The Royal BC Museum rings in the New Year with an exciting slate of engaging and illuminating January events, along with the opportunity to visit the museum and archives by donation.
Community Days runs from Saturday, January 2 to Saturday, January 9, giving everyone the opportunity to enjoy the permanent and temporary exhibitions and galleries of the Royal BC Museum by donation.
January 2 also marks the beginning of Letter Writing Week, a throwback to what’s fast becoming an “old-fashioned” form of communication. We will provide the paper, pens, envelopes and even stamps to encourage visitors to stop by our letter writing stations, sit down and pen a note. Who knows, the letter you write could one day become part of our future archives.
The January 6 Live @ Lunch will see Royal BC Museum Curator of Vertebrate Zoology Dr. Gavin Hanke share how the museum and archives acquires whale specimens for our research collections, and the unique challenges associated with preparing and storing these large animals. This free talk begins at noon.
A series of events exploring music and the sounds of nature culminates on January 15 and 16 with Music for Natural History, a live performance that gives voice to the taxidermied birds and mammals, human-made trees and painted landscapes that form the Natural History Gallery.
Through careful cataloguing, research and transcription, the sounds of the flora and fauna of the dioramas have been made into two naturalistic compositions that provide performers and audiences an entry to forgotten ways of listening and sounding. The performances begin at 7 pm and are $25 per person/per night.
On Sunday, January 17, the Friends of the BC Archives presents The De Cosmos Enigma, a talk from Amor de Cosmos biographer Gordon Hawkins. Hawkins’ new biography brings BC’s second premiere to focus by exploring the eccentric life of the bombastic visionary. Admission is $5 and the talk begins at 2 pm.
James Daschuk’s book Clearing the Plains examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate and politics played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald’s ‘National Dream.’ Daschuk will speak about this and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day at An Evening with James Daschuk, on Wednesday, January 27 at 7 pm. Registration is required for this free event.
For more information on these and other events visit royalbcmuseum.bc.ca.