April 01, 2009 | Tips from Us >
Vancouver, Museums
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I had the opportunity to be toured around the
Vancouver Maritime Museum in Vanier Park this morning. I have to admit that it had been awhile since I had been through the museum. I fully expected to be awed by the size and historic significance of the RCMP Arctic Schooner, St. Roch and I knew I would be fondly reminded of the educational richness of the exhibits featuring shipwrecks, fireboats, pirates, deep-sea exploration, the old CP steam liners...and I was....but what I didn't realize is that the current Vancouver Maritime Museum is much more than a look at our maritime past - it is very much about learning from our past as we look forward to our
future. The newest exhibit is called Melt Down and it is a look at how oceans react to global warming. Visitors learn about changing marine ecosystems, the uncertain future of salmon stocks, CO2 emissions, carbon footprints and various concepts about sustainability. I was very impressed and wished I had hours to digest all the great information contained within this fascinating building. The picture in this blog shows the difference in size of the Arctic summer ice in 1997 (all the white bit) and then the Arctic summer ice in 2007 (smaller bit of white outlined).