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The Adventure of Exhibit Planning IX

By: Graham Iddon


April 6, 2015

Voices from the Engraver is launched!

Museum panels

Introductory panels, including a full printing plate of stamps and a sheet of $1000 bills.

It’s was an exciting and anxious time: a sort of combination of Christmas morning and a doctor’s appointment. Our little team from the Museum stood in the education space of the Sherbrooke Nature and Science Museum on a chill November morning while the exhibition technicians assembled our finished exhibition. Yes, finished. It was the first time we’d seen the panels with artifacts attached, sat in the photo booth, tried the physical interactive or even seen how the exhibition zones related to one another. For months we’d been accustomed to seeing the exhibition as a white board scribble or a rendering on a computer monitor. To walk through the full-scale exhibition was at once surreal and giddily exciting.

Exhibition panels in a museum

The main panel units are 8 feet tall and 4 feet along each side.

Museum display case

Each “exhiblet” is an offshoot of the main exhibit story and is housed in a case designed to look like a drafting table.

Exhibition panels in a museum

Voices is comprised of 14 separate display units including interactives.

Prior to their first assembly, travelling exhibitions can harbour any number of nasty surprises that are just waiting to jump out and yell “Boo!”. Things just don’t always work as well in practice as they do in the imagination - that’s life. So when you see four exhibit builders standing in a circle scratching their chins and staring at a hinge assembly, you know something said “boo”. In the case of Voices from the Engraver, there was no such chin scratching. There were some expected minor glitches with the timeline touch screen and some adjustments needed to the way the panels fit together, but it was remarkably (dare I say, amazingly) trouble-free. We were so very pleased.

A machine for drawing patterns

This works just like the old Spirograph® game; you can move one paper from station to station to create a highly complex pattern.

Bank notes and stamps in cases

These are real stamps and notes, all relating to how Canadians represent themselves on stamps and bills.

Children operating a touch panel

Visitors place their photos into a variety of changeable graphic features and colours to make their own stamps and bills.

Part of making this exhibit as trouble-free as possible comes from the very traditional nature of the basic assembly. Not that there isn’t a lot of high technology, but it is all housed in frameworks that wouldn’t surprise any cabinet maker from the last century. Why use vacuum assisted, electromagnetic torque inducing titanium fasteners (OK, I made that up) when a simple wooden gate latch will do? Seriously, though, keeping things simple is a good practice in this business, especially when your exhibit is likely to be 2500 kilometres from the nearest titanium electromagnetic vacuum fastener supplier.

So, here it is. What do you think? We think it’s beautiful, but we’re a bit biased.

A computer monitor showing dates

The history of engraving timeline includes historical contexts; most of the items are illustrated with Canadian stamps.

Engraving tools

Most of these tools were used by Canadian engravers in the engraving of our bank notes and stamps.

Stamps and images of stamps

Where references were made to specific stamps, enlargements were printed to aid the viewing of such tiny artifacts.

As of publication, Voices will be at its 3rd venue, the Galt Museum & Archives in Lethbridge, AB. Its second run was at the Musée régional de Kamouraska, north of Québec City, where it was set up without a hitch. Please see the travelling exhibitions page on this website for more info. Thanks to the exhibitions staff at the Sherbrooke Nature and Science Museum and, of course, our hard-working curatorial and exhibition teams.

We want to hear from you! Do you have an idea for a blog post you’d like to see?
Content type(s): Blog posts

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The Museum Blog

May 5, 2022

Between tradition and technology

By: Graham Iddon


Collage, man at an easel, paintings of birds and a goose illustration with comments written on it.
What was proposed was a complete about-face from the philosophy behind recent security printing. If photocopiers could easily deal with the colours and designs of the current series, then the next series should be bold and simple.
Content type(s): Blog posts
April 21, 2022

Teaching the green economy

By: Adam Young


From windmills and solar panels to electric cars, signs of the green economy are all around us. Check out our resources for how to teach about the green economy.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): Business and careers, Economy, Geography, Science, Social studies Grade level(s): Grade 07 / Secondary 1, Grade 08 / Secondary 2, Grade 09 / Secondary 3, Grade 10 / Secondary 4, Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5 and CEGEP
April 4, 2022

Talk to your kids about money

By: Heather Montgomery


Collage, ceramic pig on background of a bank book and a stamp folder with kids on it.
Introduce important financial skills to your children, and help them plan for their futures with free resources from the Bank of Canada Museum and others.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): Financial literacy Grade level(s): Early childhood / Kindergarten, Grade 01, Grade 02, Grade 03, Grade 04, Grade 05, Grade 06, Grade 07 / Secondary 1, Grade 08 / Secondary 2, Grade 09 / Secondary 3, Grade 10 / Secondary 4, Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5 and CEGEP
March 3, 2022

Teaching inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic

By: Heather Montgomery


COVID-19 has had an unprecedented effect on the economy: closing businesses, driving down demand and interrupting supplies. With news stories and popular culture addressing inflation and supply chain issues, now is the perfect time to explain this key economic concept to your high school students.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): Economy Grade level(s): Grade 09 / Secondary 3, Grade 10 / Secondary 4, Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5 and CEGEP
February 3, 2022

Queen of the bank notes

By: Graham Iddon


Few of us have ever met her, and it’s likely none of us are even remotely related to her. Yet, Canadians have carried her picture in their wallets for generations now. She’s Queen Elizabeth II and has been our monarch for over 70 years.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): History
December 22, 2021

New acquisitions–2021 edition

By: David Bergeron


The Bank of Canada Museum is responsible for the National Currency Collection, and part of its mandate is to foster and develop that collection. Despite the challenges of collecting during a pandemic, curators at the Bank of Canada Museum have acquired some unique artifacts—including some that document the pandemic itself.
Content type(s): Blog posts
December 2, 2021

The true value of money

By: Graham Iddon


Photo collage, old bank notes and coins, gold nuggets and a computer component.
What is money—when you really stop to think about it? To understand how money works, and what it ultimately represents, we need to strip it down to its very basic function.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): Economy Grade level(s): Grade 07 / Secondary 1, Grade 08 / Secondary 2, Grade 09 / Secondary 3, Grade 10 / Secondary 4, Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5 and CEGEP
November 16, 2021

The 1911 silver dollar

By: David Bergeron


In front of a set of coins in a case, two coins, one lead, one silver, each with identical wreaths of maple leaves.
The 1911 silver dollar has a history to match its prestige, and it now has a permanent home in the National Currency Collection of the Bank of Canada Museum.
Content type(s): Blog posts
October 21, 2021

Moving mountains

By: Graham Iddon


Collage, bank note details, green, face of middle-aged woman, mountains and large number 20.
The $20 bill of 1969 was the prototype of the Scenes of Canada note series. Yet, as more notes were designed, the theme—and the $20 note itself—would change.
Content type(s): Blog posts
September 16, 2021

A mythic metal: Some stories of gold coins

By: Krista Broeckx


In 1896, three enterprising men struck gold in the Klondike region of the Yukon. Their story is just one of many that illustrates the allure of gold through the ages.
Content type(s): Blog posts
September 2, 2021

Virtual Worlds. Real Economies.

By: Adam Young


A cartoon astronaut waves in front of a logo of the game.
The economies in modern, complex video games can teach gamers a lot about decision making and financial literacy.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): Economy, Social studies Grade level(s): Grade 09 / Secondary 3, Grade 10 / Secondary 4, Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5 and CEGEP

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