Museum Research

Torches help signal the beginning of the Olympic Games. Months before competition, the flame is lit in Olympia, Greece....

Joe Clark’s term as Canada’s 16th Prime Minister was brief, lasting 273 days in 1979–1980. But those nine months represent...

Over the past few years, research staff at the Canadian Museum of History have been collecting and documenting various aspects of...

Jean Chrétien served as Canada’s Prime Minister for 10 years, from 1993 to 2003. That alone would have been enough to earn him...

Although Paul Martin was Canada’s Prime Minister for a relatively brief period, from December 2003 to February 2006, he had a...

On the last day of excavations in the lot behind 62 Sparks Street, while digging a hole to get a good stratigraphic profile of an...

There are so many stories that came out of researching those left behind in the Barrack Hill Cemetery, it was difficult to narrow...

This woman was found lying on her back, arms to her sides, hands on her thighs, feet to the east, and head facing south. Like...

This is the first blog in the series Bone Detective: Mysteries of Those Found Beneath Downtown Ottawa about the findings in the...

The Barrack Hill Cemetery was the first settler cemetery in Ottawa, then known as Bytown. It was opened in late fall 1827 or...

One afternoon in December 1979, Montréal journalists Chris Haney and Scott Abbott sketched out an idea for a board game. It...

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) Foundation’s collection sheds light on the ongoing creativity of designers...

In 1634, French explorer Jean Nicollet carried “a robe of Chinese damask, adorned with flowers and multi-coloured birds” on...

At least once or twice a year, pewter utensils — with their quiet charm — appear in auction catalogues and the inventories of...

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the end of the month-long protests known as the “Freedom Convoy.” It also marks...

Much like everything else, my ability as a Museum curator to do archaeological fieldwork has been impacted by the COVID-19...

By looking at it today, you would never know that part of downtown Ottawa was built on the first settlers’ cemetery of Bytown,...

My role as Curator of Eastern Archaeology at the Canadian Museum of History is to enhance the understanding of Canadian...

When her children were sent home in March 2020 due to the first COVID-19 lockdown, Saskatchewan mom Dawna Doell decided that...

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced significant adaptation and innovation, while exposing long-standing inequities in Canada...