The Cobalt Mining Museum lives in a rather non-descript brick commercial building in downtown Cobalt, Ontario. Tucked between a government services office and an LCBO, one would be forgiven for not paying it the slightest attention. If you’ve seen one small, forgotten town’s museum, you’ve seen them all. That would be a mistake, because Cobalt … Read more
Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario may be better known for it’s business school but it also has a quality geology program. Fitting, then, that the campus is home to an earth science museum, the Miller Museum of Geology. Geology museums on university campuses are far more common than I realized. Several schools host quality museums … Read more
Coal and Cape Breton go together like lobster and butter. The Carboniferous period left tremendous coal deposits on Nova Scotia’s northeastern island resulting in a close, historical bond between the black rock and the people. But coal was not the only treasure left behind hundreds of millions of years ago. Fossils, evidence of the ancient … Read more
It’s only fitting that a place lovingly referred to as The Rock should have a geology-focused science centre. Memorial University’s Johnson Geo Centre is exactly that. Located on famed Signal Hill, the centre is part of Memorial University’s new Signal Hill Campus. That’s roughly 4 km due east of the main campus in St. John’s. … Read more
The Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg is home to the Ed Leith Cretaceous Menagerie. This modest museum is home to four “dinosaur” skeletons, though only one is a genuine dinosaur. The other three are a mosasaur, a bony fish, and a giant sea turtle. Alongside these magnificent … Read more
The University of Waterloo is globally renowned for its computer science, engineering, and mathematics programs and deservedly so. But there’s far more to this Southern Ontario university as evidenced by the University of Waterloo Earth Sciences Museum. As my alma mater, I fondly remember hanging out with friends between classes at the Peter Russell Rock … Read more
Grand, government supported museums are wonderful, but there’s something special about passion projects. Canadian Rockies Earth Science Resource Centre (CRESRC) is one such project. Located in downtown Canmore in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, CRESRC is the brainchild of Rick Green, a semi-retired geophysicist in the Canadian oil patch. Long active with the Canmore Museum, Mr. Green … Read more
The first time you go to Sudbury, Ontario, you’re all but obligated get a photo at The Big Nickel. Depending on how often you go, this might be an obligation for every trip to Sudbury. At one time, this tradition was nothing but a roadside “world’s biggest” attraction. Now, thanks to Dynamic Earth, it’s at … Read more
The Manitoba Museum, fittingly, is found in the heart of Manitoba’s capital city, Winnipeg. The current museum opened in 1970 but its history goes back much further. Its initial incarnation began in 1932 and the collection was started as far back as 1879. As of writing, it is under construction (still open) preparing for its … Read more
People come to the Bay of Fundy to see the tides, and rightly so. But the Fundy region also boasts a trove of geological treasures many of which are on display at Fundy Geological Museum in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. Parrsboro is located on the south shore of the Nova Scotia Peninsula (the triangular bit on … Read more