Things have been rough at some museums in Ontario lately. This week the provincial government suddenly and permanently closed the Ontario Science Center, saying a risk posed by the stability of the concrete used in some of the roof panels.
The fate of the building, which is incorporated into a canyon in one of the city’s inner suburbs, remains uncertain. But Premier Doug Ford’s provincial government has said the museum will be relocated to a new, smaller building as part of the redevelopment of Ontario Place on the shores of Lake Ontario. (I wrote last month about the backlash to the government’s decision to effectively hand over the West Island of Ontario Place to an Austrian company that plans to build a spa.)
The closure of the science center has led to protests calling for its reopening and repairs, as well as questions about the government’s risk analysis of the roof.
But in an unusual move, there was an offer to help revive the building, which had been so neglected that visitors had to take a bus to the back door instead of entering via a dramatic forest bridge. The architectural firm that designed the building in the 1960s offered to restore it for free. Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, pledged to donate CAD$1 million to the repairs.
Its fate was not as uncertain as that of the Ontario Science Centre, but four years ago the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario, ran into a roadblock with its plans for a new building. The Canoe Museum wanted to replace the former outboard motor factory and offices that had been its home since 1998.
In early 2020, the future of the project looked bright. A global architectural competition has resulted in a building that will sit on a hillside next to a lift lock, a type of boat elevator, on the Trent-Severn Waterway, a system of canals, lakes and rivers that connects Lake Huron and Lake Ontario. The company has signed a land lease with Parks Canada and has raised most of the C$65 million needed for the project.
But tests showed the land was contaminated by industrial solvents runoff from a former watch factory at the top of the hill. This detection occurred despite previous analysis showing that the site was clean.
All of this happened during a pandemic.
“It was a real shock to suddenly find out that we had to close the museum and that the site wasn’t right,” Carolyn Hyslop, the museum’s executive director, told me, standing on the new dock, which was packed with canoes. “It was clear to me that if we didn’t have a place to move this project, we would lose everything.”
About $9 million was spent, but now it’s nothing.
But Mrs Hyslop, along with museum curator Jeremy Ward, found a site across the street from Peterborough city centre later that year, and by May, a year later than the building’s originally planned opening date, the $45 million, 65,000-square-foot project was ready and fully funded.
As we walked through the new building, Ward emphasized that canoes are not unique to Canada as the exhibit emphasizes, but are well suited to Canada’s abundant freshwater rivers and lakes. Canoes were an essential means of transportation for First Nations people, as were kayaks (which are preserved and displayed at the museum). The first Europeans to come to their native lands soon adopted and relied on canoes.
Now they are closely associated with most summer resort areas across the country, especially areas with lakeside cottages, camps, cabins or chalets.
A 1973 magazine article quoted Pierre Berton as saying, “A Canadian is a man who knows how to canoe and make love.” Mr Burton, a writer and broadcaster, later denied making the joke but said he was willing to take credit for it.
A canoe with a built-in gramophone hangs at the entrance to the museum exhibition hall.
The old museum was surrounded by a dusty parking lot. In contrast, the new building sits on a large bay known as Little Lake, ideally suited for paddling.
One of Ward’s favorite boats, the Uqqurmiut kayak, is paddled by Aasivak Arnaquq-Baril, part of the group that built it. Iqaluit during the museum opening ceremony. He then carried it into the dripping building and up to the exhibition area.
The new museum features a single high-ceilinged exhibition hall, unlike its original location in the office section of the outboard engine factory, which created a maze of space over several floors. The picture window currently displays the warehouse where most of the collection of approximately 665 canoes and kayaks is stored. In the previous factory it was hidden.
As before, the exhibit covers a comprehensive overview of canoes, their place in Canadian First Nations society, how canoes brought Europeans to Canada, and the various constructions and recreational and sporting uses of canoes. Not all exhibits were fully installed when I visited this month.
The new building has room to expand the collection. But like all museum curators, Mr. Ward regularly hears from people hoping to donate prized possessions that, in most cases, the museum neither needs nor wants.
“I usually respond, ‘We already have three of these in our collection, so it would be better to find an organization or a new owner who would love them as much as you do,’” he said of the canoe pile. “We may not think it’s acceptable or interesting, but we have to understand that for these people, this is a part of the family.”
crossing canada
This section was edited by Vjosa Isai, a Toronto-based journalist and researcher.
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A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austin was educated in Toronto and lives in Ottawa, where he reported on Canada for the New York Times for 20 years. Follow him at Bluesky. @ianausten.bsky.social
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