The city of Winnipeg turns 150 this year, with today being the anniversary of the first meeting of City Council! Join Curator of History Dr. Roland Sawatzky in the Winnipeg Gallery to learn some of the amazing stories shared in this space.
This series will continue throughout 2024, so keep an eye out for more #Wpg150 videos!
By Mika Pineda, Learning and Engagement producer for Youth Climate Action at the Manitoba Museum
Working with youth always fascinates me. Their enthusiasm, creativity, and eagerness to learn are contagious; even tackling a complicated topic such as climate change is something that they are ready to take on.
Climate change is a global concern. It is the long-term change in the Earth’s overall temperature, with massive and mostly permanent effects. You see, climate change solutions are not simple for many, but for youth, you would be surprised with what they can come up with given the opportunity.
Young people play an important role in combating the climate crisis. They hold power in making a difference in the community and accelerate climate action. With youth’s increasing awareness and knowledge about climate change, many institutions are stepping up to provide a platform for them to pursue their climate change advocacies.
Participants host events to raise awareness and start important climate conversations. ©Manitoba Museum
The Manitoba Museum launched its first-ever Youth Climate Alliance program in March 2023. The Youth Climate Alliance is a group of high school students, age 14-18, who work together to better understand climate change and its impacts. Through a series of workshops and training, the Youth Climate Alliance host events “by and for” youth.
Since then, the program has had two cohorts with each cohort tackling various issues surrounding climate change – from global and local impacts of climate change to clothing and fast fashion. The participants of the Youth Climate Alliance organize and develop an event that aims to raise awareness and start important climate conversations with their fellow youth and even adults.
The Climate Alliance works together to better understand climate change and its impacts. ©Manitoba Museum
Do you know what your clothes are really made of? The Climate Alliance does! ©Manitoba Museum
While climate change is a big and complicated issue that the world is facing right now, programs such as the Youth Climate Alliance help provide a glimmer of hope to many, and with the start of the new year, the next cohort of the program is also around the corner!
Join the Alliance! The next cohort of the Youth Climate Alliance is now accepting applications.
The first cohort of the Alliance tackled the topic of global and local impacts of climate change. ©Manitoba Museum
The second Climate Alliance cohort explored the issue of “fast fashion” and the industry’s impact on climate. ©Manitoba Museum
Giving Tuesday is the world’s largest generosity movement, unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world. In past years, Giving Tuesday has seen over $50 Million donated in Canada in just a 24-hour period.
This Giving Tuesday, which fell on November 28, the Manitoba Museum launched a goal to raise $50,000, with every dollar raised matched by the Carolyn Sifton Foundation. Each donation helps ensure the Museum remains a vibrant centre of learning for generations to come. But our work isn’t done: the Foundation has generously extended their matching deadline, meaning your donation today can make twice the impact.
The Museum provides that unique element of opening those doors into the past but also creating pathways that lead out into the future.
Mike Jensen, Programs and Volunteer Coordinator
Your support ensures the Manitoba Museum remains place that is accessible and welcoming to all in our
community. ©Manitoba Museum/Rejean Brandt.
Your support is critical to the success of so many different facets of the Museum’s work:
Our province is constantly changing and evolving. How does that reflect here at the Manitoba Museum? How can we be a place where people can come see themselves, and also feel like they are part of it, and part of the history going forward?
Dr. Amelia Fay, Curator of Anthropology and HBC Museum Collections
Your donation can help us continue to serve our community and remain a place of belonging and learning for all. We invite you to join the Giving Tuesday movement to help us to build a better future, together. Visit ManitobaMuseum.ca/Donate to contribute today.
Help us build a better future, together
The popular Indigenous Motherhood Tour is just one of the incredible public programs made possible through our donors. ©Manitoba Museum
By Carolyn Sirett, Senior Conservator
In 1973, the Nonsuch replica made its final resting place at the Manitoba Museum where it has become the largest artifact in the Museum’s collection and one of the most beloved. The preservation of this treasured little ship falls onto the shoulders of the Conservation department, whom over the past 50 years have taken great care in ensuring it sticks around for generations to come. So how does a team of trained Conservators look after a ship that has been stored indoors for the last fifty years?
Behind-the-scenes, weekly, monthly, and bi-annual maintenance tasks are completed, ensuring that Nonsuch stays in working condition. Regular cleaning of woodwork, removal of dust from decks, and polishing of metal components keeps everything in tiptop shape. Historical changes in footwear have also helped greatly in the preservation of Nonsuch. There are stories from the early 1970s of Conservators removing studs from high-heeled shoes that would get stuck in the deck seams almost daily. The flat-bottomed footwear of today’s fashion style has been much more sympathetic and favorable to the lasting conditions of the ship.
Assistant Conservator, Loren Rudisuela, polishes the brass on the tiller handle of Nonsuch. ©Manitoba Museum
Log books with maintenance records and drawings from the 1980s are still used today to track and record preservation tasks by the Conservation department. ©Manitoba Museum
Senior Conservator, Carolyn Sirett, climbs the ratlines to apply pine tar to the standing rigging as part of the ship’s maintenance. ©Manitoba Museum
The more challenging jobs are completed above the main decks, in the rigging and sails that soar high above the gallery space. With a stomach for heights, the ratlines or rope ladders, are used by Conservators to climb up to the various sections and apply pine tar to the standing rigging. Pine tar, an oily black substance brushed on to the ropes, is what gives the ship and gallery its iconic smell – a smell that has been said to spark memories of first field trips, first dates, and first visits. Caring for Nonsuch is a passion for the Conservation team, and a longstanding tradition of ship secrets that have been passed down from one Conservator to the next.
By Dr. Randall Mooi, Curator of Zoology, Manitoba Museum
October is when bats – or their silhouettes, at least – are hard to miss! You’ll likely come across multiple houses this month proudly displaying these winged wonders alongside jack-o-lanterns and witches. However, these fascinating flying mammals won’t be joining in on the fun of trick-or-treating. By the end of September, three of Manitoba’s bat species will have migrated south to find food, whereas the other three will be hibernating locally.
Manitoba’s largest species is the hoary bat with a 40 cm wingspan, though it weighs only about 30 g – less than an AA battery! The smallest species weighs as little as 5 g – just a little more than a quarter. They are all nocturnal and, although they do feed on mosquitoes, usually go for larger prey such as moths and beetles. Bats can be important in controlling agricultural pests, saving billions of dollars in crop damage.
Because Manitoba’s bats are active at night, most of us are unaware that their numbers have plummeted across North America. Several are endangered, including our own little brown bat and northern long-eared bat. These two hibernating species are susceptible to white-nose syndrome, a fungal infection (likely introduced from Europe) that interrupts hibernation patterns and has decimated bat populations in the east. This fungus now occurs in Manitoba and similar dire outcomes are expected.
Thousands of migrating bats are killed by wind turbines every year. Although renewable energy is an imperative, bats are attracted to wind turbines with murderous results. Because bats migrate on relatively calm nights for short periods in spring and fall, it should be possible to mitigate the effect of wind turbines on bat populations while minimizing economic impacts.
Manitoba’s three bat species that migrate. Museum specimens of, from top to bottom, a silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans), eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis), and hoary bat (L. cinereus).
A silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) that made a short stop on the wall of the Manitoba Museum during spring migration from the southern United States to our boreal forest.
In the Parklands Gallery, you can use a flashlight to see hibernating little brown bats in a cave diorama based on similar caves in the Interlake Region. How many bats are in our cave? Why don’t you come for a visit and count them for yourself!
Even though there may not be any real bats flitting through the air this October, it is the perfect time to visit the Manitoba Museum to find out more about these fascinating flying mammals. Take a walk through the Parklands Gallery and into a replica “Bat Cave” to see how these nocturnal animals live, and make other cool discoveries underground. And don’t forget to put on your costume and join us for our annual Halloween Takeover – a safe, weatherproof, and fun-filled experience for all ages – October 28 and 29!
By Amelia Fay, Curator of Anthropology & HBC Museum Collection
With Orange Shirt Day (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation) on the horizon, folks might be thinking about their role in Truth and Reconciliation. Many Indigenous leaders have argued the need to understand the truth before reconciliation, and this is where museums can step in and play an important role.
Although museums carry a lot of colonial baggage, my colleagues and I at the Manitoba Museum (past and present) have been working hard to make our museum a safe space to learn about history. Not only do we have some great exhibits and programs to help visitors engage with difficult histories, we also have a lot of resources available on both our website and YouTube channel that you can view from home.
Not sure where to begin? Below are a few topics that I think are a great starting place, no matter where you are in your reconciliation learning journey.
For many non-Indigenous readers, learning more about these topics might bring up a lot of feelings and make you uncomfortable, and that’s okay. The important thing is to not dismiss information that challenges what you knew about Canadian history, but instead sit with the discomfort and think about why you might feel this way. Part of our shared journey towards reconciliation involves hard work like this, but it’s important work that we all must undertake.
The digital kiosk in our Prairies Gallery Schoolhouse exhibit provides opportunities for learning and reflection about the truth of residential schools. Image © Manitoba Museum/Ian McCausland
The Orange Shirt Day Reflection Wall encourages you to share
your thoughts and make a commitment to reconciliation. Image © Manitoba Museum
Visit the HBC Gallery to learn about the history of the Fur Trade and the
relationships between Indigenous Peoples and Euro-Canadian fur traders. Image © Manitoba Museum
Join us for a time of learning, reflection, and response at Orange Shirt Days @ the Manitoba Museum. Three days of free admission to all areas September 30 to October 2. No tickets required.
By Scott Young, Planetarium Astronomer
Have you ever seen the stars? Like, really SEEN them, from a dark place, far away from the lights of the city. If you have, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you are missing one of the great beauties of the natural world.
The night sky is magical. Take even the most jaded person and put them under the stars, and it gives them a sense of awe and wonder. We can’t help it – we are hard-wired to be amazed by the stars.
I’m sure there is some explanation for why that is. Probably, because our ancient ancestors who *didn’t* like the stars also didn’t figure out the cycles of the heavens and the progression of the seasons, and so didn’t make it through a winter that they couldn’t predict. The sky has given us clock, calendar, and a certainty about our understanding of the universe around us, and civilization was built upon that knowledge. The sky was one of humanity’s greatest discoveries, right up there with fire, the wheel, and chocolate.
Today, with satellite weather and pocket-sized supercomputers, we don’t need the sky for such basic purposes. (It still works, by the way, in case the zombie apocalypse or robot uprising sets us back to the dark ages.) We have telescopes in space and are flying drones on other planets. Yet more than ever, people are looking to the sky with interest. Even with all the things we know about the universe, there’s still a sense of mystery and wonder that makes us want to experience it ourselves.
And you can. You don’t need a telescope to start exploring the sky tonight. All you need is a clear sky, and a place even a little sheltered from nearby lights. Even from downtown Winnipeg you can see the Moon, the brighter planets, and many of the familiar star patterns like the Big Dipper or Summer Triangle. An ordinary pair of binoculars can give you a closer view and expand the number of objects you can track down. Books, apps, and online videos can teach you the sky one piece at a time, and each discovery you make will be yours. It doesn’t matter that Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter four centuries ago – when you discover them for the first time in a pair of binoculars, you will feel the same thrill of excitement he did, and your personal universe will have gotten a little bit larger.
Exploring the sky has another important benefit: it’s fun and relaxing, and it gives you a broader sense of perspective. When contemplating the three hundred billion suns that make up our own Milky Way or if any of their trillions of worlds are inhabited, our smaller earthly concerns fade into the background. The pale blue dot we live on is just a speck in the vast universe, and the things that divide us are outnumbered by the things that unite us. We all live under the same sky, and the stars belong to everyone. Get to know our sky, and you get to know yourself and your place in the grand scheme of things.
Visit the Planetarium this summer to venture to far-off galaxies, witness spectacular solar systems, and get to know the stars in our very own skies.
Buy your tickets today to reserve your seat under the stars!
By Dr. Graham Young
Past Curator of Paleontology & Geology
Walking into the Manitoba Museum’s Earth History Gallery, you see an enticing undersea scene in the middle distance. Passing through an opening, you find yourself in a small room that feels like an underwater observatory.
Here in the Ancient Seas exhibit, a giant curved screen wraps around two walls, and on that screen you see projected a coral-lined boulder shore, with strange and wonderful sea creatures: large cephalopods similar to a “squid in a shell” swim in the water, flower-like crinoids wave in the dappled sunlight, and giant trilobites related to crabs and spiders plough through seafloor sediment. This submarine world represents our best understanding of what the Churchill area looked like about 450 million years ago during the Ordovician Period, long before polar bears or mosquitoes appeared on this planet.
Organisms depicted in the Ancient Seas exhibit include the swimming coiled nautiloids, flower-like sea lilies, sponges, corals, and seaweeds.
All of the Ancient Seas animations are based on fossils found in Manitoba, such as these coiled nautiloid cephalopods from Churchill and Garson.
In this beautiful exhibit, one of the things visitors find most remarkable is the statement that Churchill was tropical, that “Manitoba straddled the equator and had a warm climate.” How can Manitoba have moved so much? The simple answer is that Manitoba has moved as part of a much bigger land mass. In the Ordovician Period, the heart of North America was already a distinct continent, called Laurentia by geologists.
Just like continents do today, the ancient continents were moving by the process of plate tectonics. Land masses move toward or away from one another at about the same rate your toenails grow, an average of about 1.5 cm per year. If you move a continent at that speed over 450 million years, it can travel a very long way! Ordovician Laurentia was moving toward ancient parts of Europe and Africa, and more than 100 million years later this resulted in the formation of Pangaea (the “world supercontinent”) about 335 million years ago. After Pangaea pulled apart 200 million years ago, North America moved northwestward, eventually arriving where we are now!
During the Ordovician Period, 450 million years ago, what is now the “heart of North America” formed the ancient continent of Laurentia (LA), and Manitoba was near the equator. As time passed, Laurentia would move toward the other ancient continents such as Baltica (BA) and Siberia (SI), closing the Iapetus Ocean (IA). These land masses would eventually join with Gondwana to form the “world supercontinent” called Pangaea.
Exhibits like Ancient Seas tell us about this place in very different past times. Many of the people in Manitoba came here from distant places, and now we also know that the land itself has travelled, and changed almost beyond recognition. At the Museum you can see some of that distant past, and appreciate our former worlds.
Save 25% when you purchase tickets for all three attractions
Plan your visit today!By Roland Sawatzky, Curator of History, the Manitoba Museum & Ashley Smith, Director of Advocacy, Rainbow Resource Centre
Two-spirited, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (2SLGBTQ+) people have always lived in Winnipeg, and were and are an essential part of the fabric of our urban society. 2SLGBTQ+ communities have a rich history. The Manitoba Museum is proud to partner with Rainbow Resource Centre to help tell this important community story through this temporary exhibition of posters, which opened on May 26.
Museums are a place of artifacts and stories. Some artifacts, such as posters, seem ephemeral when they are first printed and put up on a wall. They are meant for immediate effect – they “talk” to casual passersby, but only for a few weeks before they disappear. Posters that are actually preserved make excellent artifacts for capturing a single moment in time.
The 20 posters showcased in the new exhibit If These Walls Could Talk: 50 Years of 2SLGBTQ+ Activism in Winnipeg capture the issues and concerns of the community from the early 1970s to the present. They are calls to action to advance and protect the rights of individuals in the community.
Winnipeg hosted the 2nd National Gay Conference in 1974. It was a small start – dozens of people marched down Portage Avenue with flags and banners.
In 1987 Mayor William Norrie’s Proclamation of AIDS Awareness Week set a tone of tolerance and inclusion amid a global crisis.
From the first simple sign – Gays for Equality, from 1973 – a call went out for gathering and representation at the University of Manitoba. In 1978 a poster called for gays and lesbians to “COME OUT” and speak up for human rights and to end discrimination, and protest the anti-gay rights activist Anita Bryant who was speaking in Winnipeg. In 1980 a poster protested the banning of gay books – an issue that still resonates today. During the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the mid-1980s-1990s, 2SLGBTQ+ communities suffered devastation, and rights became a matter of life and death. Posters were used to spread useful information and support for those at risk. Into the 2000s, posters promoted equality of marriage, anti-bullying measures, and transgender rights.
In 1987, Manitoba became Canada’s third province to include sexual orientation in its Charter of Rights and Freedoms – later celebrated as the first Pride on August 2 of that year. 2SLGBTQ+ activism was central to this and many other freedoms for Manitobans, and these posters tell the story of the fight for those rights, of how far the community has come, and also how much is at risk of being lost today.
The community celebrated its first official Pride Day on August 2, 1987, two weeks after Manitoba included sexual orientation in its Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This ad for a dance party for Queer People of Colour and allies was part of a larger movement of Queer Trans Black and Indigenous People of Colour to tell their stories and fight for a shift in narrative in the larger 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Fun Fact!
The Rainbow Flag was first created in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, a gay man and drag queen from California. Harvey Milk, an openly gay city supervisor in San Francisco, had urged Gilbert to make a symbol of pride for the larger gay community. Over the years it has evolved to include more colours, representing diversity within the 2SLGBTQ+ community!
If These Walls Could Talk is produced in partnership with the Rainbow Resource Centre, and funded in part by the Manitoba Government, Department of Sport, Culture, and Heritage.
The loss of biodiversity, including wild pollinators, is an ongoing environmental problem. In Manitoba, our main pollinators are bees, flies, butterflies, wasps, moths, beetles, and hummingbirds (see www.prairiepollination.ca for help identifying them). Fortunately, there are things you can do to make life easier for these important creatures, including providing them with water, food, and nesting and sheltering habitat.
One of the first native plants to attract bumblebees (Bombus) in early spring is Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea). ©Manitoba Museum
Growing milkweeds (Asclepias) will encourage Monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterflies to lay eggs, which will hatch into colourful caterpillars. ©Manitoba Museum
Pollinators need water (not just nectar) to stay hydrated, particularly in drought years. Since bird baths are too deep for most pollinators, instead provide a dish filled with pebbles or sand and water, or build a small pond.
The most nutritious nectar and pollen is produced by native plants. Native plants also have the correct flower shape to fit the local pollinators’ mouthparts. Although cultivars of native plants, like bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), may produce good forage, those that are highly modified (e.g., double-bloomed species), or lack nectar and pollen (e.g., sterile hybrids) are often useless for pollinators.
To provide a regular food supply, ensure you grow at least some native species that flower in spring, summer and fall. Good choices for southern Manitoba include:
Spring (May-June)
Cherries and plums (Prunus), wild roses (Rosa acicularis), raspberries (Rubus), meadowsweet (Spirea alba), Western Canada violet (Viola canadensis), and Alexanders (Zizia).
Summer (July-August)
Giant hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), milkweeds (Asclepias), prairie-clover (Dalea), Western red lily (Lilium philadelphicum), wild mint (Mentha arvensis), obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana), and blackeyed Susan (Rudbeckia).
Fall (September-October)
Coneflower (Echinacea), blazingstar (Liatris), white aster (Oligoneuron album), goldenrods (Solidago), and asters (Symphyotrichum).
Butterflies love tube-shaped flowers like Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa).
Smooth Aster (Symphyotrichum laeve) provides excellent nectar for bumblebees (Bombus) in fall. © Manitoba Museum
Pollinators need places to build their nests, and shelter over winter. However, all pollinators have different needs. Some bees prefer bare, sandy soil to nest in, others under leaf piles or clumps of grass, and yet others in plant stem cavities. To attract butterflies to breed, you must provide them with their larval host plants, often native flowers or grasses.
You can create potential nesting and sheltering habitat by leaving small leaf and wood piles in your yard, perhaps in an area that you don’t use regularly. By not mulching all your bare soil, especially in sunny spots, you can also provide breeding habitat for ground-nesting bees. Another thing you can do is delay your yard clean up until late May. The layer of dead vegetation will help to insulate overwintering pollinators from the cold.
Happy gardening!
You can see a wide variety of pollinating insects up close at the Manitoba Museum’s insect wall in the Boreal Forest Gallery.
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