A new year for the Museum
This year, we’ve decided to forgo the traditional end-of-year wrap-up for our first blog of the year. Instead of bragging about our visitor statistics and the popularity our programming (both great!), we’ll talk about what’s coming up for early 2019.
However, I’m afraid I am going to immediately cheat and go back to last fall when we held a vernissage for our current special exhibition. Called A Noteworthy Woman, the exhibition is about the life of Viola Desmond and the new $10 dollar bill that features her. Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn A. Wilkins, our Director Ken Ross, Russell Grosse of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia and Wanda Robson, sister of Viola Desmond, spoke to a crowd of 130 guests at this, our first exhibition opening. In the audience were community stakeholders as well as colleagues from national museums, including the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. A Noteworthy Woman will be on display here at the Museum until May 12, which more than qualifies it as a 2019 event. Check back periodically about future programming to accompany this exhibition.
The irrepressible Wanda Robson, sister of Viola Desmond, was a very special guest and a big hit at the opening event of A Noteworthy Woman.
A Noteworthy Woman has a number of artifacts from Viola’s life that have never before been exhibited.
Museum Director Ken Ross takes Wanda Robson and Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn A. Wilkins on a tour of A Noteworthy Woman.
Warming up this Winterlude
And now on to the future—well, the Museum’s near future, at least. Our agenda for 2019 includes participating in a number of local community events and festivals over the year. The first big festival is Winterlude, the National Capital Region’s big winter fest taking place from February 1 to 18. There’ll be plenty of action on nearby Sparks Street with live entertainment on the Capital Pride stage. Outdoor food, ice sculptures and chilly carnival games will line this popular pedestrian mall, and we’ll be right there every Winterlude weekend with activities for the entire family. Making puppets, building your own tea brick or doing some hands-on learning with a Métis fur trapper are just a few of the activities visitors will enjoy as they come out of the cold and into the Museum this February.
Educator and trapper Archie Martin returns in 2019 with his travelling museum of furs and trapping gear.
February is also Black History Month, and on February 23 we’re inviting you and your family to learn about Viola Desmond’s life, work and the inspiration she has become for Canadians. Join poet Nadine Williams as she reads her poem, Viola’$ Ten. Then, in a poetry-writing workshop, you will have a chance to write your own verse about someone you find inspiring.
Fraud, social justice and keeping the kids occupied
During March Break, many families will be looking to museums to provide activities for kids, and we’ll be doing just that with story times and conducted tours of A Noteworthy Woman. Our hands-on crafts, such as making your own bank notes, are money-themed activities designed to entertain and inform. Special guests this March will include our friends from the Royal Canadian Mint and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who will answer your questions about coins and counterfeits. If it looks like March’s special guests reflect a theme, that’s because it’s also Fraud Prevention Month, an event that couldn’t be more appropriate for us. Check the Museum website next month for details or, better yet, follow us on Facebook!
Counterfeiting is always a popular subject during Fraud Prevention Month. You get to handle the real thing (well, the fake thing).
But enough of events. We are just getting underway with our educational programming and will introduce two new school programs this spring.
- Inflation Busters is a game-based program for students in grades 10–12. How do you plan for the future or run a business when you don’t know what things will cost? Get a grip on inflation in this fun and informative game.
- Also coming off the program assembly line is Trading Planets. For grades 4–8, it places students in an interplanetary economy where they learn that trading without a common currency is very difficult indeed.
Who knew that learning about money and economics could be fun? We did!
I doubt your credit cards will work off planet Earth, so you’ll need “spacebucks” from our Trading Planets program.
We look forward to seeing you at any of our events or programs this season. Or just come in to see the Museum anytime! Keep informed about everything that’s happening here on our webpage and stay in touch by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
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
The Museum Blog
December 11, 2018
Tea brick Currency
By: Raewyn Passmore
Wars have been fought to control its trade and gifts of it have been made to ensure peace. It has even been used as currency.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
December 7, 2018
Paul Berry is Retiring? Say it Ain’t So!
I can’t remember when I first met Paul, but it must have been shortly after his arrival in 1984. It seems like yesterday … No, it doesn’t, actually.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
November 8, 2018
Money of the First World War
By: Paul S. Berry
In Europe, gold and silver coins largely disappeared from circulation as they were hoarded or as governments used the metal for the war effort.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
Subject(s):
Economics,
History,
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
November 2, 2018
Money’s Magnificent Moustaches
By: Graham Iddon
We would like to present some of history’s great moustaches—as seen on bank notes.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
October 31, 2018
The Devil is in the Hairdo
By: Graham Iddon
Have you ever seen eyes in the bark of trees? Wolves in the clouds? How about spooky things in bank notes?
Content type(s):
Blog posts
October 2, 2018
Canada Financially Comes of Age
By: Paul S. Berry
The First War Loan included bonds in denominations of up to $100,000. They matured in ten years and paid interest at 5 percent.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
October 1, 2018
#AskACurator Day 2018
By: Graham Iddon
What would you ask a curator? Your chance was September 12, when the annual Twitter event #AskACurator Day took place on computers, tablets and mobile phones all around the globe.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
August 30, 2018
Happy Birthday, Dear Bank of Canada Museum!
By: Graham Iddon
A little grade 8 math revealed that, since our last full year of operation, we have increased Museum attendance by 91 per cent (pause while the audience claps).
Content type(s):
Blog posts
June 13, 2018
Sculptor Dora de Pédery-Hunt
Dora’s work is as familiar as the change that jingles in your pocket. In all likelihood, you have come in contact with her work while using coinage to pay for your morning cup of coffee.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
May 8, 2018
Operation Fish
By: Robert Low
Operation Fish was the largest movement of physical wealth in history.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
Subject(s):
Economics,
History,
Social studies
Grade level(s):
Grade 06,
Grade 07 / Secondary 1,
Grade 08 / Secondary 2,
Grade 09 / Secondary 3,
Grade 10 / Secondary 4,
Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5
