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Rob Bell and Tyya Strutt share their award-winning 2019 Defining Moments Canada project: “The 1918 Flu Pandemic: Changing the Future through History – The defining Moments” on May 11, 2019, at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Photo by Sonia Mendes, Ingenium Canada.

Young students bring forgotten stories of the Spanish flu back to life

Michelle Campbell Mekarski

Canada Science and Technology Museum

Through her school’s award-winning history project on the Spanish Flu pandemic, 11-year-old Tyya Strutt learned a somber truth. “Most people who die in times of terrible events or peril are never remembered, especially if they are children,” says Strutt. “But this is not right."

The wireless telegraphy station of the physics laboratory of the Collège Sainte-Marie, Montréal, Québec. Anon., “Des postes de télégraphie sans fil établis à Montréal.” La Patrie, 3 April 1909, 9.

Science, technology, innovation and catholicism

Rénald Fortier

Ave / hello, my reading friend. I have a confession to make. Err, yes, I am a bit wacky, but this admission is not the one I had in mind. I must confess I have been interested in the history of science and, perhaps even more, to that of technology for many, many years. If it is true that I have a weakness for the history of aviation, I dare to hope I have somewhat catholic, in other word universal, fields of interest, and ... And yes, you’re right, I plan once again to move away from the only

Collections & Connections

Stories from our collections, about the people we meet and the work we do at our three museums. Hosted by Collections and Research staff at Ingenium, find out about our diverse activities and projects, the exhibitions we work on, and the connections we make across Canada and around the world.

25 Stories

Panoramic photograph of delegates to the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition in London. Below the image is a hand-drawn silhouette, used for identification purposes.

Anniversary of an excursion: Canadians at the 1883 London fisheries exhibition

Cariole collected by Marius Barbeau in 1936, Staint-Pascale-de Kamouraska (now Saint Pascal). Ingenium Museums, artifact No. 1967.0197.

Recovering the lost artifacts of ethnologist Marius Barbeau

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

An infographic with four feature images of bicycles and other artifacts from the Shields collection.

Collection Development

Ingenium's big move: Packing Canada's largest bicycle collection

Camas Clowater-Eriksson

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

Intern Charlotte Clemens, standing outside the museum in front of the museum sign.

Diving into museum work: The life of a summer intern

Charlotte Clemens

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

The inside of the metal carrier for the soil test kit, and the label affixed to the lid.

A colourful, family history shines behind a soil test kit

Behind a single artifact, there are many interwoven stories.

"Saint-Norbert Historique"

Social Science & Culture

Crossroads of Identity: French heritage and street naming in Saint-Norbert, Manitoba

Ayda Loewen-Clarke

Carleton University

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 black and white image of Gander Airport.

Stepping inside an artifact: A visit to Gander International Airport

Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Technology

Find out what this is !

Collection Development

A peek inside the mind of a collector

Michel Labrecque

Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Technology

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.

Cristina Wood and Tom Everrett examine records of tailwater elevations from the Domtar/E.B. Eddy/J.R. Booth Collection, which provided some of the historical data sets used in the “Songs of the Ottawa” project.

Social Science & Culture

Songs of the Ottawa: Using sound to interpret historical data

Tom Everrett, PhD

Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Technology

Data visualization techniques are commonly used by researchers to interpret and share data. If you’ve ever encountered a bar graph, pie chart, or infographic, then you’ve already observed one of the many ways that researchers use visual imagery to render complex data sets more approachable and easier to understand. But what if instead of visuals , researchers instead used sounds to communicate information about their research data? This is one of the guiding questions that motivated Carleton

A mother and daughter weaving a carpet.

Unseen and unrecognized: Women’s key role in the history of computer memories

Ghazaleh Jerban

Guest writer, Ingenium-University of Ottawa Fellowship in Gender, Science and Technology.

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

The unloading of the nitroglycerin carried from Shelby, Montana, to Calgary, Alberta, aboard the (purple?) Stinson SB-1 Detroiter operated by Great Western Airways Limited, February 1929. Anon., “–.” Canadian Aviation, April 1929, 17.

Unsafe at any speed or time

Rénald Fortier

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

microdensitometer

A space-age microscope for reading the stars

David Pantalony, PhD

Ingenium: Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

Each object we move to the new Collections Conservation Centre comes with many stories, connections, and interpretations. As a curator for physical sciences and medicine, I have the privilege of examining incredibly diverse objects in the national science and technology collection. This microdensitometer stands out for a number of reasons; first, it has an illustrious connection to Canadian and international astronomy. The microdensitometer featured here came to Ingenium from the David Dunlap

An artist’s rendering of the Ingenium Collections Conservation Centre, currently under construction next to the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa.

Engineering & Technology

Not your average warehouse: Ingenium’s new Collections Conservation Centre

Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation

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.

An oil painting depicts a hotel dwarfed by the mountains of Banff.

Social Science & Culture

Why we collect

Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

As Ingenium prepares to move the national science and technology collection into the new Collections Conservation Centre over the coming months, curator Sharon Babaian reflects on the purpose of collecting. As curators, we collect objects to document, preserve, and understand the past. The things made and used by people are physical evidence of human invention, activity, and need; they also reflect the societies, communities, and cultures that created and adopted them. At Ingenium – Canada’s

A black-and-white image of a plane in flight.

The death of a dream: The sixtieth anniversary of Avro’s Black Friday

Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Technology

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.

Two men stand in a dirt field; one bores into the soil while the other looks on.

Excavating Canadian soil science history

Guest Writer, Queen's University

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.

Making sense of an Enigma

Molly McCullough

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

Students at Maupeltuewey Kina'matno'kuom, an elementary school (primary to 8) located in Membertou.

Visit to Membertou, Cape Breton

David Pantalony, PhD

Ingenium: Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

6” Cooke & Sons refracting telescope

Social Science & Culture

Award profile: Putting a historic telescope back into focus

Ingenium - Canada's…

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

Social Science & Culture

Award profile: Finding cultural connections through our shared mathematical heritage

Ingenium - Canada's…

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

Seventy-six women from around the world were participants on the inaugural Homeward Bound Women In Science Leadership Expedition to Antarctica.

Social Science & Culture

Homeward Bound: Women in Science and Leadership in Antarctica

Dr. Shelley Ball

Guest Writer, Biosphere Environmental Education

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.

Alexa, a Canadienne dairy cattle calf, laying down in the calf barn at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum.

Alexa: 400 Years of History, and an Uncertain Future

Cédric Brosseau

Ingenium Canada

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

A selection of apiculture journals in the Rare Books Collection at Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Apiarist Ambitions: Subscription Incentives in the Canadian Bee Journal

Guest writer, McGill University

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.

Envelope sent to John Horn from Samuel Morse in 1871. It appears between pages 470-71 in Horn’s volume of The Telegraph in America.

Social Science & Culture

Enhanced Reading: John Horn’s Volume of The Telegraph in America, 1879

Guest writer, McGill University

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

Joust for Atari (artifact no. 2002.0384.001)

Sports & Gaming

Rising from the Grave: “Deadplay" and Video Game Preservation

Dany Guay-Bélanger

Guest writer, Carleton University

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.

Wilfrid "Wop" May and Victor Horner in an Avro Avian, 1920s

A matter of life and death: Diphtheria outbreak in Little Red River, Alberta

Kristy von Moos

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

In the middle of winter 1929, a serious diphtheria epidemic broke out in the small colony of Little Red River, Alberta (about 800 km north of Edmonton), threatening the health of the entire settlement. A Hudson's Bay Company official had already died from the disease, and several others were sick. Today, people are vaccinated against diphtheria as babies but in 1929 it was a considerable threat, causing sickness and possibly death. By the time of this incident a cure existed for diphtheria, but

The home page of Defining Moments Canada

Social Science & Culture

Digital storytelling tools empower students to share Canada’s history

Tatiana Zamozdra

Defining Moments Canada

Over the last few months, there has been an exciting surge of momentum as Canadian students and teachers engage in the art of digital storytelling through an ongoing, national commemoration of the Spanish flu. As the Project Coordinator with Defining Moments Canada — an organization that helps to tell the stories of Canada’s pivotal historical moments — it has been encouraging to see such an outpouring of interest in one of the most fascinating chapters of Canadian history, whose stories are so

View of the University of Toronto Libraries website for the Insulin Collections.

Canada in the world’s memory: The insulin collections at University of Toronto

Do you know what memories—made in Canada—are now enshrined in the world’s memory? The UNESCO Memory of the World program registers documentary heritage considered to be of world significance and outstanding universal value. A number of collections preserved in Canada are on the register, including some that show the history of science and innovation. The University of Toronto’s insulin collections, for example, consist of the archives created by the scientific team of Frederick Grant Banting

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Doctors to prescribe museum visits to help patients 'escape from their own pain'

Ingenium - Canada's…

A trip to the museum could be just what the doctor ordered. In November, a group of physicians in Montreal — alongside the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts — is launching a pilot project that will see them write prescriptions for paintings, sculpture, and relaxation. Read more about the pilot project and why doctors theorize it will help their patients’ health in this article from CBC.

Misconceptions over penicillin allergies can be dangerous

Ingenium - Canada's…

Research indicates that 10 per cent of all patients in the U.S. claim to have a penicillin allergy. However, 90 per cent of those people are not truly allergic and can tolerate the drug — which may be a matter of life and death. Read more about what a study in the British Medical Journal reveals about the importance of penicillin.

Defining Moments Canada launches national contest to commemorate the centenary of the Spanish flu pandemic

Ingenium - Canada's…

A national contest is challenging schools, museums, and heritage organizations to tell stories about the Spanish flu pandemic using digital storytelling tools. “We hope to inspire Canadians to bring to light the stories that shaped our country but are only briefly mentioned in textbooks, and often ignore the many diverse voices that need to be heard,” says Neil Orford, program leader for Defining Moments Canada, the bilingual, non-profit heritage organization hosting the contest. “Personal

Young scientists send worms into space

Ingenium - Canada's…

Four young women from Toronto have become published scientists, thanks to a school project. The women — who were in Grades 8 through 12 when their project started — shot a tube of microscopic worms into orbit so they could study the effects of low gravity on muscle deterioration. Kay Wu, one of the students involved in the project, was selected by Ingenium as a STEAM Horizon Award Winner in 2017 . Read more about the successful science project in this feature article from the Globe and Mail, and