Detailed review by magdadh
magdadh
Perth, United Kingdom95%
We spent a happy afternoon touring the Glenbow Museum after our visit to nearby Calgary Tower. It is a good regional museum, with an excellent collection and enough variety to maintain interest even of those who are not big museum buffs.
The Mavericks exhibition is really good. The introductory video is very gushy-American in style (but then Alberta seems to be the most American of Canadian provinces, more American even than Toronto area despite not having that grating accent), but the displays are fascinating and imaginatively presented, with pictures, maps, 3-D tableaux and audio. My favourite maverick? David Thompson, born Dafydd ap Thomas (so presumably Welsh, rather than, as Wikipedia states, English), explorer, map-maker, fur-trader and surveyor, who left Britain at 14 years of age to became Hudson Bay Company clerk and in the course of his life mapped almost four million square kilometres of North America, navigate the full length of the Columbia River, made friends with the Native Americans and recorded their stories, married a Metis woman called Charlotte Small (who bore him 13 children and accompanied him on many journeys) and lived till the grand old age of 86. There is 47 more to learn about in the Glenbow's exhibition.
Just this one exhibition makes Glenbow worth visiting, but there is much more to see. The art galleries are not huge but give a very good idea of development of Canadian (European-influenced) art for the last two hundred years or so, and have a brilliant Emily Carr to look out for.
The Asian exhibition is full of attractive works and worth at least a quick browse, and so is the West-African display on the higher levels. The Blackfoot gallery would be interesting for people who have not seen many other First Nation exhibits, but even for those the Four Directions exhibition will offer an excellent and highly visual summary of the main different indigenous cultures in Canada.
The ticket price is not unreasonable for Canada, and the very young 'uns are free. You can easily spend a whole day at the Glenbow and two hours is an absolute minimum (and you probably won't get past the Mavericks in that time). Highly recommended.
Glenbow Museum9
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