Museum of Vancouver

Canada's largest civic museum, telling the story of Vancouver

Noteworthy for: The incredible taxidermy collection here is, while not the nicest, probably the safest way to see some of Canada's wild animals up close.
Tracing the city's anthropological origins from its indigenous history to its present day personality, this museum is packed with thousands of artifacts, antiquities, artworks and everyday objects, from suffragette Emily Murphy's opium scale to 1930s street signs. There's even a brick that was thrown at police in 1914 by a Sikh on the SS Komagata Maru, an immigrant ship that was refused access to the Vancouver docks.

It's a fascinating, if a little disorganised place, but it's not stuffy or staid. It's quite easy to find yourself inexplicably poring over 1960s peace banners, or remnants from Vancouver's Great Fire of 1886. There's even a real Egyptian mummy on display, which is slightly baffling, in a place supposedly dedicated to all things Vancouver.
The museum shares its space and resources with the adjoining H.R. MacMillan Space Centre (separate ticket entry), which houses a planetarium and several interactive displays and exhibits.