The waters have been choppy recently for some of Ontario’s museums. This week, the provincial government abruptly and permanently closed the Ontario Science Centre over what it said were dangers posed by the stability of the concrete used in some of its roof panels.
The fate of the building, which is embedded in a ravine in one of the city’s inner suburbs, remains uncertain. But the provincial government, led by Premier Doug Ford, had said the museum would move to a new, smaller building as part of its redevelopment of Ontario Place on the shore of Lake Ontario. (Last month, I wrote about the backlash to the government’s decision to effectively hand over the west island of Ontario Place to an Austrian company planning to build a spa.)
The closure of the scientific center sparked protests demanding its reopening and fix as well as questions about government risk analysis of the roof.
But, more atypically, there were offers to help revitalize the building, which had been abandoned to the point that visitors had to be bussed to a back door instead of entering via its spectacular bridge over the forest. The architecture firm that designed the building during the 1960s has offered to restore it. freeGeoffrey Hinton, one of the leading pioneers of artificial intelligence and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, pledged 1 million Canadian dollars Towards reparations.
Although its fate was never as uncertain as that of the Ontario Science Centre, four years ago the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ont., hit a snag with its plan to construct a new building. The museum wanted to replace the former outboard motor factory and offices that had been its headquarters since 1998.
In early 2020, the project’s future was bright. TO world architecture competition He had produced a building that would be hidden on a hillside next to the elevator locksa kind of boat lift, of the Trent-Severn Canal, a system of canals, lakes and rivers that would link Lakes Huron and Ontario. He had secured a lease with Parks Canada for the land and had raised most of the C$65 million needed for the project.
But then a test discovered that the soil was contaminated by an industrial solvent that had leaked from a former watch factory on the hilltop. That detection came despite an earlier analysis showing the site was clean.
All this happened when the pandemic hit.
“Suddenly having to close the museum and discovering that the site was not feasible was devastating,” Carolyn Hyslop, the museum’s executive director, told me as she stood on its new dock, which was naturally packed with canoes. “It was very clear that if we didn’t have a site to move this project to, we would lose everything.”
They had spent about $9 million on what was now nothing.
But together with Jeremy Ward, the museum’s curator, Hyslop found a site that same year across from downtown Peterborough. And in May, a year after the original building’s planned opening date, the 65,000-square-foot, $45 million project was ready and fully funded.
As we walked through the new building, Mr. Ward emphasized that canoes are not unique to Canada, as the exhibits highlight, but are well suited to Canada’s abundance of freshwater rivers and lakes. They were a vital form of transportation for Indigenous people, as were kayaks (which the museum also preserves and displays). The first Europeans to move into their traditional lands soon adopted them and depended on them as well.
They are now closely associated with summer recreation throughout much of the country, particularly in areas with lakeside cabins, campgrounds, lodges, or chalets.
“A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe,” Pierre Berton said in a 1973 magazine article. Berton, an author and broadcaster, later denied making the joke but said he would gladly take credit for it.
At the entrance to the museum’s exhibition hall hangs a canoe with a built-in gramophone.
The old museum was surrounded by dusty parking lots. The new building, in stark contrast, sits on a large bay known as Little Lake, ideal for rowing.
One of Mr. Ward’s favorite boats, a Uqqurmiut kayak, was paddled by Aasivak Arnaquq-Baril, a member of the group that built it in Iqaluit, during the museum’s inaugural flotilla. Then he carried it wet inside the building and to the exhibition space.
The new museum has a single high-ceilinged exhibition hall, unlike the original, in the office part of the outboard engine plant, which created a labyrinthine space on several levels. The windows now show his warehouse, where most of the collection of some 665 canoes and kayaks rests. They were hidden in the old factory.
As before, the exhibition is a comprehensive overview of canoes, their place in Canada’s indigenous communities, how they brought Europeans to Canada, their various forms of construction, and their recreational and sporting uses. When I visited this month, not all of the exhibits were fully installed.
There is room in the new building to expand the collection, but like all museum curators, Ward regularly hears from people who want to donate a prized possession that, in most cases, the museum neither needs nor wants.
“I usually tell them, ‘We already have three of these in our collection, so you better find an organization or a new owner who loves them as much as you do,’” he told me, surrounded by stacks of canoes. “Even if we can’t take them with us or think they’re not interesting, you have to understand that to these people, they’re a member of the family.”
Trans Canada
This section was compiled by Vjosa Isai, a Toronto-based reporter and researcher.
-
Celine Dion recounts her experience with a rare and incurable neurological disorder in the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion.” The Times’ arts journalists interviewed the director, Irene Taylor (this article contains spoilers), and analyzed the documentary.
-
“The diva is back, just when we need her most,” says Toronto culture writer Elamin Abdelmahmoud in a guest essay on Dion’s return.
-
On the 50th anniversary of his defection from the Soviet Union, ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov recalls the night he evaded KGB agents after a performance with the Bolshoi Ballet company in Toronto and managed to escape in a getaway car.
-
Is drinking alcohol worth it? Susan Dominus, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, reviews some of the research on alcohol consumption, including Canada’s revised drinking guidelines.
-
They are not our best friends, but they are more than just acquaintances. How to deal with “middle friends” in the relationship hierarchy is a vexing problem, writes Lisa Miller. Beverley Fehr, a social psychologist at the University of Winnipeg, weighs in.
Ian Austen, originally from Windsor, Ontario, was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has written about Canada for The New York Times for two decades. Follow him on Bluesky at @ianausten.bsky.social
How are we doing?
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this newsletter and events in Canada more broadly. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.
Do you like this email?
Forward it to your friends and let them know they can sign up here.