Celebrating a bang-up first year—by the numbers
Wow, cake decorating has come a long way! It was tasty, too.
Forgetting a birthday is an unforgivable sin in most families. But at the Museum, we were so caught up in our Canada Day programming that thoughts about our first birthday got pushed to the back of our collective mind. Luckily, somebody at the office was on the ball and we held a brief celebration with the whole Bank Communications Department the following Tuesday morning. There was plenty of cake and plenty to celebrate.
In 2017, in the first 6 months of operation, we welcomed 40,000 people through our doors; in our first full year our visitor numbers pushed past 70,000. That’s a 91 per cent over the numbers from our last year before closing (pause while the audience claps). And for icing on the birthday cake, we logged nearly as many guests for our 2018 Canada Day event as we clocked for those coming through the doors during our grand opening.
Our first birthday was the hottest Canada Day in recent memory. But we still welcomed over 2,700 visitors.
Both of those times, and for all the times in between, our Visitor Services Team rose to the challenge. Most of our first year’s events drew—easily—double the numbers of their 2012 counterparts, as we welcomed people for a broad variety of activities and themed programming on topics from tulips to counterfeiting. Police officers, artists, trappers, currency experts and our own curators popped in to help make the programming a success with speeches, displays and tours. For Doors Open 2018, our numbers were a whopping four times the figures we saw the last time we participated in this event, with visitors showing a surprising appetite for the guided tour format. Growing interest in guided tours has prompted us to add them to our 2018 summer season schedule. Drop by and check them out.
During our Winterlude events, fur trapper and educator Archie Martin displayed trapping artifacts while he told stories about the fur trade.
RCMP Corporal John McMath manages some very curious crowds at the counterfeit kiosk during Fraud Prevention Month.
Artist and teacher Monique Martin giving an origami workshop at our Canadian Tulip Festival program.
Running a museum is always going to be a learning process, but year one is especially intense. It’s when you learn that demonstrating the stain resistance of polymer bank notes results in guides with blue fingers; it’s how you figure out just how quickly complimentary ice cream can disappear on the hottest Canada Day on record; where you see that people really, really like to touch props and artifacts (particularly soft, furry ones); and how you discover that in an age of do‑it‑yourself museum tours, lots of folks still like a little knowledgeable guidance. Next year’s learning curve should be slightly flatter. Or not...
Over 6 metres long and displaying 400+ artifacts, our digital touch wall came online in December. It’s one of the biggest of its kind in North America.
The touch wall might be cool, but visitors still love to handle artifacts when they get a chance. Touching a salt brick at the Tulip Festival.
Our favourite visitors were the Ice Hogs, Winterlude’s own furry celebrities.
Nobody takes a selfie where they’re not having fun: Canada Day 2018.
OK, I just tooted our horn for over 600 words and I did it mostly with statistics (we are a central bank museum, after all). Still, thanks for your patience with our shameless bragging and an even bigger thanks for your wonderful patronage during our first year of operation. You deserve a slice of cake as well, but I’m afraid we finished it all.
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The Museum Blog
October 28, 2013
Director’s chair : A little help from our friends
By: Ken Ross
In one of my favourite cinematic moments, the 11 year-old chess prodigy, Josh Waitzkin, imagines sweeping the pieces off a chess board in order to help him think more clearly about an important game of chess. It is a championship game and he is on the brink of winning it all.
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October 7, 2013
The Cases are Almost Empty
By: Graham Iddon
For the first time since they went into their cases in 1980, over 2000 coins, notes, beads and shells are coming back out. The Museum’s curatorial staff are busily pulling panels from cases, placing coins into specially prepared drawers and sliding notes into acid-free Mylar envelopes.
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September 24, 2013
Curators Begin Removal of Artifacts
By: Graham Iddon
The doors were barely closed following Big Top Farewell event before Chief Curator Paul Berry and his team began emptying display cases that had been sealed shut since 1980. The biggest task involved removing more than 2500 bank notes from the room we knew as Gallery 8.
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September 16, 2013
Notes from the Collection : 2013 RCNA Convention Winnipeg
By: David Bergeron
Another convention of the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association (RCNA) wrapped up in July. This year the convention was held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was the first time in over thirty years that the RCNA Convention made a stop there.
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September 6, 2013
First Artifacts to Leave the Museum: And they were big
By: Graham Iddon
Before the museum closed for renovations on 2 July, technicians began to remove the heavier artifacts in late May. First to go was the strong box. Built of ¼” thick welded steel plates, this trunk was used by the Bank of Upper Canada in Toronto between 1821 and 1866.
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August 30, 2013
Director’s chair : “I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello.”
By: Ken Ross
Most of us know the first part of Alexander Graham Bell’s take on opportunity: “When one door closes, another one opens…” What we often don’t recall is the second half of that quote, where he says: “…but we so often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
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July 30, 2013
Remembering Alex Colville (1920-2013)
By: Raewyn Passmore
The Staff of the Currency Museum was saddened to learn of the passing of artist Alex Colville who died on 16 July at his home in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He was 92. One of Canada’s most celebrated painters, Colville is not as well-known as a sculptor but if you look carefully through your pocket change you might just find an example of his work.
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June 21, 2013
Farewell to the Currency Museum c.1980
By: Graham Iddon
The roots of the Currency Museum go back to 1959 when the then Governor of the Bank of Canada, James Coyne, proposed the idea of establishing a currency collection that would reflect the colourful monetary history of Canada. By the time the go-ahead was given in 1963 by Coyne’s successor, Louis Rasminsky, the collection’s mandate had been expanded to include world monetary history, banking and production artifacts and a numismatic library.
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