The Last Straw for Delta Marsh and Rye Farm

The Delta Marsh and Rye Farm diorama in the Parklands Gallery was completed in 2003, having been in the planning and construction phases since the mid-1990s. The result was a masterpiece of exhibitry, requiring thousands of hours of time of our diorama artist, curators, operations staff, and volunteers, that has wowed visitors for almost a quarter century. The diorama represents one of Manitoba’s most important wetlands, famous for its waterfowl, and communicates the challenges faced by agricultural families as illustrated by Ukrainian immigrants in the 1920s.

Unfortunately, the Delta Marsh and Rye Farm diorama has some particular challenges given the content of the exhibit and access for cleaning and conservation. The integrity of the diorama has become difficult to maintain due to the presence of pests that have become difficult to abate. These challenge the safety of the artifacts and specimens included in the diorama, but also that of our staff tasked with its maintenance.  

These challenges have led us to make the extremely difficult decision to decommission the Delta Marsh and Rye Farm. Rest assured that the stories held within these dioramas will continue to be told. As many elements as possible will be retained for a newly imagined exhibit that, we hope, you will find as engaging and captivating as the original over the last 25 years.

At the Manitoba Museum, our Natural History collections mandate requires that we focus our collecting efforts on specimens that are from Manitoba. We do occasionally make small exceptions to that rule, especially if the specimens were originally collected or acquired by a Manitoban, like the spectacular tropical butterflies that we keep in the collection for occasional use in exhibits. Long-time museum fans may remember the spectacular Colours in Nature exhibit from 2011, where many of these were on display. In 2022, however, we made a big exception. A huge exception. An exception so enormous that the last time we moved it, we needed five people working together just to shift it a few feet to the left. Friendly Manitobans, it is my pleasure to introduce to you mammal specimen #24503, the left-side dentary bone (lower jaw) of a fin whale!

One end of a dentary bone from a fin whale, collected in Newfoundland.

Balaenoptera physalus, the fin whale, is a species of baleen whale that is found both north and south of the tropics in ocean waters around the world. Individuals of this species can grow to be incredibly large, second in size only to blue whales. As with other baleen whales, they sustain their large bodies by eating massive quantities of smaller organisms like krill, fish, and even squid. While Hudson Bay is home to several whale species, the fin whale is not one of them. So how did this jaw get to the Manitoba Museum? Why do we have it in our collection? And just how big is it, really?

The University of Manitoba, looking to free up some space in their storage areas, offered the dentary to The Manitoba Museum in 2022. We accepted the offer, thinking that one day it may make a nice exhibit piece. The bone was loaded into a moving van for a short trip over to the Museum where we catalogued it and brought it into our collection. The dentary now lives in our dedicated storage space for oversized Natural History specimens, alongside taxidermy mounts of bears, bison, and other big animals.

The question remains, just how big is this whale jaw, anyway? While we don’t have a weight on file for this bone, it’s been measured at 3.3 metres long from tip to tip, and 3.5 metres if following the inside curve. To put that into perspective using other things that can be found in our collections room, that’s the equivalent length of…

While researching William Pruitt for this piece, I came across a short biography for him on the Manitoba Historical Society Archives website. While it doesn’t fit nicely into this story, there are details about how before his brief tenure in Newfoundland, he worked for the University Alaska at Fairbanks in the 1950s. At the University of Alaska, Pruitt was tasked with researching from an ecological perspective the risks of Project Chariot, which was a plan to use six nuclear bombs to rapidly excavate a new resource export harbour on the Alaskan coast. He roundly condemned the plan for its environmental risks, and the report’s release was suppressed by the United States government. The University of Alaska terminated Pruitt’s employment over the issue, putting him on the road to Newfoundland, and eventually, Manitoba! In the end, Project Chariot was shelved due to objections from the local Inupiaq people and a subsequent wave of coordinated public outrage in the United States.

Learn more about William Pruitt – Manitoba Historical Society

Learn more about Project Chariot – Wikipedia

Taxidermy is a great way to preserve animals. While less popular than it used to be, taxidermied specimens are still found in houses, not just in museums!

The techniques and products used to taxidermy a specimen vary greatly depending on when the taxidermy was done and where. While straw is avoided in modern specimens, it is often found in older ones. Nowadays, shapes are manufactured and taxidermists modify them to fit the specimens. However, in the past, they would use different things to shape the animals’ skin and make a sturdy structure. Most have a metal armature inside, with various materials wrapped around it to create the shape the skin is mounted on.

While the taxidermy process keeps the skin from rotting, the passage of time still has an impact on it. If kept in too dry of an environment, the skin loses moisture and cracks appear. In really bad cases; pieces of the skin can fall off. The fur or feathers become brittle and will break when touched. To keep that from happening, keep your taxidermies in an environment around 50% relative humidity when possible.

Taxidermies made before the 80s often had arsenic or other pesticides in them. Arsenic based soaps were used during the preparation process to keep insects at bay. It was a way to make the specimens last longer and in better conditions. We have learnt better since, and those soaps and other dangerous pesticides aren’t used in modern taxidermy anymore. Always keep that in mind when interacting with mounts, and avoid touching them if you aren’t certain that they are pesticide free.

Taxidermies should also be cleaned. Letting dust accumulate on them will damage the fur and feathers, and make the specimen look dull. Using cleaning products or liquids should be avoided as they can damage the specimens! You can gently vacuum specimens with fur (if they are in good condition) or use a microfiber cloth to dust all specimens. Always go in the direction of the fur or feathers! Some specimens can have varnish or paint on their eyes to give them a realistic look, therefore, be careful when cleaning them! Liquids or vigorous dusting can damage the surface layer or remove the colour. Dusting them gently should be enough to maintain a natural look.

If you want to keep the colours for as long as possible, keep the specimens out of direct light. UV from light sources and daylight damage the pigments and will cause fading. Some colours fade faster than others so it can take a long time before the colour changes are visible enough for us to see them!

In our everyday lives, glass tends to be categorized as a basic material that can be used for many things such as windows, cups, cellphone screens, doors, and pickle jars. Glass is a fan favourite material for recyclers, up cyclers, and mother nature in general, and truly has many different purposes. The glass collection in the Manitoba Museum is filled with a historic variety of objects throughout time, but there are some interesting secrets in this collection and the challenges that come with its preservation.

Did you know that there is also something called glass disease? Not in the viral sense, but this descriptive term is given to glass objects that show a few irreversible degradation signs. Glass disease can look like a rainbow effect on clear glass as you spin it in the light, it can make glass tacky or sticky, there might be a hazy cloudy appearance, and in some cases such as glass beads, the glass will split or physically breakdown. The root cause of glass disease in an object is that poor quality materials went into its manufacture and with time and shifts in fluctuating environmental conditions such as higher relativity humidity, the salts in the glass begin to leach to the surface creating all the oddities described above.

The last and somewhat unfortunate part of glass is when two sides need to be put back together if there is an accident. Glass is a very challenging material to repair due to its refractive index. What does this mean? It means that when light hits the glass where the break has occurred, air can get trapped between the two joints, and the light shines in a different direction through the clear surface, making it visible where the crack or break happened. Conservators use optically matched adhesives and epoxies to repair glass objects to try to minimize this refractive index magic, but it is very difficult to make a completely seamless repair.

Our glass and ceramics storage vault holds a lot of fun histories and secrets that we continue to passionately study. The next time you look at a glass object, remember, you never know what it might be hiding!

One of the core activities of natural history collections is the loaning out of material. These temporary exits of objects from the museum allow for a variety of uses. Last year, 114 natural history specimens were loaned out and 225 specimens returned from loans, all contributing to scientific publications, improved identification, community accessibility, and much more. In this blog, learn about one of the less well-known aspects of museum collections work, and how the accessibility of museum specimens works behind-the-scenes as well as in the galleries.

Loans are primarily for research and exhibit purposes, and are made at the request of an institution (museum, gallery, university, etc.) or professional affiliate (PhD student, research associate, curator, etc.). In the case of research loans, specimens may be transported for research processes such as CT scanning, photography, sampling, measurement, or other analyses. Specimens loaned for exhibits are quite straightforward, on display for a different institution’s audience for a limited time.

A loan of Manitoba Museum herbarium sheets and pinecones shipped back from researchers at the DAO (Dept. of Agriculture, Ottawa) National Collection of Vascular Plants. ©Manitoba Museum

Our natural history specimens can also be loaned out at the request of the Manitoba Museum itself, in special cases of community outreach or for analysis by an expert at another institution. For example: over a hundred moss specimens were loaned out by the Museum to the botany department at the Canadian Museum of Nature, and all of them returned with identification to species level. The cougar skeleton on display in the Parklands Gallery was loaned out to a preparator in order to become a mount.

Loans provide access to scientific data, an important principle related to the reproducibility of modern research. Providing this access increases the amount of reputable natural science connections to Museum-held specimens, which in turn supports the usage of collections. Accessibility, usage, and preservation of physical specimens and their data contribute to the functioning of the collections and exemplifies one of the crucial roles that museum collections play in bridging academia and public knowledge

The process of making a natural history loan starts with a request, either using the Museum’s online loan request form (click here for the request form) or in direct communication with the curator. This request is fine-tuned between the borrower, the curator, and collections staff, and is submitted to the Museum’s Collections Committee for approval.

A number of factors are assessed before a loan request for natural history material is approved, as there are always risks to weigh in the balance of facilitating the greatest scientific and public access to natural history specimens. Collections and conservation staff must confirm that the specimen’s condition is sufficiently stable for transportation, handling, or display. We must also confirm that the institution loaning it can provide a secure and conservation-grade environment for the material to be in for the duration of the loan.

A research loan request is also determined by whether the material can feasibly be analysed by a visitor on-site rather than sent out of the Museum, particularly when it involves material of major scientific or monetary value. In international cases, collections staff may have to determine the need for export permits, or reject a loan request because of international restrictions or regulations. If the loan request involves destructive sampling (such as for mould-making, carbon-dating, or isotope analysis), curators and collections staff must decide if there is sufficient specimen material in the right condition for part of the specimen to be permanently removed.

Once the loan is approved, conservators and collections staff make a condition report for each specimen to be loaned, which records the physical state of the specimen before it leaves the Museum. The loan agreement paperwork is signed by the borrower and the relevant curator. Collections staff update the location of each specimen in the database, so that if someone is looking for that specimen while it is on loan, they know where it is. The specimens are packed for transport, either for hand-carry or in the mail, using conservation grade packing materials and sometimes special transport cases.

All collections usage is important to track, and the results of such usage are vital to the continued development of specimen records, which are not static files but rather ever-evolving informational assemblages. Records with a rich history of usage contain not only physical data about the specimen, but connections to people, places, events, research projects, and more. At many other museums around the world data regarding collections use can be disseminated to national or provincial funding bodies to elucidate the impact that the museum collections have for the public and scientific communities.

Spring has finally arrived on the prairies! Trees are leafing out, flowers are in bloom, days are getting hotter, and, of course, the insects are back! They’re flying, swimming, and crawling around, playing important ecosystem roles that make the world go ‘round. While you can always come to the Museum to see the insect specimens that we have on display in the Museum Galleries, nothing beats the real live thing. But what’s the best way to get a good look? Take it from your Collections Technician for Natural History, if you want to see some cool insects, nothing beats night lighting.

The words “Night lighting” on appear on data labels for specimens throughout our entomological collection, but what does it mean? “Night lighting” is the use of light sources at night to attract insects for observation, photography, or collection. When a specimen has “Night lighting” on the label, it means that the collector set up a night light to catch the specimen. While serious entomologists use expensive rigs involving power generators and mercury vapour lamps, low-cost setups can be put together easily, with supplies you likely already own or can get at a hardware store. Once you’ve got your kit together, you can set it up in your yard, at a city park, or even take it camping!

Here’s what you need to get started:

• A white sheet, the bigger the better
• A regular flashlight, the brighter the better
• An ultraviolet flashlight (AKA blacklight), the broader the UV spectrum the better

Now, I know some readers are probably thinking “Why would I want to attract insects? Will they bite? Is this safe?”, and to that I would say: Using a night light to attract insects is a really excellent way to get up close and observe some of Nature’s coolest critters, even for those who are skittish around insects. Once the insects are on the sheet, they tend to stay on the sheet, and if they do take off, they’ll be much more interested in getting back to the sheet than investigating you! Since the insects are so preoccupied with getting to and staying on the sheet, it makes for a controlled way to introduce young ones to insects and teach them about the creatures they find. Here are some common insects to find at light traps in the city:

Gather your supplies and give night lighting a try this summer! Happy bug hunting!

One prevailing comment I hear about my job, whether in person or via social media, is “your job sounds so cool!” And you know what? It is. But I’m about to reveal the dark underbelly of my job, the bane of my existence, the thing that frustrates me to my core: dirty data.

Last year, the Museum implemented a new Collections Management System (CMS) after years with an old database that was vintage in all the wrong ways. The worst part of our old database was the inability to control the data being entered into the system, resulting in dirty data in desperate need of attention.

Dirty data is incorrect data, misspellings, outdated or inaccurate information found in various fields in our database.

One cause of dirty data is information changing over time, like the reclamation of First Nations place names or changes to the nomenclature we use to categorize objects, leading to inaccuracies in our existing data. However, the biggest culprit of dirty data in our system is human error. With hundreds of individuals creating or entering data into dozens of fields over a fifty-year period, mistakes are bound to happen. This ranges from simple spelling errors to lazy cataloguing resulting in variations in what should be one accurate piece of data.

Dirty data is bad for a handful of reasons. One, the most detrimental to the function of the CMS, is reduced data quality – these errors mean that impacted objects are overlooked in searches of the system.

We are currently in this phase of our new CMS implementation. I’m exporting data, reviewing it, making necessary changes, and then importing the cleansed data back into the database.

Our new collections management system has some key features that helps us prevent the entry of dirty data:

1. We now have many lexicon-controlled fields, meaning that you need to pull data from a pre-approved list of available terms. No more Object Name=Tunbler because you’ll only be able to enter Object Name=Tumbler, for instance. We can update the lexicon terms available for those fields as needed, which is helpful.
2. Our long text fields, like description or provenance, now have spellcheck! This is great for cataloguers who struggle with spelling. We’re living in 2025, folks!

Further to this, additional training and support for the creators of data is also a top priority moving forward. Will some dirty data still sneak in now and then? Absolutely. But then I’ll be there to scrub it clean.

Tape might seem like a good option when it comes to quick repairs of torn papers or fast mounting of photographs in an album, however, they age badly and cause irreversible damage.  Tape is fast, cheap, and easy as the adhesive is already applied to the plastic surface. We simply have the peel it and remove it from the roll, then apply pressure.  However, tape causes a lot of issues for conservators for multiple reasons: 

1. The adhesive on tape can move into the paper fibers and it can cause yellow or orange stains, that are almost never fully removable. A conservator can lessen them, but it is hard, even impossible sometimes.  
2. The adhesive can fail which means it is not bonded to the object anymore and can cause the loss of materials and information.  
3. The adhesive can be stronger than the object it was applied to causing the plastic of the tape to be extremely hard to remove. In those circumstances, many steps, tools, solvents, and sometimes equipment, like microscopes, vacuum tables and light tables , are needed to remove the tape.  It is a time-consuming process that requires patience and knowledge from conservators. 

In some cases, we see a mix of all three types of tape deterioration in the same object! Some parts of the tape fail, others do not and are stronger than ever, or all the paper that touched the tape and the surrounding areas are stained. If the object is a photograph and was repaired on the back, the staining can reach all the way to the front and cause yellow stains to appear on the image. It can ruin photographs and important documents.  

Modern pressure sensitive tape might be clear when we put them on objects, but they turn yellow over time and the adhesive can transfer to the paper irreversibly. Since a multitude of tapes exist it is impossible to say when deterioration will start that is visible to the naked eye. Additionally environmental conditions also play a big role in how quickly tape applied to objects will deteriorate, notably the temperature, relative humidity, and t light exposure. 

In short, there are many evils to tape and it should not be used on anything that you want to keep for a long time. This applies to all objects, not just those made of paper, and includes wood, leather, textiles, rocks or metals.  Therefore, for the longevity and physical integrity of objects, resist the temptation and avoid using tape! 

Mornings in the Museum sometimes feel like the movie Night at the Museum.  I cannot say that I have ever experienced anything coming to life when I am inside an exhibit or diorama, but when my colleagues walk by and see two Conservator’s standing beside a bull moose – I am sure it may seem like that to them! So, what happens before visitors, school and tour groups walk through the gallery doors to immerse themselves in Manitoba’s History? You will most likely see the Conservation department fixing, repairing, or cleaning many of the wonderful displays before everyone arrives. 

The Conservation team is responsible for the long-term preservation of all 2.9 million artifacts and specimens in the Museum’s collection. That means that we look after not only what is held in our collection vaults, but also everything that is on display the 52,000 square feet of exhibition space – including the beautiful dioramas.  Gallery maintenance is an ongoing daily, monthly, and annual job where we rotate between different exhibitions to make sure they are being preserved in the best possible way. 

This maintenance happens in many different forms. It usually involves brushes, vacuums, drills, glass grippers, ladders and scissor lifts! We investigate exhibit cases for pests that may be attracted to eating certain types of objects and remove them from display if they are found.

Image below: Senior Conservator, Carolyn Sirett, vacuuming the exhibits in the HBC gallery.

The Conservation team will also carefully go into dioramas to vacuum dust-off furry mammals, wash plants that line the riverbed streams, and repair branches on trees.  Perhaps what many visitors may not know is that most of the material in our dioramas are real – yes, the plants and mosses are real.  These plant materials have been carefully sourced during fieldwork, pickled in a solution for preservation, and painted to bring back the “living colour” of what it looks like in the natural environment.  It is irresistible to reach out and touch these very real pieces of art that are just within arm’s reach, but Conservator’s are big on no – touching!  Asking visitors to not handle specimens stems from our passion to preserving history for many visitors to enjoy, and it is also the most challenging part for Conservation department to repair in the galleries. 

Image above: Assistant Conservator Estelle Girard cleaning interior of an Earth History Case.

Next time you visit the Museum, I hope you have a moment to look around at all the amazing pieces on display, and now know that there are folks hidden behind-the-scenes caring for them each morning before you arrive. 

We’ve all had the experience of reading something when a word, a name, or a concept piques our curiosity and sets us off on a research quest. This often happens when I am working with human history collections at the Manitoba Museum and regularly inspires my inner ‘Nancy Drew’.

One such search started with a donation mailed from England. About 40 years ago the donor had purchased a box of old cards and letters for a few pence in a second-hand shop. Amongst them was a black-bordered letter sent by Leonard Beer to Mary Thurman in Sheffield England, dated June 1914. Sadly, the letter contained a funeral card for Leonard’s wife Rebecca Annie and their infant daughter Mary. Leonard lived at 499 Inglewood, Karnac, MB. The donor asked if we knew where Karnac was located as he was unable to find it on a map.

A quick search of reference books on Manitoba geographical names didn’t turn up any results, past or present. Fortunately, we live in a world with vast on-line resources at our fingertips. The next step was a quick Google search for Karnac which naturally turned up thousands of hits for the famous Karnak temple complex near Luxor, Egypt. It is not unusual for Manitoba communities to be named for places all around the world.

The Karnac Post office was located near the corner of Roseberry St. where today you will find the Good Earth Restaurant. The block from Roseberry to College was home to numerous shops including John Watson Co. Grocers at 1849 Portage, while Ralph R. Magee, ran the post office and a drug store next door at 1849-1/2. By 1918 at Harold Harris operated the grocers and Alex J. Perrie was the new druggist and postmaster. According to The History of Pharmacy in Manitoba, 1878-1953 Percy Braund opened the first pharmacy in St. James at the corner of Roseberry and Portage in 1910. Ralph Magee was the first manager and he purchased the business in 1913. He was succeeded by Alex. J. Perrie ran Perrie’s Pharmacy until he retired in 1945.

On May 1, 1913 the Winnipeg Free Press had reported that a new post office would be opening in St. James, “in R. Magee’s drug store at the corner of Roseberry street and Portage Avenue”. Known as the Karnac post office, it was intended to serve “all the district lying between Brooklyn and Rutland streets”. This would be the third post office in the area along with the St. James post office and the King Edward at the Winnipeg city limits. Readers were reminded that they should add the proper post office to the address rather than just name and St. James or a street address and ‘city’ in order to avoid a delay in mail reaching its destination. That would explain why our letter writer, Leonard Beer, used Karnac as his return address.

The same article mentioned that “the residents of St. James would like to draw the attention of their Winnipeg correspondents to the fact that letters sent to them require a two-cent stamp as St. James is not in the city” where only a one-cent stamp was needed. Residents of St. James often “have to pay two cents extra before they can receive their mail on account of only a one-cent stamp being on the envelope.” On March 17, 1916 the paper reported a change in policy meant that “all territory adjoining the city has been taken into the Winnipeg postal area.” Postage rates within the city had doubled to 2¢ but the 1¢ surcharge to mail a letter from Winnipeg to Karnac was no longer required. Readers could also look forward to letter carrier delivery in the future.

In the end, a simple question from a donor about an unusual place name led me to some interesting postal and neighbourhood history. Along the trail, I also discovered the Karnac Picture Palace or the Karnac Theatre, not far from the post office at 334 Roseberry and Ness Ave. It appears to have operated from 1915 to 1920. But that will have to be a case for another day.