Beaty Biodiversity Museum

The Beaty Biodiversity Museum, a natural history museum located on the campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC), lies parallel to one of the main walking routes of the university campus.  This C$50-million museum, as well as the Biodiversity Research Centre, are located in the Beaty Biodiversity Centre housed in a 11,520 sq. m. (124,000 sq. ft.), four-storey building designed by Patkau Architects in 2009 and built by Scott Construction.

It formed the final side of a landscaped quadrangle created by the 2006 construction of the Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory.  The museum has a theater and 1,900 sq. m. (20,000 sq. ft.) of collections and exhibit space.  First opened to the public on October 16, 2010, it has since received over 35,000 visitors per year.The museum was selected by Georgia Straight as among the “Best of Vancouver” for 2013.

Its collections, divided into six main sub-collections (the Cowan Tetrapod Collection, the Marine Invertebrate Collection, the Fossil Collection, the Herbarium, the Spencer Entomological Collection and the Fish Collection) and over 500 permanent exhibits, are mostly displayed in cabinet windows and shadow boxes, although a few are shown through alternative displays like in-ground “excavations” that under glass that visitors can walk on. Most items are accompanied by a description card which briefly outlines details like the species and provenance information.

Djavad Mowafaghian Atrium

The collections, including over two million specimens collected between the 1910s and the present, focus, in particular on the species of British Columbia, Yukon, and the Pacific Coast.The space also includes a “family zone,” with juvenile reading materials and a teaching collection in a Discovery Lab.

Skeleton of Blue Whale

The museum was named after Ross and Trisha Beaty, UBC alumni who donated C$8 million in funding to support its creation. The Biodiversity Centre also received C$16.5 million from each of the BC Knowledge Development Fund and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, C$3 million from the Djavad Mowafaghian Foundation, and C$6 million from the university.Dr. Wayne Maddison was the founding director was and the current director is Dr. Quentin Cronk of the Department of Botany.

Grace and Kyle checking out the Taxidermy Exhibit

Designed in the interests of sustainability, the building has a green roof and a reed water garden to reduce pollutants and improve drainage of storm water from the building. Except in some of its laboratories, the centre does not have air conditioning.  Instead, through the facility’s concrete walls and by the use of sunshades on the outside of the building, the temperature level is mediated by natural ventilation.

To reduce the building’s use of electricity (which also assists in the preservation of some light-sensitive collections), natural lighting is also optimized. The centre also includes several “recycling hubs” and facilities for the composting of organic waste material.

We entered the museum through the glass-walled, two storey high Mowafaghian Atrium which, in addition to the museum’s gift shop and the Niche Cafe, houses the museum’s signature piece and most prominent display – a magnificent 26-m. (85-ft.) long skeleton of a female blue whale. Canada’s largest, it was found buried in Tignish, Prince Edward Island.  Suspended over a descending ramp by which the main collections are accessed, the display is a “see-through box” whose façade windows have “steel mesh brises-soleils.”

The largest skeleton exhibit in the world suspended without external framework for support, it is one of only 21 blue whale skeletons on public display worldwide. A Discovery Channel documentary, called Raising Big Blue, was first aired in Canada on June 5, 2011 and is frequently screened at the museum’s Allan Yap Theater. It featured the process of recovering, transporting and displaying the whale.  Scout Magazine included the museum’s blue whale exhibit in  list of “1,000 Cool Things about Vancouver.”

Allan Yap Theater

The Cowan Tetrapod Collection, founded in 1943, was named after Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan (its first curator).  Originally named the “Cowan Vertebrate Museum,” it is the second largest collection of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians in British Columbia.

Taxidermy Exhibit

Combining several pre-existing collections including the K. Racey Collection (over 4,200 birds and mammals), the zoological collections of W.S. Maguire and J. Wynne and the HR Macmillan ornithological collection, it contains over 40,000 items,over 39,000 items of which have been indexed in VertNet, a “collaborative project funded by the National Science Foundation that aims to make biodiversity data free and openly accessible on the web from publishers worldwide.”

They represent over 2,500 species of vertebrates – 18,000 mammals from 540 species, 17,500 birds and 7,000 bird eggs, and 1,600 reptiles and amphibians. The collection holds extensive, representative samples of nearly all species and most subspecies of British Columbia‘s terrestrial vertebrates and marine mammals.

The collection includes older specimens dating back to 1849, as well as rare specimens such as the red panda, the endangered Vancouver Island marmot, and even extinct species such as the passenger pigeon. Although mainly used for research, the collection also holds teaching specimens used by educators, artists, and others throughout the Lower Mainland.

The Marine Invertebrate Collection, started in the 1940s with alcohol-preserved specimens collected by Dr. C. McLean Fraser and Dr. Ian McTaggart Cowan, was primarily used for teaching purposes and eventually grew to several thousand specimens encompassing the major lineages of invertebrate animals.

Marine Invertebrate Collection

In 2006, due to the donation of the Alice Stein collection (consisting of thousands of shells and corals) by Kelly Norton, the collection was expanded and, in the following year, was further expanded with a large donation of shells from Evelyn Hebb Killiam.

Both donations, representing mostly tropical species, include some spectacular examples of global marine biodiversity, such as giant clams and some rare species of cowries.  Items in the collection, not yet been fully catalogued, represent the “major lineages of animals” and include cnidarians, mollusks, annelids, echinoderms, crustaceans, and sponges.

Burgess Shale

The Fossil Collection, part of the Pacific Museum of Earth, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, UBC,was began by Dr. Merton Yarwood Williams (co-founder of the UBC Department of Geology) in 1924.  An initial acquisition of specimens from local mining engineer William John Sutton was exhibited in the Geological Sciences Centre beginning in 1971 and was curated by Joe Nagel (curator from 1971 to 1995).

Permian Period

However, due to financial constraints, the exhibit was closed in 1995. In 2003, the collection became part of the holdings of the Pacific Museum of the Earth but, during its recataloguing process, is being housed in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.

Comprising over 20,000 items, the Fossil Collection, is highlighted by its stromatolites (rock formations consisting of blue-green algae dating back 500 million years, some of the oldest extant fossils) and examples of the Burgess Shale. In 2018, the museum added, to its permanent exhibitions, 3 casts of early Cretaceous Period  dinosaur trackways from Peace Region area of British Columbia.

The Herbarium, the largest in Canada west of Ottawa, contains more than 650,000 specimens which are used to help researchers identify the plants, describe new species, and track changes in diversity over time. Among the Herbarium’s holdings are 498 type specimens.

In ground “excavation” where visitors can walk on at the Herbarium

Among the oldest collections at UBC, it was established in 1912 by John Davidson (at that time the BC provincial botanist) whose collection of mostly vascular plants was housed in downtown Vancouver at the Botanical Offices on West Pender Street (relocated to the university campus in 1925). This collection is critical to the identification, monitoring, and conservation of plant biodiversity in British Columbia, and is an important resource for scientific research and education.

It has five major collections.  The first, vascular plants of British Columbia (flowering plants, conifers, ferns, and their relatives) as well as Hawaiian plants, tropical prayer plants, and cyanolichens, comprises 223,000 vascular plants and their relatives. Two-thirds of the vascular plants collection is Canadian (45% from British Columbia and 22% from other provinces and territories) while 16% are American (9% from Hawaii and the Pacific coast and 7% from the other states) and 17% from other countries.

The second collection, the most comprehensive of any herbarium, particularly in its coverage of the northeast Pacific Ocean species, consists of 85,000 macroscopic algae (mostly seaweeds).  The third collection, of 242,000 internationally recognized bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts), is the largest in Canada.

The fourth collection, of 16,000 fungi, includes the largest research collection of macrofungi of British Columbia.  The last collection, of 40,000 lichens , is among the largest in western North America.

The Spencer Entomological Collection, the second-largest entomological collection in western Canada, was begun by Dr. George Spencer  (1888-1966) in the 1920s.  Including specimens from as early as the 1830s, it was not a university-recognized collection at the time of its creation but, by the time of Spencer’s retirement in 1958, it comprised over 300,000 items.

In 1953, it was officially founded as a university collection. In 1958, Dr. G.G.E. Scudder assumed the curatorship of the collection and, in his 40 years in that role (from 1958 to 1999), doubled the size of the collection.

Now comprising over 600,000 items (over 500,000 pinned insects, 25,000 on slides, and 75,000 in alcohol), the collection, a number of which have not yet been indexed, focuses on the spectacular insect diversity of British Columbia and Yukon.  In 2003, Dr. Wayne Maddison became the collection’s director and he enlarged the collection of jumping spiders into one of the world’s best through field work in tropical and temperate regions.

The collection has “particularly strong holdings of Hemiptera (true bugs), Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), Siphonaptera (fleas) and Anoplura and Mallophaga (lice).” It also includes 350 books and other printed materials relevant to the study of entomology.

There are also numerous holotype specimens, such as the plant hopper Achrotile distincta, which Dr. Scudder discovered in 1959 in the Cariboo-Chilcotin and described as a new species in 1963. It also holds historical specimens of species that have disappeared from the province, such as the Limenitis archippus (viceroy butterfly), last collected in Lillooet in 1930.

Fish Collection

The Fish Collection, begun by Dr. C. McLean Fraser, the first head of UBC’s Department of Zoology, the third largest fish collection in Canada.  It holds over 850,000 specimens, over 2,300 of which are included in FishBase, a web-based global fish relational database containing information on practically all fish known to science. The first to index the museum’s collection, FishBase is supported by a research consortium that includes the UBC Fisheries Centre.

They include whole fish stored in alcohol, skeletons, cleared and stained fish, fish X-rays and over 50,000 DNA and tissue samples, with particular strengths in freshwater and nearshore marine species. Locations covered include Canada, the Aleutians, the Malay Archipelago, Mexico, the Galapagos Islands, Panama, and the Amazon River Basin.

Some specimens date back as far as 1904, but cataloguing didn’t begin until 1945. Used in conservation efforts, environmental assessments, and numerous research projects, particularly by the Native Fishes Research Group, the collection has also served as an educational resource in training some of Canada’s leading fish biologists. Dr. Murray Newman was the collection’s first curator and Dr. Wilbur Clemens, G.V. Wilby, Dr. Casimir Lindsey, Dr. Norman Wilimovsky, and Dr. J. Donald McPhail each, over the decades, greatly expanded the collections.

The collection holds 11 holotype specimens (original specimens that were used to describe new species) as well as representatives of pairs of stickleback species, what may be the youngest fish species on Earth, that evolved only recently in British Columbia’s lakes.  The collection has been used in environmental assessments, conservation efforts, and numerous research projects, as well as in educating and training some of Canada’s leading fish biologists. Its specimens have also been used to document regime shifts in the Bering Sea, the formation of new species, and the extinction of others.

The Allan Yap Discovery Lab

Beaty Biodiversity Museum:  2212 Main Mall, Point Grey, University of British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Vancouver, British Columbia.  Tel: 604-827-4955. Fax: 604-822-0686.  Open Tuesdays to Sundays, 10 AM – 5 PM.  Admission: C$14 (regular), C$30-45 (Family)  and free (students, staff and faculty).  E-mail: info@beatymuseum.ubc.ca.  Website:
www.beatymuseum.ubc.ca.   Coordinates: 49.2636°N 123.2514°W

Port of Vancouver Discovery Center

The exciting, high tech Port of Vancouver Discovery Centre, serving multiple arms of the Port Authority, offers a space that converts from visitor Discovery Centre to education centre, to town hall meeting space, to event venue, and at times, all in the same 24 hours.

Entrance

Located on the waterfront at Canada Place, below Fly Over Canada, at the north end of the pier, it is one of the facility most used spaces and a great place to learn about Canada’s largest and busiest port in a fun and interactive wayas well as engage in the stories and ideas that have shaped the port city.

Through the integration of interactive panels, projection mapping surfaces, digital informational kiosks, and broadcast-quality equipment, Eos Lightmedia helped transform the Port of Vancouver Discovery Centre into a highly flexible space, working with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority as well as designers Waddell & Conder, content producers Burnkit, Resolve Design for the history wall, and fabricators Three Dimensional Services to design, supply and integrate the layers of lighting, audiovisual, software and controls technology.

It features interactive touch screens; animated graphics and informative videos; historical artifacts and ship models; west-facing views of Vancouver harbor and access to the Canada Place promenade.

The stunning historical display case spanning the length of the facility

The Discovery Centre is also the venue for a school program designed especially for local elementary students in grades four to six, who use interactive, projection driven benches with embedded touch sensors that provide hands on education about the busy goings on of Canada’s largest port. Eos Lightmedia’s custom control software allows facilitators of the space to change the vocabulary and content to make it suitable for both younger and more mature student groups.

With hundreds of square feet of projection mapped surfaces for interaction and digital informational kiosks, here you can experience the sights and sounds of a busy harbor while learning about Canada’s largest and most diversified port.

St. Roch

You can also learn about early port development; trade, innovation and shipbuilding; harbor operations today; working on the waterfront; environmental programs; and facts and statistics.  In contrast to the cutting edge technology, there’s also stunning historical display case, spanning the length of the facility, that is replete with artifacts from the ports long history in the city.

A Regal Heritage

The entire atmosphere of the room can also change, from its public setting, to a sleek professional meeting room setting with just a click of a button on the facility’s sophisticated control system.

SS Beaver

The interactive touch panels break apart into bench seating for over 100 and, for the Port Authority’s many meetings, announcements, and group functions, the large digital map wall becomes the presentation screen for keynote speakers.

Pacific Gateway

Broadcast quality lighting and audio equipment also allows for events to be live-streamed, in high definition, with professional results without the need for off-site equipment rentals.

Shipbuilding for the Wars

Within the center, every function has its own custom lighting look controlled by DMX over the dedicated exhibit network within the space. The central control system links the benches, their projectors, and the audio systems, automatically turning on and off with a preset, adjustable schedule. The facilities operations team can also instantly recall the various ‘scenes’ within the center.

The Container Revolution

Port of Vancouver Discovery Centre: 100 The Pointe, 999 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia. Admission is free. Open daily, 8 AM to 8 PM. Download the Port of Vancouver community map to follow along during the virtual harbout tour.

Hill Street at Burnaby Village Museum

On our 23^rd day in Canada, right after lunch, Grace, Jandy, Kyle and I opted to visit the Burnaby Village Museum, an open-air museum located at Deer Lake Park.  From Holdom Station, we took the SkyTrain to Sperling-Burnaby Lake Station then rode Bus 144 to the museum.

Administration Building and Discovery Meeting Room

Our visit was timely as the museum only opens seasonally, from May to September, and opens for special events taking place from September to March. Upon entering, we crossed a wooden bridge, with signs talking about Deer Lake Brook and, once across, the trees opened to the reconstructed 1920s village, the most noteworthy part of the museum.

Bridge over Deer Lake Brook

Previously known as the Heritage Village the museum has grown from 1.7 hectares  (4.3 acres) site, with a small number of displays, to a 4 hectare (10 acre) heritage site and major attraction in Metro Vancouver. The Museum is affiliated with the BC Museums Association, Canadian Museums Association, and the Canadian Heritage Information Network. Burnaby Art Gallery is in the same park.

Grace, Kyle and Jandy

Coincidentally, our visit coincided with the museum’s 50^th anniversary. and near the entrance were life-size Anniversary Arches which showcases the Museum’s evolving role in the community through the eyes of local artists.  The first arch had the Filipino greeting Tuloy Po Kayo (“Please Come In”).

Anniversary Arches

Here is the historical timeline of the museum:

• On November 19, 1971, the museum was officially opened (officiated by Roland Michener, then Governor General of Canada). Over 15,000 visitors attended the museum during its special three-day (November 19-21) opening.
• On July 1, 1972, 2 PM, the museum opened for its first full public season. It included several shops located in replica buildings on the main street, and the “manor house” (the 1922 home of the Bateman family, today known as Elworth). Livestock, including horses that were shod in the blacksmith shop, were part of the display. An early promotional brochure promised visitors they would be able to “smell the burning hoof.”
• In 1975, the B.C. Society of Model Engineers opened a model railway at the Village.
• In 1979, the Heritage Village became the set for the Canadian/German co-production of the 26-part TV series Huckleberry Finn and His Friends.
• In 1984, the museum’s name was changed to reflect its role as Burnaby‘s community museum
• In 1985, Iredale Partnership was hired to create an expansion concept for Burnaby’s Municipal Council to consider.
• In 1986, the plan was completed
• In 1987, the plan was accepted by Council. At that time, the site was expanded to approximately 9 acres, with new lands across Deer Lake Brook made available to the Museum to expand, and to create a new entrance facility and administration building.
• In 1989, the miniature railway moved to Confederation Park.
• In 1990, the Municipality of Burnaby took over operation of Burnaby Village Museum from the Century Park Museum Association.
• In 1999, the Museum’s popular “Business as Usual” school program was launched
• In 2000, the “Home Sweet Home” program was launched.
• In 2010, the Burnaby Village Museum was an official stop for the Olympic Torch Relay.
• For the 2011 summer and Christmas seasons, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Museum, Burnaby City Council agreed to offer free admission to museum visitors.

The first place we visited was the Don Wrigley Pavilion, a pavilion located at one of the museum’s two entrances (earning the entrance the name “Carousel Entrance”).  Here, my grandson Kyle, accompanied by Jandy (Kyle needed to be accompanied by an adult), tried out one of the museum’s major attractions – the C. W. Parker Carousel, a carousel  built in 1912 by Charles Wallace Parker (owner of the C. W. Parker Company at Leavenworth, Kansas).

Don Wrigley Pavilion

One ride cost $2.65 per person.  This would be the second time they would ride a carousel (the first was in Butchart Gardens in Victoria). Setting the tone for the carousel was a Wurlitzer Military Band Organ (Style 146B), built by the Rudolf Wurlitzer Co, ca. 1925, which recreated the sound of a 20-piece military band.   The machine was bought from a collector in Spokane, Washington who obtained it from a closed down traveling carnival in Reno, Nevada.

Check out “Butchart Gardens”

The Carousel Ticket Office and Gift Shop

The carousel also had a colored history.  Also known as the Parker #119 and the Burnaby Centennial Parker Carousel, the carousel, the 119th such machine built by the C. W. Parker Company (earning it its “Parker #119” nickname), contains 41 horses.  In 1913, it was sold for $5,886.00 and, for two years, the carousel toured Texas  with the Lone Star Circus.

The C. W. Parker Carousel

In 1915, the machine was shipped back to the factory where it is believed that the machine was rebuilt and some fancier horses and heavier rounding boards may have been added. Each horse is a work-of-art that was hand-carved and painted. Some of the horses were built in 1917 and some in 1920–1922.

1925 Wurlitzer Military Band Organ

From 1915 to 1936, the history of the carousel is unknown. In 1936, the carousel was purchased by Happyland, an amusement park in Vancouver, British Columbia and remained there until the amusement park was demolished in 1957.  The carousel was moved to the new small pavilion in Playland, (another amusement park in Vancouver) until that too was demolished in 1972.

Kyle and Jandy

From 1972 to 1989, Parker #119 was operated outdoors, and was put away each winter.  In 1989, the PNE’s historic carousel was decommissioned and it was announced that the carousel would be sold off, horse by horse, at an auction in New York but local residents came together to raise the money to purchase and save the carousel, forming the “Friends of the Vancouver Carousel Society.”  It was at this time that the carousel was nicknamed the Parker #119.

In May 1989, the Burnaby Village Museum agreed to provide a home for the carousel and the “Friends” led by President Don Wrigley, set about raising the $350,000 to purchase the machine. Keith Jamieson, a carousel expert, was brought in to coordinate the rebuilding project. In 1990, the carousel was purchased and funds were also raised to pay for the restoration.

The Carousel Gallery

People who donated money could sponsor a horse and later name it. The museum agreed to build a new pavilion to house the carousel. Named the Don Wrigley Pavilion, the pavilion was completed in 1993 and, that same year, the carousel (now named the Burnaby Centennial Parker Carousel) was officially opened.

Old Curly Locomotive Shed

Another machine with a colorful history here is the Old Curly Locomotive, the oldest surviving steam locomotive in British Columbia.  Built in San Francisco in 1879, this “pony locomotive,” initially named Emory, was a yard locomotive employed in building a seawall in San Francisco.  In 1881, it was brought north, just outside of Yale, British Columbia, to work on the construction of part of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Four wheel tenders, with 600 additional gallons of water, was added.

Old Curly Locomotive

Following the completion of the railway in 1885, it was barged over to Vancouver Island for use to log most of the timber in Surrey as well as several railway logging operations along the coast by the British Columbia Mills Timber and Trading Company until 1927. Its name may be a reference to Satan although the broadcaster Red Robinson believes it was named after his grandfather Curly Surgenor.  After years of neglect, it was restored by the CPR in the 1930s and placed on display at Hastings Park (PNE) in Vancouver.  In 1973, it was moved to the Burnaby Village Museum.

War Memorial Drinking Fountain

Along a shaded arterial pathway, we passed by the War Memorial Fountain, a granite drinking fountain built by local stonemason William Williamson. Erected in 1923 by the Burnaby Civic Employees Union (now CUPE Local 23), it was originally located in front of Burnaby‘s original Municipal Hall at Kingsway and Edmonds Street.  An engraved memorial, at the top of the fountain, commemorates Burnaby’s municipal employees who lost their lives in World War I. At the bottom of the memorial is a stone drinking bowl for dogs.  In 1974, the memorial was moved to the museum.

Interurban 1223 Tram Barn

At a meadow is the Vorce Tram Station and the Interurban Tram Barn.  The Interurban 1223 Tram Barn houses a restored 1912 British Columbia Electric Railway interurban tram, complete with information about the history of the BCER and its role in the development of Burnaby.

1912 British Columbia Electric Railway Interurban Tram

The author

In 2001, the 1912 interurban tram was moved offsite to a warehouse, where it would undergo a 5-year restoration project by the Friends of Interurban 1223. In 2007, the restored Interurban 1223 was returned to the Museum, and installed in the newly constructed tram barn.

The barn also houses displays, posters, and photos, with knowledgeable staff members providing operational details to visitors (did you know that trams of the era had a unique feature?   Their seats can be reversed, allowing passengers to always face forward.

Vorce Tram Station

The Vorce Tram Station, a modest utilitarian passenger tram shelter, was originally built in 1911 at the foot of Nursery Street as part of the British Columbia Electric Railway Company’s (BCER) Burnaby Lake Interurban Line. In 1953, it was moved to a local farm by the Lubbock family and, in 1977, was acquired by the Burnaby Village Museum and installed adjacent to the tram barn.  In 2008, under the auspices of the City of Burnaby Community Heritage Commission, it was restored to its original appearance.

Designed and built by the BCER, it is typical of the small local passenger stations on the Burnaby Lake and Chilliwack interurban lines. The wood frame structure, with is rectangular plan and hipped roof, is enclosed on three sides, with an open side for access to the train platform and a single long built in bench across the back of the station. Named after C.B. Vorce (the Chief Engineer for the company), it is the last remaining interurban station in Burnaby and one of the few extant structures left in the Greater Vancouver region that were once part of the extensive British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER) interurban system.

Elworth

Next, we visited the one and one half storey, wood frame Elworth, the “manor house” designed by English born and trained architect Enoch Evans (1862-1939) of E. Evans and Son and built in 1922 by contractor William Dodson for retired Canadian Pacific Railway executive Edwin Wettenhall Bateman (1859-1957) and his wife, Mary (Dale) Bateman (1865-1935).

Living Room

The adjacent Elworth Garage is the original garage of the Elworth home. Both are the only historic buildings standing on their original site within the grounds of the Burnaby Village Museum.

Dining Room

This beautiful home, once part of the exclusive Deer Lake neighborhood, was named after Edwin Bateman’s birthplace in Cheshire, North West England. and is a typical example of the eclectic Period Revival influences that were common to domestic architecture in the post-World War I era.

It has an imposing, full open front veranda supported by exaggerated Ionic columns, cedar shingle sidings, two flanking brick chimneys, and multi-paned, double hung wooden sash windows.

Bedroom

In 1970, Elworth was purchased by Burnaby and became the focal point for the development of the museum.

Bathroom

Both the interior and exterior of the house have been restored and interpreted to the date of original construction, including recreated room interiors and period furnishings.

Kitchen

As we moved further along the Village, we felt we entered a movie set. In fact, a number of movies and TV series have been filmed here including Lucifer, Huckleberry Finn and Friends, Supernatural and Christmas in Evergreen, a Hallmark movie. The grounds of Burnaby Village Museum (BVM) has four streets – Finlayson Avenue, Hill Street, Brookfield Lane and Bate Avenue. Annually, more than 150,000 people visit the museum to experience the area’s insightful past.

Burnaby Village Museum contains 31 full scale buildings, some of them original heritage buildings, moved from other locations in the community and restored. They have designated working antiques and there are a total of 50,000 artifacts throughout the various buildings. Each building offers a little bit of history about how it contributed to the development of Burnaby.

Dow, Fraser & Co. Real Estate Office

The Dow, Fraser & Co. Real Estate Office, a 1927 heritage building, was originally a grocery store annex along MacKay Avenue.  In 1976, it was set up as a real estate and surveyor’s office.

The Royal Bank of Canada Building

The Royal Bank Building, constructed in Britannia Beach in 1950, was moved to the village in 1976 and set up to look like Burnaby’s Royal Bank which opened in 1921. Its interior fixtures are from Nelson, British Columbia.

The Royal Bank of Canada Building – Interior

The original Bell’s Dry Goods Store Building, a typical commercial false front, single storey, wood frame building, was built in 1922 by Clifford Tuckey with a small lean-to structure on the back housing a kitchen and bedroom.

Bell’s Dry Goods Building

Soon afterwards, the store was sold to William and Flora Bell, who then lived and worked their dry-goods business here for a number of years until 1937.  Later, the building was sold to Maurice and Mildred Whitechurch, who ran it for many years as a hardware store.

Bell’s Dry Goods Building – Store

In 1974, the structure was relocated to its present site at the museum. Between 1993 and 1996, the building was restored to its 1925 appearance.

Bell’s Dry Goods Building – Dining Room

Originally located along Sixth Street in East Burnaby, in a small commercial district that served residents located along the streetcar line between New Westminster and Edmonds, it is one of the last remaining intact false front retail structures of its time to survive in Burnaby as well as one of East Burnaby’s few surviving early commercial buildings.

Bell’s Dry Goods Building – Bedroom

Representative of other typical commercial structures of the period, this store also served as the location of the East Burnaby Post Office, one of a number of local post offices located throughout the municipality during the early twentieth century.

Farmhouse of Jesse and Martha Love

The Farmhouse of Jesse and Martha Love, the oldest building in the village, was built by Jesse Love and his wife Martha who arrived in Burnaby in 1893 and, over the years, had 11 children.

In 1988, it was moved to the Museum to be part of the “rural zone” display established in the newly acquired museum space across Deer Lake Brook.

Decorated in a 1925 Victorian style, it has a wraparound verandah and has all the modern conveniences –  from hot-running water to a radio. Guided tours are available.

Seaforth School Building

The restored Seaforth School Building was originally located on the north side of Burnaby Lake, at 7881 Government Street cor. Piper Avenue.  The one room school, designed by architects Bowman and Cullerne and constructed by local contractor Alphonse J. Toebaert, was opened in the rural Lozells District of Burnaby in 1922 with 20 students. By 1989, the popular “3R’s” school program was being offered on a regular basis at the schoolhouse.

Seaforth School – Classroom

In 1983, the historic building was moved, from its original location at Government Road to the Burnaby Village Museum and, in April 1987, the school was opened to the public as part of the Museum’s permanent exhibition.

Tom Irvine’s House. At left is the outhouse

The Tom Irvine’s House, a small, two-room  (living room/kitchen and a bedroom), wood frame bachelor’s house, was built in 1911 by Irish-born Burnaby resident Tom Irvine (a prospector in the Yukon and, later, a pile driver working with the British Columbia Electric Railway Burnaby Lake Interurban Line) and his friend Robert “Bob” Moore.

Tom Irvine’s House – Interior

Bob Moore died soon afterwards but Tom lived in the house until 1958.  In 1929, running water was added and electricity in the 1950s.  Tom never married and died in 1964, aged 100.  Originally located along Laurel Street in Central Burnaby (now the site of the Burnaby Lake Sports Complex), just west of Burnaby Lake and the tram line, it was moved to the site in 1975 and restored to its 1920s appearance.

Vancouver Heights Sheet Metal Works

The little Vancouver Heights Sheet Metal Works Building was once a shed used for horseshoeing on Burnaby’s Lubbock Farm. Today, it houses tinsmithing tools used to make a variety of items out of sheet metal.

Burnaby Lake General Store

Other buildings are replica buildings, created to house specific displays and artifacts.

Burnaby Lake General Store – Interior

The Burnaby Lake General Store is a 1920s General Store based on an actual store from Burnaby.  On stock were cleaning items, coffee beans, daily grocery items, etc.

Royal Oak Garage

Royal Oak Garage – Interior

The Royal Oak Garage, based on a 1925 garage on Kingsway in Burnaby has, on display, a vintage gas pump, a 1924 Ford Model T and a CCM Motor Bicycle.

1924 Ford Model T

CCM Motor Bicycle

Vintage gas pump

Silent movies, from the 1920s, are played in the 20-pax Central Park Theatre.

Central Park Theatre

The Wagner’s Blacksmith Shop is a working blacksmith shop based on a 1925 Burnaby business.

Wagner’s Blacksmith Shop

Staff, dressed in 1920s period attire, demonstrating tinsmithing at Wagner’s Blacksmith Shop

The Log Cabin, built in 1973 (as a North West Mounted Police post to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the RCMP) by Earl Robert Carter using only hand tools, is a reproduction of a log house built in 1860 by William Holmes, Burnaby’s first settler.

Log Cabin

Log Cabin – Interior

Way Sang Yuen Wat Kee, a replica Chinese herbalist’s shop opened in 1975, houses the contents from a store which operated in Victoria from about 1900 to 1971.

Way Sang Yuen Wat Kee Herbalist

Way Sang Yuen Wat Kee Herbalist – Interior

The Drugstore has a rotating chart that helps patients identify their disease based on their general symptoms.

The Drugstore

Drugstore – Interior

There’s also a shining globe, in front of the store, made up of different colors that showed how seasoned the chemist was.

McKay Barber Shop

McKay Barber Shop – Interior

Beside it was the McKay Barbershop, a 1920s barbershop modeled after Burnaby’s McKay barbershop that operated on Kingsway.

Stride Studios

The Stride Studios, a temporary exhibit gallery on Hill Street, was opened in 2000.  Each year, it features a different special exhibit that explored topics beyond Burnaby in the 1920s to be featured as part of the visitor experience.

Stride Studios – Interior

In 2011, the gallery hosted “Prints from CPR Magic Lantern Slides, 1885-1930,” curated by Michael Lawlor and Bill Jeffries and circulated by the Simon Fraser University Gallery.

Fire Robot, 1990s

Ongoing, during our visit, was the “We Are 50: Expect the Unexpected – The Collection of the Burnaby Village Museum.”  It showcases objects rarely seen by the public before

The Burnaby Post

The Burnaby Post – Interior

The Burnaby Post, a working print shop representing the offices of Burnaby’s weekly paper, the Burnaby Post, demonstrates how an early printing press operates.

Treble Clef Phonographs

Treble Clef Phonographs – Interior

Treble Clef Phonographs is a 1920s music shop with an operating player piano.

Home Bakery

Home Bakery – Interior

The Home Bakery is a replica of the original “Home Bakery” which was located on Kingsway, just east of Boundary Road.

Japanese ofuro

There’s also a replica of an ofuru (Japanese bathhouse), built in 1977 in partnership with the Japanese-Canadian Citizens Association, to commemorate the arrival in B.C. of the first Japanese immigrant in 1877.

Bandstand

The Museum’s bandstand is based on the Central Park bandstand, built in 1895 and used until the 1920s.

the 1920s replica church

The nearby replica 1920s church, opened in 1974, is used for small weddings, memorials or baptisms.  It has hardwood floors, an upright piano, traditional stained glass windows and 14 authentic wooden pews.

Learning House

The Indigenous Learning House, an important addition to the Village, showcases the culture, language and traditions of the Skwxwu7mesh First Nations (Squamish) who lived here before Burnaby was colonized.

Learning House – Interior

Accompanying this house is the Matriarch’s Garden which contains special indigenous Coast Salish plants, some of them endangered, used for weaving, making tea and food for both humans and animals. The stones here are shaped in a Coast Salish eye, representing the grandfathers. Here, indigenous educators share their knowledge about plants.

Matriarch’s Garden

The Museum’s costumed historic interpreters or staff members, dressed in vintage clothing of the 1920s, have expert knowledge of the era and demonstrated the traditional trades. There are steam equipment that show how steam was once used to power sawmills and industrial equipment.

Ice Cream Parlour

Steam donkeys were used to move logs in the forest by winching steel ropes.  After our long walk exploring each and every building, we stopped for a sweet gelato treat at the iconic, 1920s-style Ice-Cream Parlour, beside the Home Bakery.

L-R: Kyle, Grace, Jandy and the author enjoying gelato at the Ice Cream Parlour

Burnaby Village Museum and Carousel: 6501 Deer Lake Ave., Deer Lake Park, Burnaby, British Columbia V5G 3T6, Canada. Tel: (604) 297-4565.  Fax: (604) 297-4557.  E-mail: bvm@burnaby.ca. Website: www.burnabyvillagemuseum.ca. Coordinates: 49.2391°N 122.9661°W. Admission is free, except for special events like their Spring Break Scavenger Hunt in March and Haunted Village in late October. There is also a small charge for their carousel rides (around $2.50 in normal years).

Burnaby Village Museum opens seasonally.  For 2022, it is open, from 11 AM to 4:30 PM, for school Spring Break, from March 14 to 25; and during summer, from Tuesdays to Sundays, between May 7 and September 5 (as well as on statutory holidays like Victoria Day, Canada Day, BC Day and Labour Day). Admission is free. The Haunted Village (also called Eerie Illusions) takes place from October 20 to 30. Admission to the Halloween attraction costs adults around $10 and $5 for children. Heritage Christmas is set to run from November 26, 2022 until January 2, 2023.

How to Get There: by bus: 110, 123, 133, 144, by SkyTrain: EXPO LINE, MILLENNIUM LINE.