Beloved parts of Old Town exhibit likely to remain at Royal B.C. Museum

On Monday, the Royal B.C. Museum (RBCM) pulled back the curtain and offered a look at its Old Town exhibit more than a year after the museum closed its third floor in an effort to decolonize the facility and address issues of racism and reconciliation.

It was a controversial decision, and an even bigger controversy ensued when the province announced it was tearing down the museum and building a new one for nearly $800 million.

Those plans were walked back by former B.C. premier John Horgan after massive backlash.

"I’m kind of glad Horgan pulled the plug on that billion-dollar museum, because that money could be used elsewhere for the rightfulness of all British Columbian people," said Kwakiutl First Nation Hereditary Chief David Mungo Knox.

Knox was at the museum on Monday and lit a fire inside the big house that his great grandfather father, Mungo Martin, built nearly 70 years ago to celebrate the end of bans on potlatches in the province.

The big house is located next to the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria, and was "built before the museum was ever built," according to Knox.

On Monday, the RBCM gave the media a tour of the museum’s closed third floor.

"There’s a different story to tell that is inclusive of everybody," said B.C. Tourism Minister Lana Popham on Monday.

More than a year after the floor was closed, some rooms and cases are empty, with artifacts returned to Indigenous communities or packed up for archives. But the Old Town exhibit and the replica of Captain George Vancouver’s ship look much the same.

A portion of the Becoming BC gallery is shown: (Royal BC Museum)"The bones of the third floor are still here," said Popham after the tour.

And as it turns out, the Old Town and Discovery ship replica are not going anywhere — due to safety and hazardous material concerns.

"We actually could not take down Old Town, it's so full of asbestos behind the scenes," said museum CEO Alicia Dubois during the tour.

The plan now is to consult with the public about how best to modify and reimagine the Old Town exhibit so it accurately reflects the region's whole history and not just from a settler perspective — a plan Knox thinks makes sense.

"Keep what’s there, so we're not wasting more tax people's money, and to refurbish and just upgrade the exhibits to portray it in a better manner than what was portrayed in the day," he said Monday.

"There are a number of diverse communities in the province who have never had an opportunity to consistently be the one who tells their own story," said Dubois when explaining the goal of the consultation process for the reimagined third floor.

The floor will reopen in phases, and Popham hopes some of it will be open by the summer.

"If we wait too long we’re going to lose a lot of opportunities on the tourism side for sure," acknowledged Popham. 

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