Ottawa’s Museum of Nature is the national museum for natural history, geology, and the arctic. It is housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum building built in 1911 in Tudor Gothic style. It was originally founded by the Geological Survey of Canada in Montreal as a geological museum before being transferred to Ottawa under the custody of the Department of Mines in 1881.
When it moved into the current building, the larger location helped accommodate exhibits on plants and animals as well as human history. It was renamed to the National Museum of Canada in 1927 before it finally settled on its current name in 1968.
The ground floor of the museum has a typical natural history museum exhibit of dinosaurs and their friends. Little boys love it, but I think the exhibition lacks colours, brown bones are not the most exciting things to look at.
Head upstairs via the huge atrium to see mammals and birds. There are also about a dozen glass cases with live creepy crawlies inside them such as tarantulas, giant stick insects, and beetles. The top floor has a highly informative arctic exhibit, Canada is uniquely positioned for arctic research and it’s not an exhibit you’ll see in many other museums.
A bonus in the geology exhibit is a display containing a moon rock. It was retrieved by the Apollo 17 mission to the moon in 1972, which was also the last time humans have walked on the moon. During that same mission, a miniature Canadian flag was brought to the moon and back down to Earth.
Other museums of natural history include the Beaty Biodiversity Museum on UBC’s Vancouver Campus and the Royal BC Museum in Victoria. I’m sure there are others I haven’t had the chance to visit yet.
I’d recommend about 90 minutes for a regular visit and 120 minutes if visiting as a family. Parking is charged by the half-hour.
