Canada’s history like you’ve never seen it

When I wrote recently about the lack of any notable legacy project in Ottawa to remind us of Canada’s 150 years of nationhood, folks at the Canadian Museum of History wondered if I had seen their permanent exhibition of Canadian history that opens Canada Day, July 1. I had not, and went to take a look. It is a legacy project worth its name, and if you are a resident or someone coming to Ottawa for the grand anniversary, take time to visit the Canadian History Hall. You’ll learn something.

“We wanted to tell the history of Canada that is robust, deep, penetrating, and we wanted it to be transparent and have enormous integrity — warts and all, the good stories and the bad stories,” says museum president Mark O’Neill. “If you don’t present it that way, then it is not an honest and courageous telling of history.”

He is right. The exhibition doesn’t pull any punches. It doesn’t gloss over our history and it doesn’t pander. It is evocative, sometimes jarring, but all in all, a compelling rendition of Canada’s history.

Five years in the making at a cost of $30 million, and billed as the “largest and most comprehensive exhibition about Canadian history ever developed,” it begins 15,000 years ago with the emergence of the First Peoples, then the arrival of the Europeans, and winds its way through the many trials, tribulations and triumphs of a nascent nation.

As you go through the exhibition, there’s no hiding the dark spots in Canada’s history: the oppression and decimation of indigenous communities; the land grab; the trauma of the residential schools; and the racism that permeated the society. The turning away of refugee ships the Komagata Maru and the St. Louis, and the internment of Ukrainian and Japanese-Canadians, are highlighted to remind us of some of the dark chapters of our story.

But then we evolved and became the open, tolerant and compassionate country that embraced the Vietnamese boat people and the Syrian refugees.

The exhibition is divided into three galleries. The first covers the period from 13,000 B.C. to 1763. The second from 1763 to 1914, and the third depicts modern Canada from 1914.

It features about 1,500 artifacts, including the handcuffs Louis Riel wore on his way to the gallows, the robes of hanging judge Hugh Richardson, the war knife and moccasins of Blackfoot Chief Crowfoot, Lester Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize medal and the handgun believed to have been used to assassinate Thomas D’Arcy McGee.

But the most fascinating for me is an ivory carving of the tattooed face of a woman believed to be the first recorded human face in Canada.

There is also the “fertility tree” of Catherine Moitié, one of about 800 women — the filles du roi — who were shipped from France to the wilderness that was Canada over a 10-year period, beginning in 1663. Sent under orders of the king to marry, have children and help populate the colony, they are known today as the founding mothers of Quebec. Moitié no doubt played her part, leaving behind more than 600 descendants.

One of the more interesting things about Canada History Hall is the way indigenous history is woven throughout the exhibition. While indigenous history is often presented separately from the Canadian story, here it is fully integrated into mainstream history. The stories are told in the voice of indigenous people, adding a different perspective and point of view to events in Canadian history.

“We are trying to give Canadians a fair, balanced and inclusive view of the history of Canada and we want people to walk away from this exhibition with pride about what Canada is, a sense of why we are the way we are and how did we get that way,” says research director David Morrison.

Covering 40,000 square feet across two floors, the history exhibition is impressive. You need to give yourself a good two hours to take it all in. But go see it. It will be worth your while. Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa writer.