Canadian War Museum — Attraction in Ottawa

For up, i’m from Germany and this is got to be taken in perspective, because everything I critic is still worlds better than any American, British or French history museum: it’s the last week of my exchange year and i thought i gotta visit the Canadian war museum at least once, as I knew that it’s going to be interesting to see what Canada thinks about (and did during) world war 1 and 2, because in Germany we never even mention Canada once. Neither in our museums nor in our history classes (as Canada generally is overshadowed by the US, the USSR and the UK).

I enjoyed the exposition on world war 2 and also the ones on the war of 1812 and the Boer war and so on, but the one on world war one seemed quite nationalistic and patriotic. Coming from Germany of course I have a high expectation for self critical historical examinations, because well… there’s a lot of critical history in Germany, but world war 1 is definitely not solely the Central Power’s fault, even though it was quite harshly represented like that.

Like most historians agree, even though the war was solely blamed on Germany, the UK, France, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Japan and Austria-Hungary contributed quite a lot to the mess that we call world war 1, but this was not well represented and it seemed like the ‘evil’ Germans were just attacking everyone and the ‘selfless’ UK just happens to have time and help all the poor countries that were attacked.

Even though I think the way the war turned out was definitely better than the other options and Germany probably committed more atrocities than the Entente, this was a very one sighted view of history. A minor addition would be maybe to include the Canadian participation during the Dresden fire bombing which can definitely be considered a war crime (It doesn’t even come close to other German atrocities and war crimes during world war 2, but it’s still a war crime) and killed between 35-60k civilians (while some historians suggest numbers up to 600k civilians).

I enjoyed the visit, but the lack of self critic made it seem much more nationalistic than any German history museum that talks about world war one and two that I’ve ever visited. It’s not even close to how bad American museums are, but it could still get some...

After a little GPS confusion, we found the correct driveway to the Museum, but overshot the parking garage and got stuck behind two school buses who blocked the entire street while the students slowly made their way into the museum. Entering the garage was a bit tricky because you have to pull up very close to the closed door before it opens. (Note: the garage parking is not free, and there is no street parking.)

We paid for our tickets, and the staff person offered us the guided tour at only $5 person, but we decided to go on our own.

In the addition to the students who were rather disruptive, there was another event involving many dignitaries and military officers. Part of the museum was closed for that event but it reopened by the time we were ready to go downstairs.

The exhibits are laid out like sections of a grapefruit around a hub. They start with conflicts between the First Peoples and then the conflicts between the First Peoples and the early settlers. A little attention is given to the Boer Wars and then it was on to the World Wars. As Americans, we were fascinated to see the Canadian perspective. We met one of the military officers who had attended the event, and he told us of his experiences in Cyprus and the Middle East. We learned a lot from him!

Downstairs housed a large collection of military vehicles, all labeled.

An added bonus for us was the used book sale in the back of the museum. We bought several books, some that we'd heard of but are hard to find and a couple that were total finds.

We spent about 4 hours and were satisfied that we'd covered the museum in our areas of interest. Very...

i visited this museum about 8-10 years ago, and again today. it was then and is still now a very well thought out museum with lots of interesting things to see and read, and tons of history to absorb. quite disappointing that the memorial hall is closed seemingly for some sort of event, though you don’t learn that until after you’ve paid for your admission. most frustrating though is that during today’s visit, there were many people who felt it appropriate to bring their very small children along and allow them to scream endlessly, run around, touch the exhibits, etc. this is a museum dedicated to honouring our fallen above all else, and not a playground for toddlers to run wild. a family group with a very disruptive young child was right on my heels for most of my visit and at no point did either parents or staff clue in that it is incredibly disrespectful to the nature of the museum’s subject matter and to other patrons who paid to be there. just because it’s free to bring your baby does not mean it is appropriate and staff need to do a better job of ensuring all patrons are respectful of other visitors. the museum is gorgeous, but the noise level and the amount of screaming/crying/wailing from young kids made it very difficult to take in any of the subject matter, especially because many exhibits are presented in...