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!
As you travel through the Manitoba Museum, you’re transported to various places and times by the dioramas in the galleries. These dioramas are cared for by our Conservation team, who have a variety of challenges in their up-keep and must constantly adapt to find solutions to issues that arise! In this video, Assistant Conservator Loren shows us his favourite diorama and shares a bit of the upkeep that goes into preserving it.
Come back next week to watch part 2! To learn more about diorama conservation in Loren’s recent blog post, click here.
You may have visited a museum and wondered why some spaces are a bit dark, or have motion sensor lights. It’s to minimize light damage on delicate artifacts! In this video, Senior Conservator Carolyn tells us how conservators work to protect objects on display from light damage, and how you can protect your treasures at home!
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
Before the Hudson’s Bay Company Museum Collection was donated to the Manitoba Museum, it was displayed elsewhere by the company. Learn how this tableau at the entrance to the HBC Gallery relates to the first HBC Museum in this video with Dr. Amelia Fay.
Check this spot out when you visit during Pyjama Days! Until January 7, 2024, we’re open daily from 10 am to 5 pm, with family fun in all three of our incredible attractions.
Here in Manitoba when our roads and sidewalks get icy in the winter, we may put down various kinds of deicer to help make slippery surfaces safer. But which deicer is faster? In this video we race salt, sugar, and beet juice – all of which have been tested as actual road deicer in various places!
Which do you think will melt snow fastest?
Try this experiment at home by following along with this video, or click here for the PDF instruction guide.
Music: “Maple Leaf Rag” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Join us for more winter science experiments during Pyjama Days @ the Manitoba Museum! Running 10 am to 5 pm from December 26 to January 7.
As the Assistant Conservator at the Manitoba Museum, one of my main duties is the preservation and maintenance of all the dioramas throughout the galleries. Dioramas have a variety of challenges in their up-keep, so I constantly have to adapt and find solutions to issues that arise. As part of my daily routine, I visually inspect each of the dioramas before the museum opens to make sure everything is in tip-top shape for visitors.
One of the dioramas I inspect daily is The Ukrainian Farm and it is one of my favorite dioramas at the museum. It depicts a complex scene of a family working their farmland which borders the Delta Marsh. Every time I look at this diorama, I see something new and fun. The marsh area of the diorama is teeming with an unexpected diversity of wildlife species nestled amongst the reeds, soaring in the sky, or concealed under the water’s surface.
However, during those daily inspections I often see something less exciting in the diorama – many plants suffering damage! For example, one morning I found a poor Smilacina stellatum (more commonly known as “False Solomon’s Seal”) with several leaves broken off and scattered in the grass around it.
What many may not know is that these plants have been collected in the wild, preserved, and painted to look alive. Like all plant materials after they have been picked, the plant gets increasingly brittle over time (think of a what a bouquet of roses feels and looks like after a month of receiving them). When the plants are knocked or improperly handled, the fragile parts of the model crack, shatter, and fall off. The process of getting new plants and preparing them to replace the damaged ones takes a long time, so most often I do what I can to repair the plants that are on display.
Right image: Surveying and inspecting the diorama’s many plant models for damage.
First, the plant model is removed from the diorama and carefully placed in a tray to prevent further damage during transport.
The plant is then brought up to the Conservation Lab, where I “assess the object’s state and formulate a treatment plan” which is a fancy way of saying ‘plan the best way to fix it’. As a conservator, I have to think about what materials the plant model is made of and how those materials react to different adhesives and chemicals that might be used in its repair. For example, records show that the model has been painted with acrylic paints. Therefore, it is important to avoid chemicals or adhesives in the treatment that would affect the paint layer on the plant. Acrylic paint is sensitive to acetone, so the repair methods used would include avoiding acetone or an acetone-based adhesive.
Left image: Safely placed in a tray this plant model is ready for transport up to the Conservation Lab.
As the plant was so brittle, it was important to try to make the leaves more pliable before I repaired them. To do this, the plant was placed into a chamber with distilled water added to the bottom to help raise the humidity and left inside the chamber for 24 hours. After 24 hours, the dry plant material did pull some of the moisture from the surrounding air which allowed the leaf structure to bend a little. This movement allowed the broken leaves to line-up better during my repairs.
While waiting for the plant material to become easier to work with, I mixed acrylic paints to match the colour on the front and back of the leaves. Mending paper was then tinted with the mixed paint.
Right image: The humidity rises in the chamber and is pulled in by the dry plant material.
The next day the plant was removed from the humidity chamber and work began on repairing the leaves. To start, small strips of the tinted mending paper were cut and attached to the broken leaves with a conservation grade adhesive. This required paying attention to the natural curves of the leaf so that the leaf wasn’t forced into an unnatural shape. I then aligned the leaf back into position against the broken edge and the two pieces were attached together. Another small piece of paper was then placed on the bottom of the leaf to secure it into position. The mended leaf was secured in place with thin florist wire as a support and left to dry overnight.
1. Cutting the tinted mending paper.
2. Applying adhesive to the edge of the leaf.
3. Uniting the two sections of leaf together.
4. Repaired plant model after conservation treatment.
The next morning the supporting florist wire was removed, and repairs were checked from the previous day. Everything seemed to be in stable condition, so the plant was placed back into a tray, brought down to the diorama, and finding the exact position the plant had been previously, I essentially “planted” it back into the diorama.
Maintaining the dioramas is full of complex tasks like the one I’ve outlined here. I hope this blog sheds some light on one of the more complex aspects of diorama maintenance.
Fingers crossed this little plant model survives the coming years!
Assistant Conservator Loren Rudisuela holding the repaired plant model.
Plant model installed back into the diorama.
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.
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.
(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.
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!
