Museums and galleries in Ottawa, Gatineau and beyond are closed right now due to the COVID-19 emergency, but you can still discover their wonders via online exhibitions. For instance, you can learn about vintage toys, Ottawa in the 1950s, the early days of the Rideau Canal, the Indigenous people who came to the Ottawa Valley some 6,000 years ago, and Canada’s role in the First World War.
Intrigued? Here are some of the countless virtual museum shows you can enjoy from the comfort of your home computer.
Learn about toys and more at the Canadian Museum of History
Do you have fond memories of marbles, skipping ropes, tabletop hockey and Canadian Centennial Chinese checkers? Then you’ll probably enjoy the Canadian Museum of History’s online exhibition, Canada at Play. Other online shows available on the Gatineau museum’s website include Inuit Prints From Cape Dorset and the Virtual Museum of New France.
Delve into military history with the Canadian War Museum
The Canadian War Museum has a wide variety of largely text-and-photo-based online exhibitions, including content about the War of 1812, and Canada and the First World War.
Tour the Ottawa Locks in 1832 with the Bytown Museum
In 2004, the Bytown Museum commissioned a 10-minute animated movie, The Commissariat 3D Reconstruction Project, which takes viewers through the Ottawa Locks of the Rideau Canal (as they looked in 1832) with Lieutenant-Colonel John By and Lord Dalhousie. You can download the movie in multiple parts by clicking on the tab labelled “the animation” near the top of this page at the Virtual Museum of Canada.
Enjoy photostories from the National Gallery of Canada
Between 1955 and 1971, the Still Photography Division of the National Film Board created hundreds of “photostories”—photographic essays combining pictures and words. Today, you can search a database of more than 800 of these photostories, courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada. Here’s a 1956 story about the Peace Tower carillon, for instance, and here’s one from 1958 about the Tulip Festival.
Unearth the archaeology of the Ottawa Valley with the Université de Montréal
This virtual exhibit takes you back 6,000 years in time so you can learn about the first human inhabitants of the Ottawa Valley, particularly on Allumette Island and Morrison Island. Copper knives, rock paintings and clay pots are among the artifacts discussed.
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