Courtenay & District Museum — Attraction in Courtenay

I was extremely saddened by visiting this museum. As I arrived I was first told that there was a section about indigenous history on both floors. Both of these were extremely undershadowed by other exhibits on their floors. It’s wonderful to share archeological and palaeontology history but the majority of pieces seemed to be from all over North America. There are many, many artifacts in this museum that I assume were made by K’ómoks people but they have hardly any information regarding any of their stories or the people who made them. Within 5 minutes of reading about the K’ómoks people on their website I learned more than I was able to at this museum. There is currently an exhibit outlining the internment of thousands of Japanese people during the war. This is of course an important topic and should be talked about. Have close friends whose families were forced to move during this period and I have a lot of grievance for these people. When there’s 5 or so big panels explaining what harm was done to these people followed by a paragraph asking for you to think of what happened to the people who lived here before colonization it does make you think. I think of all of the culture stripped away, the eradication of language, stealing of art, forcing families to leave their homes that they had lived on for thousands of years. I understand that it is harder to find the information that has been lost, although much of it is still passed on through families today. So why do you include so many pieces that are a part of their history without outlining their stories. Looking at every piece of indigenous art in the museum makes it obvious that there are stories to be told about them, songs and dance shared through them. If you don’t hold these pieces with enough respect for them to be talked about why do you...

A pleasant surprise!

Are the displays all professionally labelled? No. But they all provide a wealth of information and where else in this area can you see dinosaur bones from the region?

First floor is mostly dedicated to paleontology (Elasmosaurus!) and a bit of Indigenous/local history. Upstairs you'll find a bit more on Indigenous populations of the region, some info on the formation of the Courtenay/Comox area, early industry of logging and mining, and settlement/colonialization. A more transient display adds an extra viewing opportunity -- for our visit, it was wedding dresses through time, which was actually more interesting than I'd expected.

Worth a good 60-90 minutes of exploring (don't miss the back stairway full of logging tools). There is a small gift shop, too.

Payment is by donation. Don't skimp. This...

We went for a Fossil tour with Pat yesterday with our two children and it was a surreal experience digging next to where an Elasmosaur now known as the Traskasaura (congrats!) was discovered. Despite Pat’s 30+ year tenure with the museum he has passion that is infectious amongst children and adults alike. Our daughter has taken a keen interest in fossils and our son has been talking about marine reptiles non-stop. Us adults reinvigorated our inner child by joining in the search and digging for fossils. Thank you to Pat for an amazing experience and for developing our children’s interest in dinosaurs and marine reptiles!! Would...