Edmonton‘s Royal Alberta Museum is world-class, but I fault them for not offering student pricing or honoring nationally-recognized cultural volunteers. While the quality of their exhibits is top-notch, their choice of display items is questionable. For example, there were fish in the bug gallery and the transportation exhibit failed to include the iconic Canadian Ski-Doo.
I enjoyed the chronological human history permanent exhibition. It physically separates indigenous history from European colonization to show that the first people’s had a long and peaceful existence for thousands of years before modern history. I found it a dignified way to remind visitors of the people that still live here and whom have always lived here.
The government gave Land away to Europeans who chose to come to the prairies. The rapid growth of villages outside major cities meant banking was often done in a tent before the 1920s, when Alberta was still a relatively new province.
The upstairs natural history gallery doesn’t offer anything unique from other major natural history museums. Unless you’re into rocky mountain formations or glaciers, feel free to skip it.
