Redpath Museum review
The first floor doesn't have much to it, though there is a general theme of marine life. Most prominent is a small hall called Creatures from the Deep with various marine tetrapods, from whales to marine reptiles to the extinct Stellar's Sea Cow.
The exhibit is pretty nice, with a pretty good selection of taxa organised around one theme in eyecatching ways, reminiscent of those galleries in many british museums (including the NHM). While I can't really remember any details in the signage, I didn't mind them.
There are a few other cabinets on this floor, lik one with a fossil fish among other specimens in it, and another with both Triceratops and a Carolina Parakeet.
Then comes a flight of stairs, with additional fossils on it. I thought they were nice to see.
The first gallery on the second floor is the Hodgeson Gallery with displays on shellfish and gems, as well as the museum's history, such as with Sir William Dawson. It's nice if you are into these subjects, but I didn't really care beyond the gem stuff.
This is all attached to the Dawson Gallery, the biggest space in the museum. And boy does it impress.
The front of the hall is dominated by a skeleton cast of Gorgosaurus (specifically the ROM's specimen), posed mid-stride. Without any barriers between it, it's all the more impressive to behold.
There's also a neat diorama depicting Campanian Alberta. I'm a sucker for dioramas, and dated or not, this is no exception.
Can't say the same for interpretives through. They're cheap laminated papers that aren't even fixed to the stand.
You may notice behind it some other dinosaurs.
Firat is a Triceratops skull, nicknamed Sara. It may only be a juvenile specimen, but good god is it already big, and being able to see it from all sides really helps with the impressiveness.
The interpretives are neat too, with drawers you can pull out to learn about the dig and the specimen.... though some of them lack the transparent covers, meaning some dumb kid could easily steal crap if they could, hell even I was tempted to (but thankfully I didn't).
In front of it is a cabinet with a cast of a Dromaeosaurus. It's posed dynamically, and the ratite on top is pretty good to convey how birds are dinosaurs, as befits the cabinet's topic. Also, palaeoartist Tom Parker is in the artwork. Nice.
Rounding the major dinosaurs out for the Dawson Gallery is another cabinet for casts of Tyranno's skull. I'm very certain the snout was featured in Dino Lab II, which is nice to see.
Although naturally I came for the dinosaurs, most of the Dawson gallery is for extinct life of Deep Time. With the palaeozoic portion on the left, there's a distinct focus on Qubecois and Maritime sites, like the famous Anticosti, Miguasha, and Joggins, as well as the Horton Bluff (I actually never heard of it by name before). I like them all, even if they're basic in design. It starts with the Archean period on the left and moves forward through deep time with fossils in wall and free-standing cabinets.
Also, I swear I had a toy like this one standing in for early amniotes as a kid. Seeing cheap toys in museum displays is always funny,
The back of the gallery is dedicated to extant fauna of Quebec, with the exception of another diorama, of the Ordivician seas. While the Anthropocene stuff is fine, this is always cooler to me.
All above it is an origami Pteranodon. At first I thought seeing it on Google Maps it just looked uggo, but seeing it in person actually showed what it was, and I think the effort and time put into it was neat.
Finally, on the third floor (and past some taxidermy African fauna), otherwise for human cultures (and rather small in terms of floor space) is a cabinet for human evolution. To be honest, my knowledge of human evolution is a bit rusty, so I won't comment on them.
On my visit we went back to the second floor before we left.
The Redpath Museum bears a classic museum look and feel of fossils in and among wooden cabinets, and static interpretives as opposed to stuff like video terminals. It's a pretty decent experience nevertheless. And the smell? I think it was very good. This kind of tactility is sorely missing from newer museums IMO.
The graphics for the interpretives are taken from elsewhere, as many small museums are wont to do for lack of big budget. I particularly remember that one image of Walking with Beasts' mammoth in the ice age cabinet. Not that I'm complaining.
If I could change anything about the Redpath Museum, mine would be creating an entirely-new facility and moving the entire collection of the museum to it to allow for larger collections and galleries.
- Life in our Province (La vie dans notre province) - Nature of Quebec and Canada.
- Beneath our Feet - Geology of Quebec.
- Our Ancient Past (Notre passé ancien) - Basically a gallery for both fossil life, with a focus on Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritimes, as well as history of the old museum and the work of Sir William Dawson.
- Cretaceous - The dinosaur stuff, basically a large walkthrough diorama.
- Human Culture galleries. Yeah, got no idea for these.
- Planète Nature - Taxidermy and nature stuff for any fauna not from Canada.
if not all that, just update the signage, and add railing around the Gorgosaurus mount with fixed signage on it. The museum is fine as it is.
But that's just me.
- Presentation - 7/10
- Exhibit Design - 8/10
- Interpretives - 7/10
- Fossil Variety - 8/10
- Accuracy - 7/10
- Overall - 8/10
Despite it's small size, the Redpath Museum is a pretty good museum, with both lots of history and specimens to it. I recommend checking it out if you're in Montreal - though it is undergoing a refurb to make ot more accessible (namely elevators, which the building doesn't have). Can't wait to go another time.
Thank you for reading.
See Also
- Fossil Gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature / Musée canadien de la nature: A Review and virtual tour, for another museum like it (fairly) close by Montral.
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