Holding it Together

Holding it Together

The Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) is part of the federal Department of Canadian Heritage, created to promote the preservation of Canada’s cultural heritage. Every two to three years, CCI develops and hosts in Ottawa a symposium on a conservation topic.

For a week in October conservator Lisa May attended Symposium 2011 – Adhesives and Consolidants for Conservation: Research and Applications.

Internationally attended, the symposium covered the newest research, techniques and products for a wide range of adhesives and consolidants used in conservation. Papers and posters addressed use of these products on virtually every type of material that conservators encounter.

A dedicated poster session and generous breaks allowed for opportunity to speak to the presenters as well as mingle with the over 200 participants. In addition, one afternoon was dedicated to tours of Ottawa institutions.

The last day of the symposium was at CCI where the paper authors, as well as other conservators and scientists working at CCI, demonstrated their new research, techniques, and applications. There were over 30 participants presenting 25 minute demonstrations, with each offered four to five times during the day to accommodate all those in attendance. -Lisa May

The opportunity to attend this symposium has allowed for Lisa to return with new contacts and up-to-date information we will use in conservation treatments. In particular, there are some Natural History specimens awaiting our attention, about which she gleaned pertinent suggestions on materials and techniques. Below are three photos Lisa took during the demonstration day.

Six sheets of paper, the top three darkens to cream, and the bottom three white. All have various tape samples on them.

Original and oven aged self-adhesive tapes and labels samples.

Close up on somebody's hand as they repair a torn parchment.

Repairing a parchment tear with gelatine and goldbeater’s skin.

A small container with pieces of newspaper next to three red leaves. Both types of objects have charred edges.

Parylene coated newspapers and leaves.

The Hong Kong Veterans, 1941-1945

Part II

During the Battle of Hong Kong, 290 of the 1,975 Canadians defending the island were killed in battle. After the Canadians were captured by the Japanese on Christmas Day, 1941, Canadian soldiers were taken into a brutal period of captivity, first in Hong Kong and then in Japan. Deprived of food and sanitary conditions, 267 more Canadians died as Prisoners of War.

A rough, handmade chess set with red and platinum coloured pieces lined up in starting positions.

In Hong Kong the Winnipeg Grenadiers suffered through long days of hunger and boredom. Woodworking contests were set up to keep minds and hands busy. A very recent donation to the Manitoba Museum includes one of these wooden artifacts: a hand-carved chess set inlaid with bamboo. This belonged to Lieutenant Richard Maze, who signed up for the Saskatchewan regiment with Corrigan (see Part I here): they were both later moved to the Winnipeg Grenadiers. The complete set features tiny chess pieces (about 2 cm tall) that include thin pegs to secure them to the board. Lieutenant Maze received the set from a fellow prisoner who constructed it from wood scraps found around the Kawloon POW Camp, Hong Kong. This little chess set is an example of how creative activity and friendship helped the prisoners withstand deprivation in such difficult conditions. Thanks to Rose-Ann Lewis and Ann Maze for the donation of Lieutenant Maze’s Hong Kong Veterans items to the Manitoba Museum.

 

Image: Chess set made by Winnipeg Grenadier POW, Hong Kong, ca. 1942-1944. H9-37-547-a-ag. Unless otherwise noted, The Manitoba Museum holds copyright to the material on this site.

The Canadians were later moved to a POW camp in Japan, where many worked in mines and they were limited to less than 800 calories of food a day.

The Japanese government recently offered a full apology for the treatment of Canadians in these POW camps. (Read a CBC article covering the apology, here).

Reactions among Canadians are mixed, with some accepting the apology while others say it’s too little, too late. What do you think?

Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Curator of History

Roland Sawatzky joined The Manitoba Museum in 2011. He received his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Winnipeg, M.A. in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina, and Ph.D. in Archaeology…
Meet Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Musing About Macoun

Today I got to study a plant specimen that had been collected 100 years before I was born in 1872 by one of the most famous Canadian botanists, Dr. John Macoun. Dr. Macoun accompanied the engineer Sanford Fleming to look for a railroad route through the Canadian west and determine the area’s agricultural potential. Macoun collected thousands of plant and animal specimens on his journeys, which involved travelling either by horse or canoe. He collected over 100,000 plants in his lifetime including over 1,000 that were new to science. In total 48 new species were named after him, including Macoun’s buttercup (Ranunuculus macounii).

Touching Macoun’s handwritten label made me wonder what western Canada looked like back then. Just acres and acres of grasses and fragrant wildflowers, and thousands of birds, antelope and deer I imagine. Or maybe it just felt big and empty and utterly overwhelming.

Looking down a railway track with grassy banks on either side.

Macoun and Fleming were trying to determine the route for the western railroad.

Rolling grassy banks with occasional trees at the edges.

Macoun travelled along the Carlton trail through the Brandon Sand Hills.

A stringy plant with small green leaves growing in a sand dune.

I can’t imagine the difficulties he encountered trying to do his field work.  Lugging everything you would need for months on pack animals or wagons must have been difficult to manage.  Being a scientist, he also had to protect his plant press full of specimens from insects and moisture, water being a botanists’ greatest enemy.  Many a brave explorer had his precious specimens go completely moldy.  The botanist David Douglas ended up eating part of his plant collection so he wouldn’t starve to death!  The field work that I do is posh in comparison; I drive on paved or gravel roads and usually stay in hotels or cabins!  Furthermore I don’t have a whole chapter at the end of my reports recounting the loss of life that occurred during the field work.  Sanford Fleming’s “Report of progress on the explorations and surveys up to January 1874” contains such a chapter recounting the loss of 19 men during his survey: seven died in a forest fire, four drowned while canoeing the Ottawa River and eight died in a steamer wreck on a shoal!

 

Image: Dr. Macoun collected a specimen of Hairy Bugseed in 1872 that I have been studying.

I also mused about the end result of his journeys. Macoun’s report on the fertility of the prairies convinced Canada to send immigrant farmers to this land. How would he have felt knowing that his report paved the way for the almost complete destruction of the grassland that he had wandered on? That plants and animals that had once numbered in the billions would be reduced to mere handfuls less than a century after his arrival? Perhaps it would have made him happy, knowing that the land was settled with European farmers and ranchers. But I suspect that that happiness would be mingled with at least some regret that no one would ever again experience the wild west as he had.

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Curator of Botany

Dr. Bizecki Robson obtained a Master’s Degree in Plant Ecology at the University of Saskatchewan studying rare plants of the mixed grass prairies. After working as an environmental consultant and sessional lecturer…
Meet Dr. Bizecki Robson

The Sloth’s Tale

By Dr. Graham Young, past Curator of Palaeontology & Geology

 

Ever since the Museum’s Earth History Gallery opened in the early 1970s, visitors have been struck by the appearance of a giant skeleton near the end of the gallery. Many children (and perhaps more than a few adults) have thought that it is a dinosaur, but it is in fact a mammal from the much more recent past, a replica of the giant ground sloth Megatherium americanum.

Megatherium was a huge ground-dwelling creature, distantly related to the modern tree sloths. Ground sloths were a very successful group, with fossils known from many parts of South and North America (including western Canada), but sadly they disappeared in the Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions, along with other wondrous creatures such as the woolly mammoth and short-faced bear.

Looking down towards a museum gallery where a large skeleton is posed on its hind legs. In the distance is a skeleton of a creature with a very bulbous rounded shell.

The Megatherium (foreground) and glyptodont (background), viewed from the Earth History mezzanine.

Looking up at a large mounted skeleton posed on its rear legs.

Looking directly up from standing under a large skeleton of a creature with its forearms held up.

There are many different ground sloths known, but Megatherium was the largest, described as “weighing up to eight tons, about as much as an African bull elephant.” It walked on all fours (with a gait similar to that of a giant anteater), but could rise on its hind legs, supported by the huge tail, to browse on the trees that apparently formed the main part of its diet. Our sloth is shown in this sort of pose, though it lacks a tree at present. Although ground sloths lived across both American continents, Megatherium itself is known only from South America.

Our plaster cast of a Megatherium skeleton is, of course, much newer than the Pleistocene. But it is very old in human terms, so remarkably old that it could be considered as an artifact of a long-past scientific age. It is far older than our current Museum building, much older than the first Manitoba Museum that was located in the Winnipeg Auditorium, older than the Manitoba Legislative Building; in fact it is nearly the same age as the Province of Manitoba! The Megatherium and its close colleague the armoured glyptodont have been companions for a century or more, and both arrived at our Museum by a circuitous path.

But let me begin the sloth’s tale at its beginning.

Megatherium is among the best known of ground sloths, with dozens of fossils collected in South America and shipped to Europe from the 18th Century onward. Many specimens apparently came from the banks of the Luján River near Buenos Aires, Argentina, and were in collections and on exhibit in cities such as Paris, Madrid, and London. The first formal scientific description was produced by the great French scientist Georges Cuvier, in 1796. In the 1850s, a young American scientist, Henry Augustus Ward, made a detailed study of Megatherium, visiting collections in Paris and London among many other places. After his return to Rochester, New York, he became a professor at the University of Rochester, but also founded Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, a company that sold scientific specimens, replicas, and materials.

Ward got started on the casting and selling of fossil skeletons very early. His company was among the first to produce casts for sale to the many new natural history museums that were then being developed, and the giant Megatherium was one of his “star attractions.” His catalogue advertised that a full skeleton consisting of 124 different casts could be purchased for $250, “packed not painted” but including a replica tree.

A black and white photo of an old museum. On the ground floor are various display cases as well as a large mounted skeleton posed on their hind legs. A second floor balcony encircles the room's perimeter.

The Redpath Museum c. 1893, with the Megatherium prominently exhibited toward the far end of the gallery. (photo: McCord Museum)

A black and white photo of an old museum taken from a second floor balcony surrounding the room. On the ground floor below are various display cases as well as a large mounted skeleton posed on their hind legs, seen from behind.

View of the Megatherium from above, c. 1893 (photo: McCord Museum)

In Montreal, a museum for McGill University was planned from the 1860s onward, to exhibit collections developed by the world-famous Professor William Dawson. This facility, funded by and named for the industrialist Peter Redpath, was opened in 1882. It was primarily to serve as a resource for the university’s faculty and students, but secondarily for the education of the people of Montreal.

Dawson had long corresponded with Ward concerning the acquisition of particular items, so it is not surprising that a description of the original museum includes:

“Entering the Redpath Museum, the visitor saw at the back of the ground floor a handsome lecture theater with seats for 200 students… To the right of the entrance, a staircase … led to the main floor or “Great Museum Hall.” Henry Ward’s imposing cast of the British Museum’s megatherium (a giant sloth)–set up by his partner Howell and a status symbol for new museums–distinguished this floor, which displayed paleontological, mineralogical, and geological specimens.”
A black and white photo of an old museum. On the ground floor are various display cases as well as a large mounted skeleton posed on their hind legs at the far end of the room. In the foreground is a large four legged creature's skeleton with a bulbous, rounded shell. A second floor balcony encircles the room's perimeter.

The Redpath today is a wonderful old-fashioned natural history museum, but it is also rather pocket-sized in comparison with the huge museums of Europe. The Megatherium occupied a considerable proportion of its limited floor space.  Several years later, it was joined by the armoured glyptodont, also apparently supplied by Ward’s. Thus, that museum’s main hall was dominated by replicas of giant extinct mammals.

But how did these fascinating and historic replicas become migrants once again, moving westward from Montreal to Winnipeg? In the 1960s there must have been a push to add other creatures such as a dinosaur to the Redpath’s exhibits, and the only way to do this was to replace the large pieces that filled its space (that part of the Redpath is now occupied by a tyrannosaurid dinosaur, among other exhibits).

 

Image: The Redpath in 1925, showing both the glyptodont and the Megatherium. (photo: McCord Museum)

But how did these fascinating and historic replicas become migrants once again, moving westward from Montreal to Winnipeg? In the 1960s there must have been a push to add other creatures such as a dinosaur to the Redpath’s exhibits, and the only way to do this was to replace the large pieces that filled its space (that part of the Redpath is now occupied by a tyrannosaurid dinosaur, among other exhibits).

According to what my predecessor Dr. George Lammers told me, the Redpath was looking for a home for these enormous casts, and this just happened to come at a time when The Manitoba Museum was constructing its new building, with plenty of square footage that needed to be filled. So the skeleton casts were transferred to our Museum, and they were crated and shipped to Manitoba.

A black and white photo of plaster bones and casts of a large skeleton laid out in pieces in the floor of a mostly empty room.

On arrival at the Museum, the replicas were uncrated and examined. George told me that some repair was required as a result of damage in transit, and apparently the plaster bones were found to be stuffed with Reconstruction Era American newspapers! The Megatherium was re-mounted in a slightly different posture, and sadly lacks the “tree” on which it had appeared to browse for ninety years or so. But at least it had its friend, the glyptodont, nearby, and they seem to have happily settled into their new home, impressing (and sometimes scaring) the millions of children who have visited our Museum in the past forty years.

 

Image: The disassembled Megatherium, after uncrating but prior to assembly in the as-yet unfinished Earth History Gallery space.

On arrival at the Museum, the replicas were uncrated and examined. George told me that some repair was required as a result of damage in transit, and apparently the plaster bones were found to be stuffed with Reconstruction Era American newspapers! The Megatherium was re-mounted in a slightly different posture, and sadly lacks the “tree” on which it had appeared to browse for ninety years or so. But at least it had its friend, the glyptodont, nearby, and they seem to have happily settled into their new home, impressing (and sometimes scaring) the millions of children who have visited our Museum in the past forty years.

The glyptodont (above) and a detail of the bony plates that made up its protective shell (replica, in our example). Although it looks quite turtle-like, this creature was a mammal related to anteaters, sloths, and armadillos!

A mounted skeleton of a four-legged creature, with a bulbous, rounded shell and a thick tail.

The glyptodont. Although it looks quite turtle-like, this creature was a mammal related to anteaters, sloths, and armadillos!

Close up on a bony plate of shell, covered in irregularly shaped circular marks.

Detail of the bony plates that made up its protective shell (replica, in our example).

The name of our sloth is a bit complicated. The note that George left me calls it Megatherium cuvieri. This is what Ward had called it, and it was probably labelled as such when on exhibit at the Redpath. The species name “cuvieri” was, however, apparently based on a misguided attempt in the 1820s to re-brand Cuvier’s perfectly valid Megatherium americanum. Modern rules of taxonomic usage consider cuvieri to be a nomen illegitimum (“illegitimate name”), so we can  safely call it M. americanum.

Looking up into the large ribcage of a mounted Megatherium.

The sloth’s massive ribcage.

A large mounted skeleton posed up on its hind legs viewed from behind, as a long tail reaches down from its spine towards the viewer.

The sloth’s tail (of course!).

Given this cast’s critical role in the history of exhibits at two of Canada’s most important natural history museums, and its place in the story of the development of North American paleontology, what is the future of our sloth? Since we have been progressing with a gradual refurbishment of the Earth History Gallery, I would like to soon plan new interpretive materials that explain the tremendous story and significance of this exhibit. But in the somewhat longer term, wouldn’t it be wonderful if it could be re-mounted and given back its “tree,” perhaps serving a new role as the centrepiece for a larger exhibit of extinct ice age animals?