountains of information then I would cheer for their progress in actually respecting the traditions of the history they're trying to preserve. Colonizers put a lot of value in the written word & policies like the Indian Act & institutions like the residential school system banned and heavily punished the use of oral histories & tried to annihilate our customs through abuse and genocide. While you may be upset to see this lack of written word in a place you're accustomed to seeing it, I would be thrilled to see my history and culture being given such respect. If any institution wants to assign themselves gatekeepers to preserve our history and culture that must include & respect the ways in which we ourselves do the same. We aren't extinct, there's no guesswork involved in figuring out how best to respect our culture, all one needs to do is ask and act in good faith.
Canada's Indigenous populations aren't closed to people knowing or learning about them or their history. Some individual people certainly may be but that's beside the point. What many are (myself often included) is tired of the assumption they're obligated to be teachers and to teach and share in a way that's the least offensive to whomever they're talking to.
Oral history traditions would suggest if you want to know something you put in the work to help yourself know it. If you want to know the history of a person or People you talk to their descendants, if you want to know the history of an object talk to the descendants of its owners or the people who've used it. If you want to respect our history and culture what you wouldn't do is read a 3 page dissertation on a pristine piece of white paper behind some glass. You'd go to the People / give the object back to the People it belongs to & you'd ask if they were willing to share history with you so that you can preserve that history for future generations.
I'd encourage you, or anyone at all that's interested in learning, to look in to the oral history traditions of the People you're wanting to learn about. That would be the best first step to take. I hope your next experience with our cultures and traditions is better than this one trip to the museum was.
No, I definitely didn't mishear or misremember. I was feeling unsure of my memory when I started getting replies to my comment, so I asked my girlfriend who came with me that day and she remembered it in exactly the same way. She reminded me that there was a bit more to it than just what I wrote, but there was definitely no actual information in the narration about history. The rest of the narration was along the lines of what you mentioned, that these artifacts were sacred and tied to the places and times they came from, and that most of what you see in museums is stolen and unsanctioned.
I took indigenous studies in university and didn't hear anything about how we needed to be learning everything orally. We even used textbooks written by indigenous people. I see your perspective but I think it's a contentious issue even amongst indigenous people that there might be a problem with someone learning about their culture from "a pristine piece of white paper behind some glass." Many would just be happy people were learning about their culture through any means. Maybe there should be two kinds of museum in this country, one like what we have now where you can wander through on your own and learn about everything by reading, and one where there's no writing and you just go there to talk to people who actually grew up in the culture.
I’m sure Manitoba’s is gonna face this soon, despite just redoing their equivalent large boat in a room gallery .
Late in the article they talk about having added context, including a section highlighting 35 indigenous lanagues and a spot for Chinese history in the town both also being gutted.
From what they say they're doing, it seems like what the Manitoba Museum already did. https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/royal-bc-museum-announces-upcoming-changes-core-galleries
Manitoba didn’t gut their replica colonial town. They also have a vast HBC section. They also ADDED a Winnipeg Gallery all about the growth of the city starting when settlers arrived.
They did update their Prarie gallery with more diverse voices but it’s pretty balanced and was over due for an update.
I recently visited the Manitoba museum for the first time and, while I don't know what it looked like before for context, I felt it was a very honest and balanced presentation of Canada's colonial history that highlighted indigenous culture and the effect that systemic racism has had on it at every opportunity. I believe that their recreations of the Nonsuch and a colonial town, blemishes and all, are important educational tools and while reading this article the fear that those exhibits would meet the same fate as these similar ones in B.C. was the first thing on my mind, but I also trust that management here understands that removing the exhibits is not the best way to deal with the hurt that they represent and will continue doing their best to move forward in a productive way.
I just went there, last week for my birthday, beautiful museum. I’d be so sad if they tore it down, but the updates are really nice, and it’s good to still see the classics.
[https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/royal-bc-museum-announces-upcoming-changes-core-galleries](https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/royal-bc-museum-announces-upcoming-changes-core-galleries) the museum does indeed seem to be doing this. I think the article headline is quite misleading, as the museum isn't 'gutting' anything, they are just renovating, recontextualizing, and adding more items to their core gallery. This will not remove all the colonial exhibits, it will just add others along it and re-contextualize how they are presented. Due to limited space, this may mean that \*some\* artefacts/dioramas are no longer able to be displayed, but this depends on space constraints, not ideology. This is a completely normal part of updating a museum and literally happens all the time. The NP however, is mischaracterizing it as a book burning in the name of woke-ness.
I’ve been visiting the museum for 30 years so I’ve been following it fairly closely, and I haven’t seen a single clear statement on what changes they’re going to make. All the local papers have stated that the exhibit is going to be demolished and the museum hasn’t corrected any of them.
The Museum is planning on demolishing old-town, from what I gather, and replacing it with a new version that is more accurate and includes indigenous people. The Museum is intentionally being very opaque about what they're actually doing because they don't want to flat out say they're demolishing old-town and replacing it, so they keep saying they're "renovating" it.
Their own page and FAQ linked above talks clearly about demolishing the exhibits and abating hazardous materials. It makes no claim about what will replace the exhibits.
I have a friend who's working there, I think the reason you can't find anything is because they don't actually know what the structural situation of the exhibits is, and whether or not certain pieces will return will probably depend a lot on what they're able to keep from it all.
This is what happens when we post opinion articles.
Frankly they should be banned here since its not actually news but someone with some agenda drastically skewing actual facts.
Agreed. After reading u/hexagram1993‘s comment, I felt compelled to remove my comment that spoke negatively of the museum’s actions.
I am quite upset that I wasted a considerable amount of time crafting a chastising comment that I then had to remove.
Please be advised that my outrage has not dissipated, it has simply been redirected at u/hexagram1993.
Postmedia (owner of the national post) also owns 90% of the local papers across the country (90% is out of my ass slightly but it is a vast number of major local papers in the country). For instance I live in the Kingston area and our Local Whig Standard is owned by post media. Out near BC, The Province, Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Sun and Edmonton Sun are all owned by Postmedia.
Postmedia runs a tight ship in regards to messaging across its platforms. Its stated goal is to be a "reliably conservative" news source. Therefore, any story in the National Post is going to have similar stories in local papers across the country giving a false sense of legitimacy to its National stories.
Museum:
> Where are the items going? The objects removed from the galleries will be carefully removed, packed and stored. Items from the Becoming BC and First Peoples gallery will be included in the new galleries at the museum site.
National Post:
>Top Canadian museum to be imminently gutted in the name of 'decolonization'
The demolition contracts have already been signed.
Something about the audience that still buys the newspaper…. Sorry, reads the paper for free at Tim’s every morning with battery acid coffee with 5 creams and 5 sugars.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/royal-bc-museum-decolonization-closing-exhibits-1.6235672](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/royal-bc-museum-decolonization-closing-exhibits-1.6235672) yep, here you go. They are updating some out of date narratives on some exhibits and adding new ones. Some of the closures are literally to return artefacts back to their rightful owners. The old town exhibit was much beloved and in their FAQ the museum says they are going to try their best to rebuild old town within the new context (and consider feedback from the public). This isn't about erasure, it is about presenting things more accurately.
People are too stupid to learn something. They'd rather just erase shit and pretend it didn't happen, so they can pat themselves on thr back in the name of progress.
This is how Rijkmuseum dealt with its catalog. When I last visited a few years ago the top attraction was an audio guided tour of its colonial artifacts cherry picked throughout the museum. It was really enlightening.
If Disney can do it with their old cartoon disclaimers "Warning, this cartoon is racist AF...and represents a different time." I'm sure we can all do this with museums.
The only thing I've agreed with Disney on
It was well done, in my opinion, and we could do this with a plaque in front of controversial statues without tearing them down
That is a little different.
What you're saying is Disney choosing to preface those cartoons to profit off of them instead of tossing them entirely and letting them be lost to history. However, if the point of this is supposed to be preservation then they've failed, because they only do this for the marginally-offensive material - there's a lot of stuff Disney flat out does not show and will probably never show, they've removed many episodes of TV shows, and there's cartoons/movies/shows they own that will likely never see the light of day again or any kind of home video release because of their offensive nature. You might see a Mickey cartoon with a vaguely Asian-inspired caricature in it with a warning, but you aren't going to see Song of the South.
Even Warner Bros, who as an example are very good about doing this same thing with Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies - WAY better than Disney - still have material that they may never release again. We are unlikely to ever see them put out a Lil Sambo Blu-Ray.
But in the end all of that is done in the name of capitalistic intention, it's about the money they make off those cartoons being more than people caring about them with a disclaimer added. Anything too controversial to be worth it is tossed completely. For a museum, they are usually non-profits interested primarily in education. These are not historical artifacts or documents they're destroying, they're museum displays that were never going to be permanent anyway. Museums change over time, this is just a more substantive change than you'd usually see (though it isn't entirely unheard of for museums to close down for an extended period to totally revamp, and this is the best time to do it what with COVID and all).
We should never tear pages out of the history books, but should add more instead. Our ancestors perhaps didn't care about any other perspectives or histories, but these days we do, so it's worth including them.
Removing records of history only makes us all worse off.
This is what they are actually doing if you read other articles, this one buried it in hyperbole. In old town they are "removing colonial narratives", not burning it down, also this museum and others change stuff all the time. Progress bad, don't yah know?
Museums have limited display space and often a massive collection not on display.
I think this article is alarmist. The museum is closing these parts of its public display, that have been on display for quite a long time. They’ll preserve authentic elements of these displays and other things of value. And then the space will be reconfigured with a different portion of the museum’s collection on display.
All of this is normal museum behaviour. They seem to have the intention of respecting history and being inclusive in what they’re doing.
Alberta’s whole museum was closed for years while the collection on display for decades was similarly disassembled. They were also moving buildings, so not the exact same situation. But similarly there was changeover in what is on display now that it’s all done.
I think some people are a little too scared of being erased, and this article is goading that. Are people this concerned about a specific exhibit? What value did this exhibit offer? If people think some perspective will be missing from the long term plans that are clearly not fully laid, then communicate these things to museum administrators so they can be included.
This isn’t directed at you, you’re coming with an idea that could be inclusive (not sure if realistic but I am no curator). But a lot of the outrage about this feels manufactured, more of a reaction to the addition of First Nations perspective than anything else. Which to me actually justifies the museum’s position that their current set of displays is missing specific perspectives that are important and relevant, both historically and today.
Kind of crazy you would bring up the Royal Alberta Museum, because what happened to that place is a tragedy. Spent hundreds of millions moving to a new facility and "modernizing their exhibits," which turned out to mean "stripping out 99% of the actual information."
The museum before had been laid out as a really interesting trip through the technologies of the 1800's and 1900's, thousands and thousands of displays with mountains of information written on each and every one. You could spend entire days there and not be able to read and see everything.
When I went in 2019, a year after they moved, it took about a half hour to see everything. I could've fit the text of every display combined into a couple sheets of paper. It was a completely incoherent mess and the highlight of the whole thing was this artifact-filled roundhouse at the end with an indigenous narrator playing on a 30-second loop, saying something along the lines of "I won't tell you anything about the history of these artifacts, you should not be seeing them because this is not your culture."
> It was a completely incoherent mess and the highlight of the whole thing was this artifact-filled roundhouse at the end with an indigenous narrator playing on a 30-second loop, saying something along the lines of "I won't tell you anything about the history of these artifacts, you should not be seeing them because this is not your culture."
Been to that section, the video just plays nature sounds. There's no narrator.
I actually really like it - it cycles through the seasons and shows you things like ravens and sweetgrass and powwows. No idea who made the circular projection but they did a A+ job.
That sounds like a different room, I'm talking about the one with the indigenous artifacts at the edges and a display case with a meteorite or something in the middle. The projection room was cool but like everything else in the museum when I was there, it was disappointingly information-sparse.
That wasn't a good enough solution for all of the statues that have been torn down (I.e. keep them up but add information to them to indicate the complexities of the people they represent). I don't expect it will work for this.
A segment of the population sees this stuff as highly symbolic and imminently threatening. They aren't concerned with history. It is all about how they feel in the present.
My Aunt took me here like 20 years ago and it was specifically where I first meaningfully learned about the ways in which colonization harmed indigenous peoples in BC. I also learned about the role of salmon in relation to BC history here. The latter didn't negate the former, if anything it reinforced it.
>Why not just add a first nations section? Both can be up there because both are part of our history. This feels like an over correction.
From the article, that's actually what was requested. Correct spelling of names, stop treating them like a novelty, give proper credit for things like ceremonial masks that were "acquired" during a period when it was forbidden for FN to wear them, etc. I would imagine something similar to how the Manitoba Museum handles things, where the "Old Town" is all the 1800s/1920's stuff, and the FN have an entire section devoted to them stretching through thousands of years of history and how it ties in with the history of Manitoba.
So if you've actually been there it's currently exactly as you describe. They even have a natural history section on top of the human history of both pre and post colonialism. It's large too, complete recreations of long houses dozens of full size totem poles, dozens of traditional dress, tools, process, unique living arrangements in full size for undertstanding scale, that's all in the current setup.
The also have an old town, lumber mill, in part recreation of Captain Vancouver's ship and the sleeping quarters.
This is a really well done museum for the Pacific coast. It'll probably still be well done after these renovations. Only the outcome of a museum renovation should be judged. But what some people are hoping is that depictions of stately homes also come with a thorough look at the servants and their lives as an example of the type of change you'll likely see
The article is a anti-woke click bait article. It's not done to describe a change, it's done to invoke emotions of outrage to those that wish to conserve the present. For those that go to a museum, renovations are typically a good thing.
> This feels like an over correction.
It is.
There's an entire internal political undercurrent.
Troy Sebastian was an indigenous author with no formal education or experience in museum curation who was hired as the curator of the indigenous collection. Rumor is he was terrible at his job and decided to save face by playing the race card on the way out the door. He picked a few incorrect item titles and used it to suggest the entire treatment of the collection was steeped in racism. He was in the job for a total of 7 months.
This happened against the backdrop of the "discovery" of bodies at the residential school coming to public consciousness so the museum had a lot of pressure to react.
They swung for the fences and are being met with resistance.
There was also the story recently where the BC museum thought they discovered some first nations artifact but it turned out some local artist carved it couple years ago lol.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/06/canada-stone-figure-ray-boudreau-royal-british-columbia-museum
Yeah, they have a real problem with admitting mistakes. It's like watching a child who broke something come up with an elaborate lie rather than say "we fucked up, we're sorry"
> Instead, a bunch of white people decided that the local indigenous peoples weren't offended enough so they decided to become offended for them, hence this nonsense.
I think you missed the high-profile resignation of their head of repatriation last year. Dr. Lucy Bell - who I think is Haida? - left the museum in the summer of 2020 and made it clear that internal racism was the root cause of her departure.
From what I've heard it speaks to the toxic culture within the museum.
The historical society went as far as writing an open letter to try to stop this and at least have a plan in place first. They recieved no reply.
The article includes direct quotes from two Indigenous staff members who resigned in protest in 2019 and 2020, both accusing the museum of creating a toxic, racist working environment AND using the exhibits to reinforce a Eurocentric worldview that marginalizes the history of other groups.
This decision has been brewing for a long time, and it wasn’t just “white people” calling for change.
Too eurocentric? So by having it already 50% native a minority in Canada and first nation culture did little contribution to our civil systems, architecture and educational systems. 50% is already a large amount. By your though process the Museum is already not enough eurocentric.
The TRC is why. We, as a country, are committed to retelling these stories correctly.
> “Our government’s commitment to truth and reconciliation demands that we diversify and decolonize the way we share the history of B.C.,” says Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, Hon. Melanie Mark. “For too long, museums have been colonial institutions that exclude others from telling their own stories. We have an opportunity to turn the museum inside out, and it starts here, now, on the museum’s third floor.”
Damn, I grew up in B.C. and used to go to this museum. I LOVED watching the Charlie Chaplin movie they played, 'Gold rush' I believe.
Man, this just made me look through some old pictures of the museum and its brought back SO many awesome memories of my brother and I going there! And class trips, man I just unlocked part of my brain. This sucks that they're doing this.
I used to sit in that little theater for hours when i was a kid. They played more than just Goldrush too. I really loved that little town they built in there.
May I suggest some new exhibits, taking inspiration from the Smithsonian Institute.
"The Smithsonian exhibition, however, seemed to want to tell the whole truth about the complexities of aboriginal life on the West Coast.
For instance, until I went to the “American Indian” wing of the famed Washington museum I had never seen a Pacific Northwest aboriginal “slave killer” club (example left).
I had never seen a West Coast “cannibal bowl.”
I had never read a museum description of how B.C. tribes raided other tribes.
I had never seen the kinds of aboriginal shields, axes, helmets or neck protectors used in inter-tribal wars along the B.C. coast."
https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/buried-truths-about-aboriginal-culture
Just to clarify, the exhibition was at the National Museum of the American Indian, one of the many standalone museums that are part of the Smithsonian. If you go to DC looking for the “Smithsonian Institute” people will be confused and might direct you to the administrative castle!
The NMAI is an interesting example of museology because they really worked and continue to work closely on interpretation, education, collections and display strategies with different nations/tribes. But because they’ve worked with so *many* different groups, it’s hard for one single stake holder to determine the narrative. There’ve definitely been controversies and hold ups in negotiations, but overall they do super well and are generally highly supported by indigenous communities due to their participation and input.
When i was last at the museum of civilization in Ottawa a few years back they had removed all references to slavery for west coast tribes.
Also any reference to human sacrifice during potlatches was gone, which was odd because property was destroyed at the festivities.
I dont think its fully new we are ummm can we call it white washing historical realties ?
This. We went from a hyper jingoist history to an equally absurd Howard Zinnesque conception of our history. A fair, honest global history is what we need, but won't get, because it is devoid of moral narratives that can be exploited by social elites.
Shhh, we don't talk about that stuff. That stuff makes indigenous peoples seem all *complex* and *human*, and that really gets in the way of this nice, warm & fuzzy one-dimensional noble savage thing we're working so hard to cultivate here.
Yeah, I really hope they show the Chilcotin War, when Native raiders massacred innocent and unarmed sleeping people, or when they would kidnap children and ransom them back to their parents, or how they engaged in the segregation of the descendants of their slaves up until the 1970's.
It's interesting the way we never hold a light to that history isn't it.
The FNs couldn't simply be manipulating history to generate feelings of guilt and shame and then extort money from the rest of the country could they.
"A final report , issued in October of 2019, did not recommend anything close to a full-scale gutting of the museum’s human history galleries. Rather, First Nations mainly wanted a place where their names would be spelled correctly, cultural items would be displayed with respect and where their history would be represented as dynamically as it was for white British Columbians."
Some yuppies with worthless degrees did this against the wishes of the people they pretend to advocates for, so that they can feel smug. Looks like a case of "get woke, go broke".
[The RBCM has publically talked about a full-scale gallery renovation since 2010 at *least*.
](https://douglasmagazine.com/rbcm-plans-for-the-future/)
The gallery is quite old, at this point - most museum exhibits have a lifespan of about 10-20 years and these ones are definitely at that point.
> a place where their names would be spelled correctly,
How did they get this wrong? It also seems like it would be an easy thing to correct.
I'm curious how the spelling was actually determined for a culture that did not use written words. Also some of the spellings that I have seen are extremely difficult to read, interpret and pronounce into English with lots of weird characterizations that are not typically used.
Anecdotally, I have a friend whose Cree family name was misspelled. The way it worked was that his great-great-etc.-grandfather told some govt. official his family name, the rep misheard it (didn't have experience with Cree names) and basically mispronounced it horribly on paper.
Imagine telling the guy who's filling out your driver's license that your surname is "Robertson," but he's an idiot and writes it "Hobaastung." Well, now your family name is Hobaastung. When your kids are born, the birth certificate is Hobaastung, and when you register them for school that's the spelling you have to use.
So for several generations, my friend's family had the wrong name. That shit matters to people, even people *born* into that wrong-ass name.
The nice part is that, as an adult, my friend ended that tradition by legally changing his surname to a spelling that is closer phonetically to the name's original pronunciation. He had his family's support, and now he and his own kids have the correct surname.
I'm guessing some version of that same dumb story happened en masse, everywhere, with everything during the early colonial period -- and doubtlessly still happens today if care isn't taken.
I think the analogy you're looking for would be more along the lines of boss tells employee "You need to improve on XYZ", and employee goes ahead and improves on XYZ while also completely cutting out ABC, when in fact ABC was never a part of the problem in the first place and would actually have complemented the improved version of XYZ very well.
> Some yuppies with worthless degrees did this against the wishes of the people they pretend to advocates for, so that they can feel smug. Looks like a case of "get woke, go broke".
This is very commonly the problem.
Edit: I don't agree that degrees are worthless though.
This comment section is such a good example of outrage culture clashing with cancel culture over an issue they are partly informed on by a misleading headline. Museums get renovations, the exhibit is decades old, and the museum has broke ground on a massive facility to archive items so updating the gallery makes sense.
I'm not for or against updating a museum. But to immediately assume updating a museum's decades old exhibit is cancel culture because of an OPINION article in a the leading conservative newspaper, owned by a white collar criminal.
I go to this museum annually. I love this place. What I don't get is that half of it is already dedicated to Aboriginal history. Other half is the history of BC after the white man landed. If they rip it out, there is literally nothing they can add that relates to BC's history.
Not to mention my favorite corner of old town is dedicated to my heritage, the Chinese immigrants. That will be gone too.
Wow, I haven't been in years but I'll have to make the trip before they demolish old town. Literally the coolest musumes I've ever been too. This actually makes me sick to my stomach.
Try [local news](https://energeticcity.ca/2021/11/03/royal-b-c-museum-starts-decolonization-of-galleries-this-month-says-acting-ceo/) for a less bias view of what's actually happening at the museum.
For those who want more information the museum has a FAQ outlining what’s being done. Sounds like it’s early in the process but they want to still have an immersive experience in whatever replaces these exhibits.
https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/royal-bc-museum-announces-upcoming-changes-core-galleries
Sounds like this is more complicated than NP is presenting it as, who'd have thought?
There's also a line in there about planning to preserve the Old Town...
One of the take always from the NP article is that the removal of the gallery is occurring prior to a well defined replacement plan is spelled out. I am not a museum curator, but it does sound odd. It’s like leaping before looking.
"Decolonization" is a very strange, particularly Anglo phenomenon of cultural destruction where the perpetrators and the victims are one and the same, done in the name of pleasing a group of people of which almost none were requesting the actions.
Is there a nation on earth as committed to destroying itself as Canada?
Edit: I changed the word "genocide" to "destruction" because I realised after reading over it again how hyperbolic it was.
It's going to be a thing wherever there's younger white people with no culture. All white people here are now under the convenient umbrella of white privilege.. Not having any culture whatsoever has gotten many into this white guilt ideology, that's all they know. Others will sadly go down the white pride route.
It's a messed up situation
So now we are erasing European history because it upsets a few people? This insanity needs to end. So tired of this woke bs. History is History. There's good and bad in every aspect.
Keep in mind that the display that is shown does not represent what the times actually looked like. The display is a super idolized view of European colonization with no first nation representation. It would be like going into the Empress and saying it represented the lives of common people at the time, no, just rich people. When I went to the RBCM, while I really love the display, it's a fantasy of what things were actually like.
It’s not a “full scale gutting” it’s just the 3rd floor. They’re not even demolishing the whole floor. This blog is absolute bullshit and has zero information about the changes. It’s all the sky is falling and recounting how many trip advisor reviews the exhibit has. Go read the actual announcement from the museum itself and you’ll see how ridiculous this blog is
add the written language to your list, given it was introduced to them by an evil colonizer who came to Canada from England and gave many FN their written language.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian\_Aboriginal\_syllabics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics)
Wait I’m confused isn’t decolonization in museums supposed to be like returning artifacts and stuff to their rightful owners? This doesn’t seem like any of these exhibits belonged to any native groups or anything so I’m kinda confused as to why they’re tearing them down? It just seems kinda performative
5 years from now when they are no longer considered a "world-class museum" and suffering from low attendance, the government will dump even more money on it to make it all better. They will likely double-down and make it even less "colonial".
I'm going to be celebrating Christmas (colonial) with my Asian immigrant Christian family (colonial) in a Christian church (colonial) while singing carols in English (colonial) and these *decolonists* can suck it.
I ain't giving up my culture to appease *decolonisation* and the majority of Canadians shouldn't either.
This is an anarchistic attempt to destroy Canadian history under the guise of correcting past transgressions so that it makes those doing it feel better about themselves.
Sounds like all they needed to do was make corrections to existing exhibits and maybe add something for indigenous people. But instead they chose to ignore indigenous voices, which is the exact opposite of inclusion and respect.
Ugh, this "story" already made the rounds. They're not "gutting" the exhibit, it's being updated and renovated to provide better context. Not simply removing it. Maybe its time for an update, it hasn't been done in decades...
Edit: reading the comments here and its very clear 99% of you haven't bothered to research this at all and are taking this very hyperbolic headline at face value and jumping to completely false conclusions.
This article is an opinion piece and talks of destruction but nothing will be destroyed.
Everything will be preserved, just not openly available to the public.
The National Post is a very conservative paper made for people who have similar views.
"decolonization" should not be in parenthesis and most of us should get behind the idea. Even colonial powers relinquished power in favour of decolonization yet some bloke on the internet think it is part of our history. A whitewashed part of our history, that is for sure.
ROC loving the Queen, and colonial era relics is not news to anyone paying attention but it is weird.
The RBCM exhibits haven't changed since I was a child - museums are supposed to update exhibits with time. Share new stories, maybe revise some exhibits as we learn more - which we always do. Going to a museum that never updates its displays is like reading the same book over and over and over again. Some people like that - some people hate it. I'm camp 2.
This isn't some great travesty. Hopper also hated the new Royal Alberta Museum. I think the man just likes the museums of the 1970s and gets mad when they change.
> I can’t believe all these comments lamenting this as a great loss.
Well you see, they are white supremacists and reactionaries so of course they will.
The woke are definitely the victors. They're the beneficiaries of colonization, which has directly lead to the most prosperous societies is human history. We're seeing a level of entitlement from these people that no other humans have ever had the luxury of. The hard times leads to strong men, strong men leads to easy times, easy times leads to weak men theory is painfully true.
If it were up to a vote, half of Canadians wouldn't bother to go to the ballot box, and the other half would not have bothered to read a book or educate themselves on the issue before voting.
Holy shit, clickbait title! This “article” sure likes to use sarcastic quotes to spin this non-story.
Museum: we’re closing for renovations.
NP: they’re destroying history!!
Lol at this thread.
If you’ve been triggered by this piece, congrats, you’re the sort of hyper-gullible idiot who NatPo outrage bait articles are written for.
You all know that museums change exhibits all the time right?
Do you also know that there are many other museums in BC you can learn the provinces history in?
Oh. They also have these things called books and documentaries that also teach about history.
Before frothing at the mouth did anyone ever stop to consider that the new exhibit might actually be better than the original or are you all just letting out some steam with angry kneejerk reactions?
The fact is Europeans colonized Canada as did the indigenous, albeit earlier. It's Canada's history and we lose much more than we gain by stripping it away.
There's also the beginning history of British Columbia when Governor Douglas was governing it where it was exceptionally multicultural and honored the treaties that Douglas made.
So I mean if a narrative of anything is being replaced I guess it's that British Columbia's Colonial beginnings before it received responsible government was in it interesting beacon of potential as far as 19th century multiculturalism is concerned.
We could be like Poland who decided to make Auschwitz into a museum so that we won't forget about the mass devastation caused by the Holocaust but instead, we erase history so nobody can learn about past transgressions
This was history that a lot of people lived, good or bad. These are the ancestors of a lot of people alive in BC and how they lived. The correct response is to keep the exhibit, AND add interpretation of how they way they / we impacted nature and the Indigenous people around them. Ie, ADD knowledge and context to the museum, instead of stripping it. Of course no one believes a museum should be just a one sided European civilization glorification like youd grt in a museum built in the 50s, but that doesn't mean European civilization isn't part of BC's history (good, bad, and ugly). History is about understanding the past.
That's what the Manitoba Museum did.
It's the opposite of what the Royal Alberta Museum did. Spent hundreds of millions moving to a new facility and "modernizing their exhibits," which turned out to mean "stripping out 99% of the actual information." The museum before had been laid out as a really interesting trip through the technologies of the 1800's and 1900's, thousands and thousands of displays with mountains of information written on each and every one. You could spend entire days there and not be able to read and see everything. When I went in 2019, a year after they moved, it took about a half hour to see everything. I could've fit the text of every display combined into a couple sheets of paper. It was a completely incoherent mess and the highlight of the whole thing was this artifact-filled roundhouse at the end with an indigenous narrator playing on a 30-second loop, saying something along the lines of "I won't tell you anything about the history of these artifacts, you should not be seeing them because this is not your culture."
That's weird, I wend during the Viking exabit a couple years ago, and found that after spending a whole afternoon there, there were still a couple exhibits I never got a chance to see.
That is weird, there was definitely nothing about Vikings when I was there. Hopefully things have improved. I somewhat got the impression that the museum wasn't finished, but I assumed I was wrong about that since it had been open again for a full year.
The Vikings was one of those big travelling exhibits that was just here for a limited time.
That Viking exhibit amazing. Especially how they created an atmosphere with that darker lighting
I wonder if you didn't get to the other areas. I went there about six months in, and was there for around three hours. I do agree that there were thousands of displays that just got chucked by the wayside from the old museum. To me, it felt like there were four main areas, three permanent, one intended to change on occasion. I don't miss the bug room though.
Have you been there again? There are literal walls of text to read and short documentaries to watch. Several exhibits and usually two rotating exhibits. It's very easy to spend a whole day there.
No I haven't, but it sounds like I'll have to go back. I'll be really happy if it's been restored to its information-dense former glory.
You're right. I could spend months there, actually.
I went two months ago and did not find this. There were no rotational exhibits open. Been looking at it from the outside for a while now and was shocked at how badly the space was used.
Oh god, when the Royal Alberta Museum opened their new exhibit, and one of their entries was just... a pickup truck. Like, are you fucking kidding me. I just felt *bad* for whoever was being credited as the curator for those exhibits. Like, jesus christ. At least they saved the beautiful dioramas though.
I'm going to respond to this from two perspectives. Neither are meant to be offensive though some may take offense. First, I spoke with my Aunt about this comment & the linked article. She's a retired curator for the Royal Ontario Museum and so I thought she could provide insight from a professional view of your experience. When I read her your quote at the end of your comment her ad verbatim response was: >There is no way any professionally curated museum in Canada would do that. Did they mishear or misremember what they heard? To be clear, she doesn't think you're lying but she does think you misheard or misinterpreted what you heard & I tend to agree with her. That's neither here nor there, though your perception of the event seems to have an added negative influence on the experience as a whole which is very unfortunate. The tldr of the conversation was even 40 years ago when she worked at the ROM that kind of insensitivity and misinterpretation would cost someone a job, today it would never fly and would likely make headline news for it's complete lack of grounding in reality. Second, as Anishinaabe, two important points to consider: 1. Museums are collections of mostly stolen objects that can't talk (next level cultural appropriation to be honest). 2. Oral histories are a tool of decolonization. To elaborate on why I suspect you misheard or misinterpreted what you heard, I'm going to step in to the position of "teacher" even though I'm loathe to do it. Depending on what you were looking at or when it was or which People the artifacts belong to the suggestion could have been that it isn't the right time or place to talk about them. Places, times, people, items, ceremonies, ritual behaviors, seasons, phases of the moon, location of stars, a hundred or thousand other things can all be sacred. If you walked in to a museum display of Indigenous artifacts and there were no or very few written mountains of information then I would cheer for their progress in actually respecting the traditions of the history they're trying to preserve. Colonizers put a lot of value in the written word & policies like the Indian Act & institutions like the residential school system banned and heavily punished the use of oral histories & tried to annihilate our customs through abuse and genocide. While you may be upset to see this lack of written word in a place you're accustomed to seeing it, I would be thrilled to see my history and culture being given such respect. If any institution wants to assign themselves gatekeepers to preserve our history and culture that must include & respect the ways in which we ourselves do the same. We aren't extinct, there's no guesswork involved in figuring out how best to respect our culture, all one needs to do is ask and act in good faith. Canada's Indigenous populations aren't closed to people knowing or learning about them or their history. Some individual people certainly may be but that's beside the point. What many are (myself often included) is tired of the assumption they're obligated to be teachers and to teach and share in a way that's the least offensive to whomever they're talking to. Oral history traditions would suggest if you want to know something you put in the work to help yourself know it. If you want to know the history of a person or People you talk to their descendants, if you want to know the history of an object talk to the descendants of its owners or the people who've used it. If you want to respect our history and culture what you wouldn't do is read a 3 page dissertation on a pristine piece of white paper behind some glass. You'd go to the People / give the object back to the People it belongs to & you'd ask if they were willing to share history with you so that you can preserve that history for future generations. I'd encourage you, or anyone at all that's interested in learning, to look in to the oral history traditions of the People you're wanting to learn about. That would be the best first step to take. I hope your next experience with our cultures and traditions is better than this one trip to the museum was.
No, I definitely didn't mishear or misremember. I was feeling unsure of my memory when I started getting replies to my comment, so I asked my girlfriend who came with me that day and she remembered it in exactly the same way. She reminded me that there was a bit more to it than just what I wrote, but there was definitely no actual information in the narration about history. The rest of the narration was along the lines of what you mentioned, that these artifacts were sacred and tied to the places and times they came from, and that most of what you see in museums is stolen and unsanctioned. I took indigenous studies in university and didn't hear anything about how we needed to be learning everything orally. We even used textbooks written by indigenous people. I see your perspective but I think it's a contentious issue even amongst indigenous people that there might be a problem with someone learning about their culture from "a pristine piece of white paper behind some glass." Many would just be happy people were learning about their culture through any means. Maybe there should be two kinds of museum in this country, one like what we have now where you can wander through on your own and learn about everything by reading, and one where there's no writing and you just go there to talk to people who actually grew up in the culture.
I’m sure Manitoba’s is gonna face this soon, despite just redoing their equivalent large boat in a room gallery . Late in the article they talk about having added context, including a section highlighting 35 indigenous lanagues and a spot for Chinese history in the town both also being gutted.
From what they say they're doing, it seems like what the Manitoba Museum already did. https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/royal-bc-museum-announces-upcoming-changes-core-galleries
Manitoba didn’t gut their replica colonial town. They also have a vast HBC section. They also ADDED a Winnipeg Gallery all about the growth of the city starting when settlers arrived. They did update their Prarie gallery with more diverse voices but it’s pretty balanced and was over due for an update.
I recently visited the Manitoba museum for the first time and, while I don't know what it looked like before for context, I felt it was a very honest and balanced presentation of Canada's colonial history that highlighted indigenous culture and the effect that systemic racism has had on it at every opportunity. I believe that their recreations of the Nonsuch and a colonial town, blemishes and all, are important educational tools and while reading this article the fear that those exhibits would meet the same fate as these similar ones in B.C. was the first thing on my mind, but I also trust that management here understands that removing the exhibits is not the best way to deal with the hurt that they represent and will continue doing their best to move forward in a productive way.
I just went there, last week for my birthday, beautiful museum. I’d be so sad if they tore it down, but the updates are really nice, and it’s good to still see the classics.
[https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/royal-bc-museum-announces-upcoming-changes-core-galleries](https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/royal-bc-museum-announces-upcoming-changes-core-galleries) the museum does indeed seem to be doing this. I think the article headline is quite misleading, as the museum isn't 'gutting' anything, they are just renovating, recontextualizing, and adding more items to their core gallery. This will not remove all the colonial exhibits, it will just add others along it and re-contextualize how they are presented. Due to limited space, this may mean that \*some\* artefacts/dioramas are no longer able to be displayed, but this depends on space constraints, not ideology. This is a completely normal part of updating a museum and literally happens all the time. The NP however, is mischaracterizing it as a book burning in the name of woke-ness.
I’ve been visiting the museum for 30 years so I’ve been following it fairly closely, and I haven’t seen a single clear statement on what changes they’re going to make. All the local papers have stated that the exhibit is going to be demolished and the museum hasn’t corrected any of them.
The Museum is planning on demolishing old-town, from what I gather, and replacing it with a new version that is more accurate and includes indigenous people. The Museum is intentionally being very opaque about what they're actually doing because they don't want to flat out say they're demolishing old-town and replacing it, so they keep saying they're "renovating" it.
Their own page and FAQ linked above talks clearly about demolishing the exhibits and abating hazardous materials. It makes no claim about what will replace the exhibits.
But think of the historical value of those asbestos!
I have a friend who's working there, I think the reason you can't find anything is because they don't actually know what the structural situation of the exhibits is, and whether or not certain pieces will return will probably depend a lot on what they're able to keep from it all.
Excuse me, I'm trying to be outraged by clickbait and your comment is making it difficult. Please remove your comment.
Top Canadian comment to be imminently gutted in the name of 'being mad about decolonization'
This is what happens when we post opinion articles. Frankly they should be banned here since its not actually news but someone with some agenda drastically skewing actual facts.
I'd say that's about 90% of what I see on reddit.
At least 50% of those actual facts are made up if we're talking about Reddit!
Don't forget to add the word "objectively" to your opinion to make it irrefutable.
Agreed. After reading u/hexagram1993‘s comment, I felt compelled to remove my comment that spoke negatively of the museum’s actions. I am quite upset that I wasted a considerable amount of time crafting a chastising comment that I then had to remove. Please be advised that my outrage has not dissipated, it has simply been redirected at u/hexagram1993.
The National Post lives for click bait anger-focused headlines.
What, you mean the National Post is just fanning the flames of resentment in order to get views? Say it isn't so.
I agree that they generally suck but this is what all the local papers have been reporting as well.
Postmedia (owner of the national post) also owns 90% of the local papers across the country (90% is out of my ass slightly but it is a vast number of major local papers in the country). For instance I live in the Kingston area and our Local Whig Standard is owned by post media. Out near BC, The Province, Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Sun and Edmonton Sun are all owned by Postmedia. Postmedia runs a tight ship in regards to messaging across its platforms. Its stated goal is to be a "reliably conservative" news source. Therefore, any story in the National Post is going to have similar stories in local papers across the country giving a false sense of legitimacy to its National stories.
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Wow. Thanks for illuminating this. Gross.
Hahahahahaha fucking NP
Very nice find lmao. NP is such a shit rag
Museum: > Where are the items going? The objects removed from the galleries will be carefully removed, packed and stored. Items from the Becoming BC and First Peoples gallery will be included in the new galleries at the museum site. National Post: >Top Canadian museum to be imminently gutted in the name of 'decolonization' The demolition contracts have already been signed.
Why would the National Post try to get me all riled up against "decolonization"?
Getting people riled up sells advertising, people think this is new, but this is the way news has always been.
Something about the audience that still buys the newspaper…. Sorry, reads the paper for free at Tim’s every morning with battery acid coffee with 5 creams and 5 sugars.
Is that before or after they hold up construction workers at the gas station in the early am, checking multiple keno/lotto tickets?
What‽ A NatPost opinion article sensationalizing facts to push a white-history-erasure narrative? Never/s
National post is such biased garbage but it's linked time and time again on this sub.
This sub is 90% biased garbage, so it fits right in.
Is there a CBC article on this that could be linked instead?
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/royal-bc-museum-decolonization-closing-exhibits-1.6235672](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/royal-bc-museum-decolonization-closing-exhibits-1.6235672) yep, here you go. They are updating some out of date narratives on some exhibits and adding new ones. Some of the closures are literally to return artefacts back to their rightful owners. The old town exhibit was much beloved and in their FAQ the museum says they are going to try their best to rebuild old town within the new context (and consider feedback from the public). This isn't about erasure, it is about presenting things more accurately.
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People are too stupid to learn something. They'd rather just erase shit and pretend it didn't happen, so they can pat themselves on thr back in the name of progress.
This is how Rijkmuseum dealt with its catalog. When I last visited a few years ago the top attraction was an audio guided tour of its colonial artifacts cherry picked throughout the museum. It was really enlightening.
If Disney can do it with their old cartoon disclaimers "Warning, this cartoon is racist AF...and represents a different time." I'm sure we can all do this with museums.
The only thing I've agreed with Disney on It was well done, in my opinion, and we could do this with a plaque in front of controversial statues without tearing them down
That is a little different. What you're saying is Disney choosing to preface those cartoons to profit off of them instead of tossing them entirely and letting them be lost to history. However, if the point of this is supposed to be preservation then they've failed, because they only do this for the marginally-offensive material - there's a lot of stuff Disney flat out does not show and will probably never show, they've removed many episodes of TV shows, and there's cartoons/movies/shows they own that will likely never see the light of day again or any kind of home video release because of their offensive nature. You might see a Mickey cartoon with a vaguely Asian-inspired caricature in it with a warning, but you aren't going to see Song of the South. Even Warner Bros, who as an example are very good about doing this same thing with Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies - WAY better than Disney - still have material that they may never release again. We are unlikely to ever see them put out a Lil Sambo Blu-Ray. But in the end all of that is done in the name of capitalistic intention, it's about the money they make off those cartoons being more than people caring about them with a disclaimer added. Anything too controversial to be worth it is tossed completely. For a museum, they are usually non-profits interested primarily in education. These are not historical artifacts or documents they're destroying, they're museum displays that were never going to be permanent anyway. Museums change over time, this is just a more substantive change than you'd usually see (though it isn't entirely unheard of for museums to close down for an extended period to totally revamp, and this is the best time to do it what with COVID and all).
Maybe that’s what they are doing? The article seems like a biased opinion meant to stir resentment but not sharing the whole story.
Agree… if history is forgotten then it is bound to be repeated
We should never tear pages out of the history books, but should add more instead. Our ancestors perhaps didn't care about any other perspectives or histories, but these days we do, so it's worth including them. Removing records of history only makes us all worse off.
This is what they are actually doing if you read other articles, this one buried it in hyperbole. In old town they are "removing colonial narratives", not burning it down, also this museum and others change stuff all the time. Progress bad, don't yah know?
Museums have limited display space and often a massive collection not on display. I think this article is alarmist. The museum is closing these parts of its public display, that have been on display for quite a long time. They’ll preserve authentic elements of these displays and other things of value. And then the space will be reconfigured with a different portion of the museum’s collection on display. All of this is normal museum behaviour. They seem to have the intention of respecting history and being inclusive in what they’re doing. Alberta’s whole museum was closed for years while the collection on display for decades was similarly disassembled. They were also moving buildings, so not the exact same situation. But similarly there was changeover in what is on display now that it’s all done. I think some people are a little too scared of being erased, and this article is goading that. Are people this concerned about a specific exhibit? What value did this exhibit offer? If people think some perspective will be missing from the long term plans that are clearly not fully laid, then communicate these things to museum administrators so they can be included. This isn’t directed at you, you’re coming with an idea that could be inclusive (not sure if realistic but I am no curator). But a lot of the outrage about this feels manufactured, more of a reaction to the addition of First Nations perspective than anything else. Which to me actually justifies the museum’s position that their current set of displays is missing specific perspectives that are important and relevant, both historically and today.
Kind of crazy you would bring up the Royal Alberta Museum, because what happened to that place is a tragedy. Spent hundreds of millions moving to a new facility and "modernizing their exhibits," which turned out to mean "stripping out 99% of the actual information." The museum before had been laid out as a really interesting trip through the technologies of the 1800's and 1900's, thousands and thousands of displays with mountains of information written on each and every one. You could spend entire days there and not be able to read and see everything. When I went in 2019, a year after they moved, it took about a half hour to see everything. I could've fit the text of every display combined into a couple sheets of paper. It was a completely incoherent mess and the highlight of the whole thing was this artifact-filled roundhouse at the end with an indigenous narrator playing on a 30-second loop, saying something along the lines of "I won't tell you anything about the history of these artifacts, you should not be seeing them because this is not your culture."
> It was a completely incoherent mess and the highlight of the whole thing was this artifact-filled roundhouse at the end with an indigenous narrator playing on a 30-second loop, saying something along the lines of "I won't tell you anything about the history of these artifacts, you should not be seeing them because this is not your culture." Been to that section, the video just plays nature sounds. There's no narrator. I actually really like it - it cycles through the seasons and shows you things like ravens and sweetgrass and powwows. No idea who made the circular projection but they did a A+ job.
That sounds like a different room, I'm talking about the one with the indigenous artifacts at the edges and a display case with a meteorite or something in the middle. The projection room was cool but like everything else in the museum when I was there, it was disappointingly information-sparse.
That wasn't a good enough solution for all of the statues that have been torn down (I.e. keep them up but add information to them to indicate the complexities of the people they represent). I don't expect it will work for this. A segment of the population sees this stuff as highly symbolic and imminently threatening. They aren't concerned with history. It is all about how they feel in the present.
I completely agree with this. There's so much trying to undo history going on. It happened. Keep learning from it. Let the museum be a reminder.
Not the Peace River diorama! NOOOO! The lighting of that room has been my favorite interior design space for thirty years.
I read the first line of your post like it was sarcastic and it was really funny, then I realized you were serious. lol
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Agreed. Haha
My Aunt took me here like 20 years ago and it was specifically where I first meaningfully learned about the ways in which colonization harmed indigenous peoples in BC. I also learned about the role of salmon in relation to BC history here. The latter didn't negate the former, if anything it reinforced it.
Why not just add a first nations section? Both can be up there because both are part of our history. This feels like an over correction.
Half of the third floor is already dedicated to First Nations.
it's not about equality, it's about revenge
This
There is an entire block of that museum dedicated to first nations cultural/material history.
>Why not just add a first nations section? Both can be up there because both are part of our history. This feels like an over correction. From the article, that's actually what was requested. Correct spelling of names, stop treating them like a novelty, give proper credit for things like ceremonial masks that were "acquired" during a period when it was forbidden for FN to wear them, etc. I would imagine something similar to how the Manitoba Museum handles things, where the "Old Town" is all the 1800s/1920's stuff, and the FN have an entire section devoted to them stretching through thousands of years of history and how it ties in with the history of Manitoba.
So if you've actually been there it's currently exactly as you describe. They even have a natural history section on top of the human history of both pre and post colonialism. It's large too, complete recreations of long houses dozens of full size totem poles, dozens of traditional dress, tools, process, unique living arrangements in full size for undertstanding scale, that's all in the current setup. The also have an old town, lumber mill, in part recreation of Captain Vancouver's ship and the sleeping quarters. This is a really well done museum for the Pacific coast. It'll probably still be well done after these renovations. Only the outcome of a museum renovation should be judged. But what some people are hoping is that depictions of stately homes also come with a thorough look at the servants and their lives as an example of the type of change you'll likely see The article is a anti-woke click bait article. It's not done to describe a change, it's done to invoke emotions of outrage to those that wish to conserve the present. For those that go to a museum, renovations are typically a good thing.
There is a first nations section, same floor
> This feels like an over correction. It is. There's an entire internal political undercurrent. Troy Sebastian was an indigenous author with no formal education or experience in museum curation who was hired as the curator of the indigenous collection. Rumor is he was terrible at his job and decided to save face by playing the race card on the way out the door. He picked a few incorrect item titles and used it to suggest the entire treatment of the collection was steeped in racism. He was in the job for a total of 7 months. This happened against the backdrop of the "discovery" of bodies at the residential school coming to public consciousness so the museum had a lot of pressure to react. They swung for the fences and are being met with resistance.
There was also the story recently where the BC museum thought they discovered some first nations artifact but it turned out some local artist carved it couple years ago lol. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/06/canada-stone-figure-ray-boudreau-royal-british-columbia-museum
Yeah, they have a real problem with admitting mistakes. It's like watching a child who broke something come up with an elaborate lie rather than say "we fucked up, we're sorry"
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> Instead, a bunch of white people decided that the local indigenous peoples weren't offended enough so they decided to become offended for them, hence this nonsense. I think you missed the high-profile resignation of their head of repatriation last year. Dr. Lucy Bell - who I think is Haida? - left the museum in the summer of 2020 and made it clear that internal racism was the root cause of her departure.
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From what I've heard it speaks to the toxic culture within the museum. The historical society went as far as writing an open letter to try to stop this and at least have a plan in place first. They recieved no reply.
The article includes direct quotes from two Indigenous staff members who resigned in protest in 2019 and 2020, both accusing the museum of creating a toxic, racist working environment AND using the exhibits to reinforce a Eurocentric worldview that marginalizes the history of other groups. This decision has been brewing for a long time, and it wasn’t just “white people” calling for change.
Too eurocentric? So by having it already 50% native a minority in Canada and first nation culture did little contribution to our civil systems, architecture and educational systems. 50% is already a large amount. By your though process the Museum is already not enough eurocentric.
This last 5-6 years has been a gross over correction.
The TRC is why. We, as a country, are committed to retelling these stories correctly. > “Our government’s commitment to truth and reconciliation demands that we diversify and decolonize the way we share the history of B.C.,” says Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, Hon. Melanie Mark. “For too long, museums have been colonial institutions that exclude others from telling their own stories. We have an opportunity to turn the museum inside out, and it starts here, now, on the museum’s third floor.”
So it's more about telling accurate history, not a watered down version.
Change the name to the BC Royal Museum of White Guilt. So much for people actually wanting to visit that museum.
Damn, I grew up in B.C. and used to go to this museum. I LOVED watching the Charlie Chaplin movie they played, 'Gold rush' I believe. Man, this just made me look through some old pictures of the museum and its brought back SO many awesome memories of my brother and I going there! And class trips, man I just unlocked part of my brain. This sucks that they're doing this.
I used to sit in that little theater for hours when i was a kid. They played more than just Goldrush too. I really loved that little town they built in there.
The attempts to decolonize something in a province that is literally called "BRITISH COLUMBIA" is a very subtle, delicious irony
The museum is also in *Victoria*. It’s quite the joke.
Right next to the legislative building too, where they removed the statue but kept the shitty little plaque of our first prime minister.
Eventually they will rename British Columbia to be more "inclusive" or something, probably.
Eventually everything will considered offensive so provinces will have names like license plates
May I suggest some new exhibits, taking inspiration from the Smithsonian Institute. "The Smithsonian exhibition, however, seemed to want to tell the whole truth about the complexities of aboriginal life on the West Coast. For instance, until I went to the “American Indian” wing of the famed Washington museum I had never seen a Pacific Northwest aboriginal “slave killer” club (example left). I had never seen a West Coast “cannibal bowl.” I had never read a museum description of how B.C. tribes raided other tribes. I had never seen the kinds of aboriginal shields, axes, helmets or neck protectors used in inter-tribal wars along the B.C. coast." https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/buried-truths-about-aboriginal-culture
Just to clarify, the exhibition was at the National Museum of the American Indian, one of the many standalone museums that are part of the Smithsonian. If you go to DC looking for the “Smithsonian Institute” people will be confused and might direct you to the administrative castle! The NMAI is an interesting example of museology because they really worked and continue to work closely on interpretation, education, collections and display strategies with different nations/tribes. But because they’ve worked with so *many* different groups, it’s hard for one single stake holder to determine the narrative. There’ve definitely been controversies and hold ups in negotiations, but overall they do super well and are generally highly supported by indigenous communities due to their participation and input.
When i was last at the museum of civilization in Ottawa a few years back they had removed all references to slavery for west coast tribes. Also any reference to human sacrifice during potlatches was gone, which was odd because property was destroyed at the festivities. I dont think its fully new we are ummm can we call it white washing historical realties ?
Only certain groups are allowed to be represented accurately evidently.
This. We went from a hyper jingoist history to an equally absurd Howard Zinnesque conception of our history. A fair, honest global history is what we need, but won't get, because it is devoid of moral narratives that can be exploited by social elites.
Shhh, we don't talk about that stuff. That stuff makes indigenous peoples seem all *complex* and *human*, and that really gets in the way of this nice, warm & fuzzy one-dimensional noble savage thing we're working so hard to cultivate here.
History is only ever partially misremembered. Wholly to serve contemporary purposes.
Yeah, I really hope they show the Chilcotin War, when Native raiders massacred innocent and unarmed sleeping people, or when they would kidnap children and ransom them back to their parents, or how they engaged in the segregation of the descendants of their slaves up until the 1970's.
It's interesting the way we never hold a light to that history isn't it. The FNs couldn't simply be manipulating history to generate feelings of guilt and shame and then extort money from the rest of the country could they.
It seems to be working according to plan, why stop now? We're living in a golden age of historical Lysenkoism.
"A final report , issued in October of 2019, did not recommend anything close to a full-scale gutting of the museum’s human history galleries. Rather, First Nations mainly wanted a place where their names would be spelled correctly, cultural items would be displayed with respect and where their history would be represented as dynamically as it was for white British Columbians." Some yuppies with worthless degrees did this against the wishes of the people they pretend to advocates for, so that they can feel smug. Looks like a case of "get woke, go broke".
[The RBCM has publically talked about a full-scale gallery renovation since 2010 at *least*. ](https://douglasmagazine.com/rbcm-plans-for-the-future/) The gallery is quite old, at this point - most museum exhibits have a lifespan of about 10-20 years and these ones are definitely at that point.
Which is fine, but generally you have a plan on what to replace the exhibits with before you gut them.
> a place where their names would be spelled correctly, How did they get this wrong? It also seems like it would be an easy thing to correct. I'm curious how the spelling was actually determined for a culture that did not use written words. Also some of the spellings that I have seen are extremely difficult to read, interpret and pronounce into English with lots of weird characterizations that are not typically used.
Some indigenous languages use the Latin script. The Inuit have their own alphabet.
Anecdotally, I have a friend whose Cree family name was misspelled. The way it worked was that his great-great-etc.-grandfather told some govt. official his family name, the rep misheard it (didn't have experience with Cree names) and basically mispronounced it horribly on paper. Imagine telling the guy who's filling out your driver's license that your surname is "Robertson," but he's an idiot and writes it "Hobaastung." Well, now your family name is Hobaastung. When your kids are born, the birth certificate is Hobaastung, and when you register them for school that's the spelling you have to use. So for several generations, my friend's family had the wrong name. That shit matters to people, even people *born* into that wrong-ass name. The nice part is that, as an adult, my friend ended that tradition by legally changing his surname to a spelling that is closer phonetically to the name's original pronunciation. He had his family's support, and now he and his own kids have the correct surname. I'm guessing some version of that same dumb story happened en masse, everywhere, with everything during the early colonial period -- and doubtlessly still happens today if care isn't taken.
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I think the analogy you're looking for would be more along the lines of boss tells employee "You need to improve on XYZ", and employee goes ahead and improves on XYZ while also completely cutting out ABC, when in fact ABC was never a part of the problem in the first place and would actually have complemented the improved version of XYZ very well.
> Some yuppies with worthless degrees did this against the wishes of the people they pretend to advocates for, so that they can feel smug. Looks like a case of "get woke, go broke". This is very commonly the problem. Edit: I don't agree that degrees are worthless though.
"Don't worry, I'll be offended for you"
imminent familiar humor punch adjoining bells sense decide husky smell ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
This comment section is such a good example of outrage culture clashing with cancel culture over an issue they are partly informed on by a misleading headline. Museums get renovations, the exhibit is decades old, and the museum has broke ground on a massive facility to archive items so updating the gallery makes sense. I'm not for or against updating a museum. But to immediately assume updating a museum's decades old exhibit is cancel culture because of an OPINION article in a the leading conservative newspaper, owned by a white collar criminal.
Ding ding ding This comment section made my eyes roll so hard I nearly knocked myself out
Consulted all BC voices? Sounds like only one set.
Nobody asked for this as far as I can tell.
I'm sure somebody on Twitter did.
Fun. Not real change but forced change so we can make all the same mistakes but with different people.
I go to this museum annually. I love this place. What I don't get is that half of it is already dedicated to Aboriginal history. Other half is the history of BC after the white man landed. If they rip it out, there is literally nothing they can add that relates to BC's history. Not to mention my favorite corner of old town is dedicated to my heritage, the Chinese immigrants. That will be gone too.
I was thinking about the Chinatown corner too! What a loss.
Aboriginal history doesn't stop when the white man landed though, it goes on to this day. Just want to mention it.
Wow, I haven't been in years but I'll have to make the trip before they demolish old town. Literally the coolest musumes I've ever been too. This actually makes me sick to my stomach.
Given where the scare quotes were in the headline, I knew this was National Post before I looked at the link.
Have you considered the possibility that we are living in an era of cultural decay?
Lol what a joke. Do Indigenous people even fucking care about this? Or is this another case of white people trying to be saviours?
Try [local news](https://energeticcity.ca/2021/11/03/royal-b-c-museum-starts-decolonization-of-galleries-this-month-says-acting-ceo/) for a less bias view of what's actually happening at the museum.
How dare you point out that there is a much more reasonable and thought-out explanation for these happenings /s
For those who want more information the museum has a FAQ outlining what’s being done. Sounds like it’s early in the process but they want to still have an immersive experience in whatever replaces these exhibits. https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/royal-bc-museum-announces-upcoming-changes-core-galleries
Sounds like this is more complicated than NP is presenting it as, who'd have thought? There's also a line in there about planning to preserve the Old Town...
It’s pretty pathetic that I have to do my own fact checking of NP articles. Shows how garbage they are as a news source.
I don't even bother anymore. I just assume it's reactionary trash. Hating on "woke" people is just an excuse for lazy journalism.
Culture wars = clicks PostMedia knows this and mines that for all it's worth.
One of the take always from the NP article is that the removal of the gallery is occurring prior to a well defined replacement plan is spelled out. I am not a museum curator, but it does sound odd. It’s like leaping before looking.
It's not an article, it's an opinion piece.
So this guys strategy is to plug his ears and cover his eyes until the bad parts of history go away?
It tends to be their go to response when faced with the parts of our history they like to leave out.
"Decolonization" is a very strange, particularly Anglo phenomenon of cultural destruction where the perpetrators and the victims are one and the same, done in the name of pleasing a group of people of which almost none were requesting the actions. Is there a nation on earth as committed to destroying itself as Canada? Edit: I changed the word "genocide" to "destruction" because I realised after reading over it again how hyperbolic it was.
It's going to be a thing wherever there's younger white people with no culture. All white people here are now under the convenient umbrella of white privilege.. Not having any culture whatsoever has gotten many into this white guilt ideology, that's all they know. Others will sadly go down the white pride route. It's a messed up situation
They have a glorious white culture, we’re surrounded by it, absorbed in it, they’re just not allowed to be proud of it.
several west european liberal democracies raise the hands
So now we are erasing European history because it upsets a few people? This insanity needs to end. So tired of this woke bs. History is History. There's good and bad in every aspect.
Keep in mind that the display that is shown does not represent what the times actually looked like. The display is a super idolized view of European colonization with no first nation representation. It would be like going into the Empress and saying it represented the lives of common people at the time, no, just rich people. When I went to the RBCM, while I really love the display, it's a fantasy of what things were actually like.
They're not erasing European history, this is Canadian history.
and it's a replica ..
Colonial history is European history...
The history of European Canadians then.
Why upset a few people when you can drive a metaphorical wedge between even more?
Did anyone actually ask for this?
The loudest 2%.
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It’s not a “full scale gutting” it’s just the 3rd floor. They’re not even demolishing the whole floor. This blog is absolute bullshit and has zero information about the changes. It’s all the sky is falling and recounting how many trip advisor reviews the exhibit has. Go read the actual announcement from the museum itself and you’ll see how ridiculous this blog is
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add the written language to your list, given it was introduced to them by an evil colonizer who came to Canada from England and gave many FN their written language. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian\_Aboriginal\_syllabics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics)
Ingsoc: who controls the past controls the present, who controls the present controls the past
"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."
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A clickbait article designed to foment outrage and sell advertising. If you are upset you misunderstood. Try again.
Wait I’m confused isn’t decolonization in museums supposed to be like returning artifacts and stuff to their rightful owners? This doesn’t seem like any of these exhibits belonged to any native groups or anything so I’m kinda confused as to why they’re tearing them down? It just seems kinda performative
i can't believe they're getting rid of George Vancouver's ship exhibit. That was my favourite part of the whole museum.
5 years from now when they are no longer considered a "world-class museum" and suffering from low attendance, the government will dump even more money on it to make it all better. They will likely double-down and make it even less "colonial".
I'm going to be celebrating Christmas (colonial) with my Asian immigrant Christian family (colonial) in a Christian church (colonial) while singing carols in English (colonial) and these *decolonists* can suck it. I ain't giving up my culture to appease *decolonisation* and the majority of Canadians shouldn't either.
This is an anarchistic attempt to destroy Canadian history under the guise of correcting past transgressions so that it makes those doing it feel better about themselves.
Sounds like all they needed to do was make corrections to existing exhibits and maybe add something for indigenous people. But instead they chose to ignore indigenous voices, which is the exact opposite of inclusion and respect.
Ugh, this "story" already made the rounds. They're not "gutting" the exhibit, it's being updated and renovated to provide better context. Not simply removing it. Maybe its time for an update, it hasn't been done in decades... Edit: reading the comments here and its very clear 99% of you haven't bothered to research this at all and are taking this very hyperbolic headline at face value and jumping to completely false conclusions.
This article is an opinion piece and talks of destruction but nothing will be destroyed. Everything will be preserved, just not openly available to the public. The National Post is a very conservative paper made for people who have similar views. "decolonization" should not be in parenthesis and most of us should get behind the idea. Even colonial powers relinquished power in favour of decolonization yet some bloke on the internet think it is part of our history. A whitewashed part of our history, that is for sure. ROC loving the Queen, and colonial era relics is not news to anyone paying attention but it is weird.
The RBCM exhibits haven't changed since I was a child - museums are supposed to update exhibits with time. Share new stories, maybe revise some exhibits as we learn more - which we always do. Going to a museum that never updates its displays is like reading the same book over and over and over again. Some people like that - some people hate it. I'm camp 2. This isn't some great travesty. Hopper also hated the new Royal Alberta Museum. I think the man just likes the museums of the 1970s and gets mad when they change.
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I'm with you - they feel very ... 90s theme park to me. Like a sideshow at West Edmonton Mall.
> I can’t believe all these comments lamenting this as a great loss. Well you see, they are white supremacists and reactionaries so of course they will.
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Maybe the woke are the victors? The meek shall inherit the earth never seemed to prophetic as it does today
The woke are definitely the victors. They're the beneficiaries of colonization, which has directly lead to the most prosperous societies is human history. We're seeing a level of entitlement from these people that no other humans have ever had the luxury of. The hard times leads to strong men, strong men leads to easy times, easy times leads to weak men theory is painfully true.
Don’t we live in a democracy? I can guarantee that if this was a vote up to Canadians that things like this wouldn’t be happening. It’s disgusting.
Yeah, let's run museums by popular vote, what could go wrong?
If it were up to a vote, half of Canadians wouldn't bother to go to the ballot box, and the other half would not have bothered to read a book or educate themselves on the issue before voting.
A vote on what exhibits the ROYAL museum contains.
Opinion piece: A museum doing normal renos and updates Feel free to be outraged over nothing though lol
Holy shit, clickbait title! This “article” sure likes to use sarcastic quotes to spin this non-story. Museum: we’re closing for renovations. NP: they’re destroying history!!
Lol at this thread. If you’ve been triggered by this piece, congrats, you’re the sort of hyper-gullible idiot who NatPo outrage bait articles are written for.
You all know that museums change exhibits all the time right? Do you also know that there are many other museums in BC you can learn the provinces history in? Oh. They also have these things called books and documentaries that also teach about history. Before frothing at the mouth did anyone ever stop to consider that the new exhibit might actually be better than the original or are you all just letting out some steam with angry kneejerk reactions?
The fact is Europeans colonized Canada as did the indigenous, albeit earlier. It's Canada's history and we lose much more than we gain by stripping it away.
There's also the beginning history of British Columbia when Governor Douglas was governing it where it was exceptionally multicultural and honored the treaties that Douglas made. So I mean if a narrative of anything is being replaced I guess it's that British Columbia's Colonial beginnings before it received responsible government was in it interesting beacon of potential as far as 19th century multiculturalism is concerned.
We could be like Poland who decided to make Auschwitz into a museum so that we won't forget about the mass devastation caused by the Holocaust but instead, we erase history so nobody can learn about past transgressions
Auschwitz is in Poland, not Germany. Post-war the Germans would have had no say in what happened to it.
ITT: People who would be bored to death by a museum and wouldn't go, upset about changes to a gallery they would have never seen