Art Class : Royal BC Museum

November 6th, 2012

What happens when your dad has a conference in Victoria, BC? The whole family goes with him of course. Leaving Raincouver on Friday afternoon we drove to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal.

The drive was long and boring so to pass the time my brother and I watched Legally Blonde and I loved it because I have a thing for romantic comedy movies and surprisingly my brother liked it too.

We arrived at the terminal and as siblings to I was pissed at my brother for some stupid thing and he was in his sulky mood. We headed over to the indoor market to get a quick dinner before our scheduled ferry.

Aboard the ferry I was listening to music and plotting away at my plan for my NaNo WriMo novel that I was starting on in November. The ferry was a smooth sailing except for some teenage girl came into the main area and turned off the TV because she wasn't interested in the football game that was on. After fiddling with it for what seemed like hours my dad was able to get it working again. We docked in Victoria and drove to our hotel, got our room and had a light bite to eat.

The next morning my dad was in a meeting so my mom, brother and I took advantage of the break in the rain. We went to Goldstream Provincial Park to watch the salmon run. It was incredible! The salmon were huge and were moving so fast. I couldn't believe how many were there. We walked the trail to the nature house and learned more about the area. After we drove back to our hotel. By then my dad was done his meeting and I was dying to show him the salmon run. So as soon as we got back my mom and brother got out of the car and my dad got in. When my dad and I went it was poring rain. We got to see a different side to the salmon run. When we got there, there were first nations people fishing for the salmon. Their children were watching because they were passing on their tradition to their children. At first I was pissed that people were hunting such and incredible species but once I heard the reason they do it and the good that comes out of it I wasn't as pissed. That was the second salmon run I saw and I will never forget what I saw.

The next day we packed up all our stuff and drove into Victoria. Our first stop was Monroe bookstore. I didn't buy any books but I took note of some books I want to read. What I did buy was a 2013 calendar with a different left-handed fact every day. Our next destination was the Royal BC Museum and man is it massive!

There were three main exhibits we saw. The first was the history of map making and there were some of the most ancient world maps. I loved seeing what people thought of the shape of the world during our history.

The next exhibit was the Victoria history section. I went in thinking I can't wait to get out of this section and see the natural history but this section was by far one of the best museum exhibits it comes close to The Newseum, Museum of Natural history and museum of American history in Washington DC.

The part that stood out to me was the street of Victoria in the 1800s. I saw old store fronts and what was in the stores and how much things costed. We got to walk through an old house. I also liked the section on the railway and the logging stuff because I love canadian history and the life during the late 1800s is my favourite part of Canadian history especially the Canadian Pacific Railway.

The last section we went to was a bit of a disappointment. The natural history section. It wasn't very big and didn't quite measure to my expectations. I liked the giant mammoth and the prehistoric stuff but I preferred the old Victoria section.

At the salmon run you are sure to run into a few dead salmon