Royal BC Museum

Located directly down the street from the Hotel Grand Pacific is the Royal BC Museum. We happened into the museum as rain was deluging us on our walk to another adventure.

Noticing their huge IMAX posters, we ducked in to the Royal BC Museum to see what time the next show started. Thinking perhaps we could buy some time and give the rain time to clear up. There were 6 show options with various showtimes to chose from. Of course, Great Bear Rainforest, our choice in IMAX showings was 3 hours away. So we purchased the IMAX and museum admission package and decided to delay our Harbour Tour for a less dreary day and embrace the rainy day inside.

We started exploring the Royal BC Museum in the Natural History Gallery. There we found a life-size Wooly Mammoth complete with real ice clinging to the display walls. To make sure you capture the perfect shot there is even a marker of exactly where to stand to take your selfie.

The realism and detail of the wildlife displays make you feel like the creatures are alive and you are far away from civilization deep in the woods.  It helps that throughout this section you hear the sounds of nature; song birds, gurgling springs, rushing rivers, and the occasional elk bugle.

There are binoculars and hidden animals for the little ones to glass,  and life-size replicas of fossils to touch. You can get up close and personal to Roosevelt Elk, Black-Tail Deer, a grizzly bear, a sea lion (they are huge), a cougar, and countless birds. 

The Ocean Station is like crawling aboard a submarine and voyaging down into the depths of the ocean.  There are interactive games, hands on activities like “driving” a submarine, conducting your own marine biology research, and observing live sea creatures. 

The Modern History portion of the museum is where we spent the majority of our time. We waited inside a realistic train station for a train to arrive. The train whistle growing louder and the lights glowing brighter through the windows made the kids truly believe a train was just on the other side of the glass. Claire stood at the train station door and sold tickets to “passengers”. A cinema complete with a full length black and white silent movie was playing in the theatre, equipped with full size seats to add to the ultimate experience. A gold mine with water wheel, underground mine carts, mining drills, and other equipment situated next to the homestead with cabin, horse, and chickens made Henry do a double take. There is a fish camp complete with canning station, salmon filets, and hungry seagulls peering in. A hotel, and so much more!

The First Peoples Gallery provides a history of the coastal tribes and their villages.  The display features homes, weapons, tools, ceremonial outfits, and artwork of the native tribes.  Our kids loved the area with short, maybe two minute, videos of other children exploring their native language, and listening to phones with the various languages speaking back to them.

And of course we were able to see the IMAX, The Great Bear Rainforest. It is 3D, which our little guy doesn’t love. But the IMAX had awesome footage of bears catching fish and whales breaching. Outside the theater is a snack stand with movie popcorn and other traditional theater food. Make sure you arrive to the theater well before the start of the movie as seating is first come first serve and our movie time was super popular so the line into the theater was quite long.

All in all we had an unexpectedly great day exploring the Royal BC Museum. If you are in Victoria on a rainy day kids and adults of all ages would be entertained for several hours at the Royal BC Museum.

The rain did let up a little bit during our time in the museum. We were able to make our way down the street to Miniature World. Check out our experience here!