Canada Guide
Vancouver Island
The Royal British Columbia Museum
Address: 675 Belleville St
Opening time: Daily 9am–5pm, National Geographic IMAX Theatre daily 9am–8pm
Price: Museum $14, IMAX Theatre $10.50, combined ticket $22.50, IMAX double feature $16.25
Website: www.rbcm.gov.bc.ca
Founded in 1886, the Royal British Columbia Museum is arguably the best museum in Canada, and regularly rated, by visitors and travel-magazine polls, as one of North America's top ten. All conceivable aspects of the province are examined, but the aboriginal peoples section is probably the definitive collection of a much-covered genre, while the natural-history sections – huge re-creations of natural habitats, complete with sights, sounds and smells – are mind-boggling in scope and imagination. Allow at least two trips to take it all in.
From virtually the first thing you see – a huge stuffed mammoth – you can tell that thought, wit and a lot of money have gone into the museum. Much of the cash must have been sunk into its most popular display, the Open Ocean, a self-contained, in-depth look at the sea and the deep-level ocean. Groups of ten are admitted into a series of tunnels, dark rooms, lifts and mock-ups of submarines at thirty-minute intervals. You take a time-coded ticket and wait your turn, so either arrive early or reckon on seeing the rest of the museum first.
The National Geographic Theatre in the museum plays host to a huge IMAX screen and a changing programme of special-format films. Outside the museum, there's also Thunderbird Park, a strip of grass with a handful of totem poles.