Collections & Connections

The Billings Estate National Historic Site is currently displaying a curious wooden bicycle. It was hand built in the late 1890s by a teenager named James Henry Blair, using materials scavenged off his father’s Gloucester farm. Artifacts at the Canada Science and Technology Museum give us a rare chance to explore the mindset of this young inventor as he puzzled through the process of how to build a bicycle with limited resources.

With the recent announcement that James Peebles had won the Nobel Prize in Physics , it is timely to revisit the history of the Physics Department at the University of Manitoba. In 2013, I visited the department to learn specifically about their program in mass spectrometry. On a broader level, my research and collecting touched on aspects of Peebles's rich undergraduate experience in the 1950s. It has been over one hundred years since British scientists developed methods to deflect ions

You might not imagine that volunteer work at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum would involve unravelling a mystery. But in truth, it can!

VIEW INFOGRAPHIC It’s no secret that Ingenium is gearing up for a big move. As staff busy themselves with this mammoth task, let us take a moment to fully appreciate just one of the MANY collections being packed up for the journey to the new Collections Conservation Center. Did you know that the Canada Science and Technology Museum holds the largest collection related to the history of bicycle technology in Canada? The Shields Collection contains over 3,000 items from the early nineteenth

When I arrived in Ottawa about three months ago to work as an exhibition intern with the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. My short time with the museum turned out to be more interesting and colourful than I ever could have imagined; I’ve conducted damage reports, gone “undercover” for an in-house investigation, and even built an airplane out of a pool noodle! But before I delve into everything, let me tell you the real reason I’m here. This internship has

In an urban environment, street names provide essential information: where am I? Where am I going? Where am I coming from? They orient us to our location, not only physically but also culturally, historically, and linguistically. As a result, street names can simultaneously reflect and create a community’s identity.

A biochemist, avid cross-country skier, and former science budget analyst speaks on the joys of collecting, the lessons learned, and the importance of preserving material culture.

In 2017, I had the honour of travelling to Iran — the country that's world famous for its hand-woven carpets — to study women’s traditional practises of Persian carpet weaving. I visited collective and home carpet-weaving workshops in Kashan , where I interviewed local women who were involved in carpet weaving. Frames of astonishing designs, mixed with attractive colours using traditional tools, have been fixed in my memory. Traditional tools used for carpet weaving, ToranjMehrab carpet weaving

Is that an expression of shock or disbelief I see on your face, my reading friend? Shock would be an appropriate reaction. Disbelief, not so much. What follows is no joke, my reading friend, but I beseech you not to try this at home. This week’s story comes to you courtesy of the most successful aviation magazine in Canadian history, personal opinion, the monthly Canadian Aviation , more specifically its April 1929 issue. Once upon a time, early in 1929 to be exact, Calmont Oils Limited, a

Ingenium’s new Collections Conservation Centre will open in only a few months. This is a dream come true for those of us who have been caring for Canada’s national collection of scientific and technological artifacts for our entire careers, and have been waiting for this moment for over a decade.

Today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the cancellation of the CF-105 Avro Arrow, Canada’s first and only supersonic fighter interceptor. It remains one of the most contentious moments in Canadian aerospace history.

In honour of World Soil Day, this blog post reports on a collaborative research project that explores the history of soil science in Canada. Launched in June 2018, the project documents the history of Canadian soil scientists and their research programs, as well as their documentary and artefactual heritage. This project was generously funded by the Canadian Soil Information Service at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Through the course of a project spanning nine years, two Ingenium conservators — Tony Missio and David Elliott — had the chance to work on the complete restoration and preservation of the 6” Cooke & Sons refracting telescope, bought by the Meteorological Service of Canada in 1882. The telescope was in service for over 100 years; it was donated to the museum by its last owner, the University of Toronto, in 1984. The telescope was dismantled and brought to the national collection storage. On

The Petrovic Collection at the Canada Science and Technology Museum is a collection of over 130 mathematical instruments from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries. These instruments came to the museum in 1980 from Dr. George Petrovic, a Serbian-born architect who collected them in order to document the connections between mathematical practice and architecture in the eastern Mediterranean regions, as well as countries that were once part of the Ottoman Empire. The collection is now at the centre

What better place to sharpen one’s leadership skills than amidst the harsh landscape of Antarctica. The frozen continent is filled with stories of leadership from the early 20th century explorers and their race to be the first to set foot on the South Pole. For 76 of us from around the world - all women with science backgrounds - Antarctica was the backdrop for our own explorations into leadership.

A short post on the history and current status of the Canadienne dairy cattle breed.

When the going gets tough, I get this vision: I’ll pick up my life, buy a plot of land in the countryside, and take up apiculture. That’s right: beekeeping.

Books are tools that organize knowledge. When readers access that knowledge, they engage a reading experience.

Videogames are cultural heritage artifacts worthy of preservation. My Master’s major research project culminated in the creation of a podcast and website which investigates videogame preservation and proposes some solutions to this complex and pressing issue.