The Canada Science and Technology Museum is hoping an exhibition of the capsule that brought to the surface the 33 trapped miners in Chile, last fall, will also lift its summer attendance numbers.
The Chilean rescue capsule will be on display at the Canada Science and Technology Museum until May 1, 2011.
The display of the capsule indicates the beginning of a very lucrative time for Canada’s national museums: tourist season
Museum executives mark their calendars with dollar signs from mid-April until Labour Day. That’s when museums, including four of Canada’s national museums – the Canadian War Museum, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Canadian Museum of Nature, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum – see the most visitors.
Claude Faubert, director general of the Science and Technology Museum, says they are fortunate to be starting the season with such an iconic exhibition.
“It offers a museum like this one the opportunity to show that it can be current and it can be showing things that are happening in the world as they happen,” he says. “The capsule rescue only happened just a few months ago. You look at the capsule, and many people can actually relive the days of anxiety as rescuers were trying to reach the miners.”
Faubert explained how special exhibitions that focus on current events, like the rescue capsule, can boost attendance.
“There’s a sizable Chilean community here in Ottawa, and there’s a pretty large one in Montreal, so we would not be surprised at all if members of those two communities actually did come to the museum to see the capsule and find out a little more about it,” he says.
Homemade exhibitions
Bringing in a special exhibition is just one way Canada’s national museums attempt to draw summertime visitors. Another is to develop exhibitions in-house, which is the route the Museum of Civilization is taking to kick off its tourist season.
On April 21, the museum located on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, will open a new exhibition called ‘Expedition: Arctic.’ It focuses on Vilhjalmar Stefanson’s 1913-1918 Arctic trek, and gives visitors the chance to walk in the boots of the scientists, explorers, and Inuit guides who took part in the first Canadian scientific expedition to the Arctic.
Patricia Lynch, spokesperson for the Museum of Civilization, says the exclusivity that comes with an internally-developed exhibition can draw crowds. However, putting it together is no easy process.
"An exhibition developed in-house can take one to even four years."
“An exhibition developed in-house can take one to even four years,” she says. “From the initial planning stages it takes several years, and from when we actually get down into the brass tax of planning, it definitely takes a couple of years from there.”
The Museum of Civilization is also opening an exhibition on Japan in mid-May. This second exhibition, called ‘Japan: Tradition, Innovation,’ follows the same summer formula.
“We always try to have at least one or two big shows on during the summer months, which helps to attract our visitors, and helps to bring back our local visitors who come throughout the year,” says Lynch. “It’s nice to have something new for them to see when they come back.”
Lending a hand
Another way of increasing traffic is borrowing a special exhibition from another museum.
On June 4, the Canadian Museum of Nature will welcome ‘Extreme Mammals: The biggest, smallest, and most amazing mammals of all time.’ Developed by the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Nature will host a five-month exhibition of bizarre noses, impressive horns, and oddball mammals, such as the egg-laying, duck-billed platypus.
Elizabeth McCrea, the director of communications at the Museum of Nature, says showing a borrowed exhibition allows the museum to freshen up its content.
“I think it’s always nice to have something new for people who come on a regular basis, as it’s important to be able to communicate a new message,” she says. “We have our permanent galleries all the time, but putting in new special exhibitions, it allows us to present things that aren’t already on the floor and it makes life a lot more interesting for the visitor.”
The Museum of Nature fully reopened last May after eight years and $216 million in renovations, and McCrea says they are still “riding that big wave.”
The Museum of Nature fully re-opened last May after eight years of renovations.
“We had a record-breaking summer last year after the reopening, and next week we expect to receive our half-a-millionth visitor, which is pretty exciting for us,” she says. “We hope to see at least 150,000 people for this season.”
Old favourites
The Canadian War Museum is taking a different approach to attract summer visitors. Like the other national museums, the War Museum is also introducing a new exhibition this summer. Called ‘War and Medicine’, this exhibition will open late-May, and will show the public the uneasy relationship between warfare and the medical profession over the last 150 years. However, the museum’s manager of communications Yasmine Mingay says the museum will not be relying on the special exhibition to draw crowds.
“Seventy-five per cent of the visitors we have are Canadians from other areas in the country,” she says. “When they come into the museum, they’re just as engaged in learning and seeing our six permanent galleries, as they are the temporary exhibitions.”
Mingay adds that plenty of people visit the museum solely to see the permanent galleries.
“You could take one gallery, one permanent space, and spend two days in it and still not have taken everything in,” she says. “I think it’s important for us to maintain a balance in what we offer, and this summer will be no exception.”
McCrea understands the value of permanent content. She says the fossil collection at the Museum of Nature is a perennial favourite among museum-goers, and it brings visitors to her museum back year after year.
“I find that museums do that. As people remember their child visits, they come back, and it feels very nostalgic,” she says.
Front page image courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Nature
