A military museum coup
In times of fiscal restraint, why is the Harper government splurging $25 million to fix a museum that isn’t broken?
The Canadian Museum of Civilization receives more visitors than any other national museum (1.2 million annually), and is internationally admired by scholars and museum specialists for its leading-edge research and curatorial practices. Its worldclass Canadian ethnology and archeology collections are its core strength, and the subject of both permanent and temporary exhibits. The museum also hosts blockbuster exhibits featuring cultures from abroad. So why crush this reputable and popular Canadian accomplishment?
How does “rebranding” it the Canadian Museum of History advance the museum’s destruction? The new name disrupts this museum’s longstanding focus on Canada’s First Nations. That theme was established in the 19th century by the Geological Survey of Canada. It was formalized in 1910 when the Anthropology Division was forged with staff archeologists and ethnologists who undertook more extensive documentation of First Nations. Until now, that research has remained central. A History Division was not added until 1964, yet it is this lesser component that, under the Harper government, suddenly dominates the entire museum. That’s the radical break Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s name change brings.
Heritage Minister James Moore says we need the new name because, “Canadians deserve a national museum of history that tells our stories and presents our country’s treasures to the world.” As examples, he lists Champlain’s discoveries and building the Canadian Pacific Railway. And folksy ones such as Terry Fox’s run. (Mind you, the Champlain and CPR stories were already in CMC displays when Moore proclaimed them lacking.)
His thematic choices, though, unveiled the plot of Moore’s government to radically subvert one of Canada’s oldest public institutions. Research-driven collections and exhibitions are being replaced by this political vision. The museum’s traditional focus on First Nations and cultural diversity is being eclipsed by tales of Eurocentric settler triumph.
Moore imposed these changes without consulting museum staff, members and visitors, various cultural communities represented by its collections, or the public. Instead, his announcement was a topdown attack, a final blow after years of gutting the museum’s budget and research expertise.
Retirements from archeology and ethnology positions have not been replaced, and technical support has shrunk. Dwindling management support for ethnology and archeology was dramatically highlighted recently, with the dismissal of Dr. Pat Sutherland, an archeologist whose groundbreaking research on early Norse habitation in the Canadian Arctic was featured in National Geographic magazine and the CBC’s The Nature of Things.
Reckless downsizing occurred even while responsible and innovative curators oriented storage and exhibition planning toward collaborative processes shared with the museum’s First Nations source communities. The online exhibition, Belongings from the Land, for example, was developed with extensive Gwich’in participation. But even while curators strove to maintain museum practices reflecting First Nations collections as things held in trust (rather than property claimed by the state for interpretation without source-community consultation), the government diverted behind-the-scenes resources away from First Nations research and collaborative exhibition curating.
Don’t worry, we’re told, neither the Grand Hall nor First Peoples Hall will be touched. But that’s exactly what’s wrong: those should not be consigned to the past, divorced from contemporary and future lives. Fresh interpretations and updates from the lived experiences and emergent contemporary viewpoints among First Nations’ communities and individuals, are cut short. Those were what the CMC was about. Its contemporary First Nations and Métis art exhibitions, along with artworks gracing the museum’s entrance, also vibrantly illustrated this.
With a director and CEO from the War Museum, and a retired armed forces lieutenant-general as chairman of its board, the CMC has been reorganized with military precision. Gone are the days when George MacDonald was director and CEO: an archeologist deeply engaged with ethnological research and exhibition challenges. Now, the board’s few scholars are historians unfamiliar with the CMC’s most significant collections and archives. And whereas the board used to help administer the smaller and simpler War Museum, now it’s the other way around. Small surprise that the CMC’s new director of research came from the War Museum.
Officially, it is all to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday that the War Museum has invaded the CMC, sidelining its First Nations focus; but the CMC itself was worth celebrating for having documented and displayed this country’s unique cultural diversity for all those years.
Perhaps Ottawa citizens could suggest this at Thursday evening’s public consultation about what to display in a Canadian Museum of History (held at the Canadian Museum of Civilization).