April 20, 2008 | Tips from Us >
Revelstoke, Museums
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On a recent trip to the newly opened Revelstoke Mountain Resort, I had the opportunity to spend an hour at the Revelstoke Nickelodeon Museum in the heart of the town centre. Once you make it past the amazing gift shop packed with unusual musical knick-knacks, antique and modern mechanical music machines, the room opens to reveal hundreds of beautiful mechanical instruments from the 18th Century to the 1950s. This museum is the only mechanical music museum in western Canada and is operated by a charming couple that between the two of them know more about this sort of stuff than one could imagine. Make sure to enjoy their one hour guided tour to learn about the musical instruments, Victorian music boxes, player pianos, pipe organs and colourful juke boxes.
The highlight for me (beyond the cheerful music) was the RCA/Mills Panoram Video Jukebox (circa 1940) which is basically a wooden box that contains what is essentially the first music video, only the films shown were called "soundies". According to the written description on the machine, over 1850 different soundies were produced in the early 1940s with musical styles ranging from Country and Western to Big Band.
So, when the sking day is done, head on downtown to this unique and enjoyable museum. You are sure to learn something, and be grandly entertained along the way.