Blogs Archives - Page 15 of 59

December provides long winter nights for observing and features the best meteor shower of the year as well as the return of the winter constellations to early evening prominence. Colder temperatures can make observing more difficult, since astronomy is not an aerobic activity! Dress in layers, and plan for a temperature at least 10 degrees colder than the forecast. Good boots and a warm hat are the most important accessories.

Visible Solar System

Saturn is nearly gone, low in the southwest after darkness falls. This hasn’t been a great year for observing the ringed planet since it has been so low in the sky from Manitoba.

Jupiter is already fairly high in the east-southeast as darkness falls, and rises into the south by mid-evening, providing clear views for Canadian observers. Binoculars show several of its four largest moons, and a telescope will reveal cloud bands and structure in the gas giant planet’s atmosphere.

Venus rises about 4 a.m. local time at the beginning of December. It stands about 20 degrees up in the southeast before dawn but rises later and loses altitude throughout the month.

Mercury begins to creep above the eastern horizon at dawn towards the end of the month but is more easily visible in the first week of January. Even so, Manitobans will have a tough time spotting it in the bright twilight just before sunrise. We’ll have a better chance in March when Mercury is visible in the evening sky.

Mars is on the far side of the Sun this month, too close to the Sun to be visible in the morning sky.

Calendar of Celestial Events

(All event dates and times are local times for Manitoba – Central Standard Time. Almost all events are visible across Canada, though – just use your local time instead. The exception is an event like the Solstice or a specific phase of the Moon, which happens at a specific time and date. In those cases, you have to adjust to your local time by adding or subtracting time zones.)

Mon 4 Dec 2023: Last Quarter Moon occurs just before midnight Manitoba time tonight, so many calendars that use Eastern Time or Universal/Greenwich Time will show it on Dec 5th instead.

Sat 9 Dec 2023 (morning): The waning crescent Moon is 4° to Venus’ lower right.

Tue 12 Dec 2023: New Moon

Wed 13 Dec 2023 (evening) through Thu 14 Dec 2023 (Thu): The annual Geminid meteor shower peaks overnight, with the nearly new Moon providing dark skies. With a theoretical rate of over a hundred meteors per hour for most of Canada, this is the meteor shower to see. You’ll want to get to dark rural skies and be well-prepared for a long night of winter observing. Pay particular attention to your vehicle if the temperatures are low, as being stuck in the middle of nowhere on a cold December night can be dangerous.

The Geminids are also one of the few meteor showers that are active before midnight, making them a bit more accessible than other showers such as the Perseids in August, which are at their best in the few hours before dawn. For details on how to turn your meteor watching into scientifically useful data, visit the International Meteor Organization’s Geminid page.

Sun 17 Dec 2023 (evening): The waxing crescent Moon is about 3° below Saturn.

Tue 19 Dec 2023: First Quarter Moon

Thu 21 Dec 2023 (evening): The waxing gibbous Moon is far to Jupiter’s right.

Thu 21 Dec 2023: Also tonight, the winter solstice occurs at 9:27 p.m. CST, marking the sun’s farthest movement south in our skies. This translates into the late sunsets and long winter nights of winter. After this date, the sun will rise earlier each day, and the number of daylight hours will begin to increase.

Fri 22 Dec 2023 (evening): The waxing gibbous Moon is far to Jupiter’s left.

Tue 26 Dec 2023: Full Moon

Thu 28 Dec 2023 (evening): The Manitoba Museum’s award-winning online astronomy show Dome@Home airs at 7 p.m. CST, live on the Museum’s Facebook and YouTube pages. Dome@Home covers the celestial sights and events visible in the coming month, and highlights some of the cool space stuff that’s happened in recent weeks.

Sun 31 Dec 2023: The last day of the Gregorian calendar which is used in most parts of the world including Canada.

To find when the International Space Station and other satellites are visible from your location, visit Heavens-Above.com and set your location.

For information on Manitoba’s largest astronomy club, visit the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Winnipeg Centre.

Scott Young

Planetarium Astronomer

Scott is the Planetarium Astronomer at the Manitoba Museum, developing astronomy and science programs. He has been an informal science educator for thirty years, working in the planetarium and science centre field both at The Manitoba Museum and also at the Alice G. Wallace Planetarium in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Scott is an active amateur astronomer and a past-President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Manitoba Stories: In the Sky

Astronomy

Tuesday May 27, 2025

Are you doing any baking this holiday season? In this video, learn about the four main spices that go into a classic gingerbread with Curator of Botany Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson!

To learn more about the roots, shoots, flowers, and fruits of gingerbread, read Dr. Bizecki Robson’s latest blog, click here: Roots, Shoots, Flowers, & Fruits: The Anatomy of a Gingerbread Cookie

You may have heard of spear points or arrowheads before, but have you heard of atlatl dart points? In this video, Curator of Archaeology Dave Finch takes us through a quick history of projectile points in Manitoba and shows us how an atlatl works!

Posted on: Monday December 4, 2023

December is the time of year when people tend to eat desserts with lots of spices in them, including the ubiquitous gingerbread. Spices don’t come from any particular plant part, they are simply ingredients that are added in small quantities to add flavour, rather than calories, to a dish. The spices in gingerbread actually come from every part of a plant: roots, shoots, flowers and fruits.

Photograph of four ingredients laid out on a surface. From left to right: ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

The main spices in gingerbread consist of (left to right): ginger (Zingiber officinale), cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum), cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) and nutmeg/mace (Myristica fragrans).

Roots

OK technically ginger (Zingiber officinale) is not a root, it is a rhizome, which is an underground stem, but close enough. This species is a tropical, herb native to southern Asia that has been cultivated for over 3,000 years! In Asia, ginger is often used fresh or pickled in savory dishes, like curries and stir-fries, but in Medieval Europe it was traditionally used dried in desserts like gingerbread because it could not be shipped fresh. Ginger plants are monocots and are thus related to grasses and orchids. They possess attractive, irregularly-shaped yellow flowers and long, strap-shaped leaves.

Image: Illustration of Ginger (Zingiber officinale) in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen by Franz Eugen Köhler. Public domain.

Shoots

Cinnamon (Cinnamomum spp.) comes from the shoots of broad-leaved, evergreen trees in the Laurel family; they are native to India and Ceylon. There are several species of Cinnamon but the most common one is Cassia Cinnamon (C. cassia). Ceylon Cinnamon (C. verum) is a bit more expensive but can still be found in North American stores. Once Cinnamon trees are three years old, the outer bark is harvested. This distorts their growth forms into dense shrubs rather than trees. The dried, rolled bark (“sticks”) can be used whole as a mulling spice, or ground into a powder to use in baking. Cinnamon and Cassia have been popular for a long time; Egyptians in 2,000 B.C. imported it from China, and used it to enbalm mummies. Nowadays most people just eat it.

Another food product derived from plant shoots that adds a distinctive bitterness to gingerbread is molasses. This sticky, dark syrup is actually a “waste” product from the sugar-refining process. Although Sugar Beets (Beta vulgaris) are sometimes used nowadays to manufacture molasses in colder countries, traditionally sugar came from Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum). In Canada most of our sugar is made from imported Sugar Cane, although some Sugar Beets are grown in Alberta. The shoots of this very tall, tropical grass native to the South Pacific, are harvested and then crushed to extract the sweet juice. This dark brown juice is then boiled to form sugar crystals; the thick brown syrup that is left behind is the molasses.

Image: Illustration of Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen by Franz Eugen Köhler. Public domain.

Image: Illustration of Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum) in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen by Franz Eugen Köhler. Public domain.

Flowers

Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) come from a tropical evergreen tree in the Myrtle family. It is closely related to several other economically important plants including Allspice (Pimenta dioica), Guava (Psidium guajava) and Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans). The part that we eat is a sun-dried, unopened flower bud. The rounded structure at the tip of the clove consists of the unopened petals, the spiky structures are the sepals and the “stalk” is the hypanthium, a fusion of the sepals and petals with the ovary. Cloves are ground up before being added to doughs but whole cloves are used to make mulled wine and hot toddies, or to flavour a ham. In addition to gingerbread, cloves are used in spicy cookies such as German Speculaaas and Pfeffernusse. The Clove tree is native to Indonesia, but has been planted elsewhere in the south Pacific to meet human demand.

Image: Illustration of Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen by Franz Eugen Köhler. Public domain.

An illustration of the elements of a nutmeg plant, from seeds to flowers.

Fruits

Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans), another tropical evergreen tree, is closely related to the Clove tree, being in the same family, and native to the same part of the world. However, the part we use is not the flower but the fruit. Nutmeg is the hard seed inside an apricot-sized fruit called a drupe. Mace, another spice with a similar flavour that is also sometimes used in gingerbread, is a reddish covering around the nutmeg seed. Mace is typically more expensive than nutmeg, simply because there is less of it per fruit. Nutmeg is also used to flavour fruit cakes and mince tarts, and is the traditional garnish to a glass of egg nog.

Image: Illustration of Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen by Franz Eugen Köhler. Public domain.

Whatever you use spices for, they are guaranteed to do one thing: make your food delicious! Happy baking!

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

Museum Stories: Botany

Botany

Wednesday September 25, 2024

Pawing for Prairie Plants

Manitoba’s native prairies are endangered because most of them have been cultivated for annual crop production. As a result, some of the rarest species of plants…

Botany

Monday December 4, 2023

Roots, Shoots, Flowers, & Fruits: The Anatomy of a Gingerbread Cookie

December is the time of year when people tend to eat desserts with lots of spices in them, including…

Botany

Monday April 3, 2023

The Fungus Among Us

Fungi grow just about everywhere and yet we are usually ignorant of their presence until they produce mushrooms in our lawns…

Botany

Monday January 30, 2023

In Manitoba, the Roses Aren't Red

It’s almost Valentines Day and the flower that most people associate with that holiday is bright red.

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

A family of four stand in front of a Museum diorama containing several caribou. One of the adults leans down to point something out to a child in a wheelchair, and the other adult stands behind holding a toddler.

Your support ensures the Manitoba Museum remains place that is accessible and welcoming to all in our
community. ©Manitoba Museum/Rejean Brandt.

A Museum staff person standing in front of a rolling white board in the Museum Galleries presenting a virtual class to a group of students visible on a smartphone held in frame.

How will your donation make an impact?

Your support is critical to the success of so many different facets of the Museum’s work:

Continued support for ground-breaking research: Research conducted at the Manitoba Museum has won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, extended the fossil records of animal groups by millions of years, explored the achievements of Indigenous Peoples and cultural communities in Manitoba, and uncovered new species.
Engaging programming for schools & public: The Manitoba Museum offers immersive learning
and discovery through both exciting and engaging public workshops and incredible curriculum-based
experiences for school groups – in fact, in 2022/23 the Museum engaged with 65,955 young minds through education programs, both on-site and virtually.
Creating a Museum that belongs to all Manitobans: Through the Access for All program, thousands of community members enjoy complimentary access to the Museum each year. Visitors engage in memorable learning experiences that bridge our understanding and love of history, nature, and science with today’s reality and hopes for the future.

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

A Museum staff person standing in front of a display case containgin a number of Indigenous artifacts, including a cradleboard.

How can you help?

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

Posted on: Tuesday November 28, 2023

A common human trait is to obtain and store our belongings. And, maybe without even thinking, storing them in a relational way that makes sense to us, such as in a sock drawer, or stored together in some logical manner for use, like tools in a toolbox. At the very least, items are stored in a place where we know we can find them when we need them.

Museums around the world, including here at the Manitoba Museum, have much the same approach when storing their collections. There are over 300,000 specimens in the permanent collections of the Natural Sciences section, of all different types, shapes, and sizes, and they all need to be stored in a systematic way so that we can find them when they are required for research, education, or exhibits.

Lichen specimens stored in individual trays, with labels bearing their catalogue number, identification and data.

Lichen specimens are stored in individual trays, and have labels with their catalogue number, identification and data.

Two images. Left: An open drawer containing pinned beetles stored in interior boxes. Right: A microscope slide with 60 micro fossils adhered to the surface placed beside a dime for scale.

In scientific collections, we store specimens of the same species together, and then numerically by their catalogue number. This way, a single particular specimen can be easily located. This is the system that is used most commonly for museum collections including insects, mammals, birds, fossils and plants. Other collections, such as minerals, are stored by their chemical groupings. There are also some specialized research collections that are stored together as an assemblage of different species that were all collected from the same site. This system makes it easier for researchers who want to view and compare all specimens from a particular location. For example, all fossils from a Churchill shoreline, or insects that were pollinating a particular field.

Within each collection, the sizes and storage requirements of the different species vary considerably. They are not all the same size, shape, weight, or fragility level, and we need to be able to provide safe storage solutions in our collections areas for specimens that range from microscopic to very large. For example, paleontological micro-fossils, such as tiny shells or bits of coral, are extremely small (sometimes smaller than 1 mm), and too fragile to even handle individually. In order to keep them safe, but also available for study, they are gently adhered to a special type of microscope slide so that they can be safely handled, and then stored.

Images above: Left – Pinned beetles of the Carabidae Family are stored in special drawers with other specimens of the same species, separated by interior boxes. Right – Micro-fossil shells are adhered to special slides with numbered sections in order to distinguish them.

Another type of specimen that we had to devise a storage method for were fungal spore prints. Spores are the tiny microscopic structures that fungi disperse for reproduction and are thus similar in function to plant seeds. The spores are produced on the underside of the spongy or gilled mushroom cap. To assist with identifying the species of mushroom, we collect these spores, and then carefully store them. A spore print is made when mushroom is freshly collected. A piece of black paper is placed under the cap to catch the spores that will be released. The resulting print basically looks like dust in the shape of the mushroom cap. What gives us the information we need to identify them is the colour of the spores – these can be white, cream-coloured, rusty, black or brown. We have found that we can store these fragile paper prints similar to photographs. We place them in plastic CD cases, using photo mounting corners to hold the paper flat; the disk lid closes to protect the print surface from being disturbed.

A white fungal spore placed on a square of black paper inside a CD case.

These cream-coloured spores help scientists identify the species of mushroom that they came from.

Taxidermied head of a Bison stored on a custom-wheeled dolly.

Odd-shaped or very large specimens pose a storage challenge on a whole different level, so we must make special considerations for them. Large mammal mounts, for example, are not easy to store. They are large, heavy, take up a lot of room, and can be fragile too! To add to that list of concern parameters, they can also contain arsenic, which was an effective pesticide used by taxidermists prior to the 1980’s, but is toxic to both pests and humans. We have started to test our collections so we can take the necessary precautions when handling and storing them. Smaller mounts, such as song birds, can be stored in metal cabinets. But larger mounts are a little more difficult, and we have had to develop alternate methods of storing them.

Many of our larger mammal mounts are placed on custom-built wheeled platforms so that they are off the ground, and can be moved if needed. In some cases, we added a wooden framework around the mount so that we can enclose it in poly sheeting, as a barrier for pests and dust. The framework keeps the poly from coming into contact with the fur or feathers of the specimens as it could bend, break, or flatten the structures.

Above: Taxidermied head of a Bison stored on a custom-wheeled dolly for easy transportation. It will be enclosed in protective poly sheeting for storage.

Large mammal skulls, like caribou and elk, can have enormous antlers, and certainly pose another storage challenge. We have adopted a simple and effective storage solution using heavy-duty custom metal frames that are locally fabricated. The frames are spanned with expanded metal centers, and installed where we have open wall space. The large skulls can then be secured and hung on the frame. We are fortunate in that we have large areas of open wall space!

Our next storage challenge is how to store a 25 ft. long whale jaw that weighs 200 lbs!

Strong aircraft cable is used to hang these large skulls with antlers.

Collections Technician, Aro, installing the skulls onto our new metal storage rack.

Janis Klapecki

Collections Management Specialist – Natural History

Janis Klapecki obtained a B.Sc. from the University of Manitoba, specializing in Zoology and Botany. She also holds a certificate in Managing Natural History Collections from the University of Victoria, BC. Janis has over 30 years experience…

Meet Janis Klapecki

Does your house shift with the seasons? So does the Nonsuch! Learn how the Conservation Team tracks the expansion and contraction of the Nonsuch in this video with Senior Conservator Carolyn Sirett.

The Nonsuch is the largest artifact in the Museum Collection and requires specialized conservation. Join Senior Conservator Carolyn as she takes us through some of the regular tasks they carry out on the Nonsuch – including a trip up the rigging!

Check back next week for part 2.

Posted on: Wednesday November 8, 2023

Dearest Manitoba Museum friends,

First, thank you for being here. I appreciate how much information we receive on any given day, and how overwhelming it can feel. We often ask ourselves, ‘Is this message relevant to me or do I just delete it or move on?’ Fair question, and a necessary one if we want to create a life most meaningful to each of us. This message, aka my introductory blog, is one such piece of communication I hope you don’t automatically move on. I’m going to try my best to make reading this message worthy of your time and attention.

To begin, for those of you I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting, my name is Dorota Blumczyńska and I am the CEO of the Manitoba Museum. I joined the Museum two and a half incredible years ago. I say incredible because my life has been forever changed by what I’ve learned, unlearned, and re-learned in this seemingly short time. Leading this important organization is one of the greatest honours of my career, my life. Every day brings with it new insights, new challenges to overcome, new opportunities to embrace, and new uncertainties to leap into. More about that in a bit.

Why a blog? Although engaging with our communities is an important part of my role at the Museum, it isn’t something I get to do as much as I would like. The day to day realities of leading a museum are dynamic and demanding; they require paying attention simultaneously to what’s on the horizon and what’s right in front of us. I enjoy the challenges that come with supporting a fantastic team and doing hard and heart work, in balance with opportunities to be with the people and planet we do all of it for. That’s where this blog comes in: it’s my way of being present with you, our community, while serving the needs of the moment. In time, as we get to know each other, I hope to hear from you, respond to questions, and offer my insights on museum work and why it matters. These are some of my goals.

So, a little about me. I came to Canada with my parents and four siblings in 1989. We were brought here as Privately Sponsored Refugees – meaning a community who had never met us agreed to support our family during our first years here; everything from finding work, housing, learning English, to understanding our new country. As it is for many migrants, life in Canada in those early years was very difficult. The most basic things proved more complicated than any of us had imagined. In time however, we began to make friends and it was the warmth and welcome of others that helped us feel like we had found home again.

Community, I’ve learned, both professionally and personally, is what makes life a less arduous journey. The mere presence of others, those who witness our milestones, celebrate our successes, grieve our losses, and accompany us in the most beautifully mundane moments, enriches our existence.

My own life was enriched two and half years ago when I was invited to be a part of the Manitoba Museum team.

It was enriched years earlier when my family was selected for re-settlement.

And it continues to be enriched by every chance I get to welcome you, our community, into relationships with us.

This past year, as you can see from our spectacular new website and changes to many of our physical and online spaces, has been a year of continued transformation. Improvement not for the sake of improving, but with the goal of bringing us closer together, in proximity to each other’s stories.

This CEO corner, the first of many blogs from me to you, will help us get to know one another a bit more, encourage us to be curious about each other’s perspectives, and will create a space where we can ask and answer questions, explore complicated topics, and perhaps, demystify some of the myths and mysteries of museums today.

Posted on: Friday November 3, 2023

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.

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.

Carolyn Sirett

Senior Conservator

Carolyn Sirett received her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Manitoba, Diploma in Cultural Resource Management from the University of Victoria, and Diploma in Collections Conservation and Management…

Manitoba Skies for December 2023

Visible Solar System

Calendar of Celestial Events

Scott Young

Planetarium Astronomer

Manitoba Stories: In the Sky

The Sky for June 2025

The Sky for May 2025

The Sky for April 2025

Posted on: Monday December 4, 2023

Roots

Shoots

Flowers

Fruits

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Curator of Botany

Museum Stories: Botany

Pawing for Prairie Plants

Roots, Shoots, Flowers, & Fruits: The Anatomy of a Gingerbread Cookie

The Fungus Among Us

In Manitoba, the Roses Aren't Red

How will your donation make an impact?

How can you help?

Posted on: Tuesday November 28, 2023

Janis Klapecki

Collections Management Specialist – Natural History

Posted on: Wednesday November 8, 2023

Posted on: Friday November 3, 2023

Carolyn Sirett

Senior Conservator