Thank you very much.
My name is Meg Beckel, and I have the honour and privilege of being the president and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Today, I was invited here to tell you about the Canadian Museum of Nature's plans for 2017, Canada's 150th anniversary.
It is both an honour and a privilege to take part in the celebrations. Our plans and the run-up to 2017 will focus on our strengths, our mandate and our vision. Arctic 2017 aims to connect Canadians and the world with Canada's Arctic.
To facilitate simultaneous interpretation, this presentation will be made in English, but fact sheets will be available in both French and English.
Before describing our project, I thought I'd provide some background on the museum.
Our vision is to inspire understanding and respect for nature. Our mandate, as described in the act that created us, is to increase throughout Canada and internationally interest in, knowledge of, and appreciation and respect for the natural world by establishing, maintaining, and developing for research and posterity a collection of natural history objects with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, and by demonstrating the knowledge derived from it and the understanding it represents.
Our mission is to be a national museum of international first rank known for inspiring and memorable connections with the natural world through an engaging and impactful program of research collections, exhibitions, and public engagement.
Arctic 2017 will be a project to advance our vision and to celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary. Why Canada's Arctic? It's majestic. It's mysterious. It's extreme. It's intriguing. It's important. And it's our future. Arctic 2017 will be a proposal built on the museum's strengths in Arctic research. Study of the Arctic is a major research pillar at the museum: 60% of our research and collections activity is focused on the Arctic. Several of our researchers were part of the International Polar Year activities. Our researchers are in the field, in the Arctic each season, creating, advancing, and sharing knowledge, and our research scientists collaborate with university and independent research institutes in Canada and around the world.
Arctic 2017 will also build on our strengths in natural history collections. The Arctic collections tell the story of the Arctic: the past, the present, and the future. Our Arctic collections cover plants, animals, fossils, and minerals.
The museum also holds the collections of the Nunavut. We also hold records and artifacts from Canada's first Arctic expedition by museum researchers in 1913. The Arctic 2017 project will also build on our record of successful collaboration. Over the past 20 years the museum has developed and delivered exhibits, public programs, school visit programs, and research in collection strategies with numerous partners, including Students on Ice, as the picture shows.
We've also collaborated with the National Film Board, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada, the Inuit Relations Secretariat, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, ArcticNet, and Université Laval, to name just a few.
The project will also be built on our ability to work with and enlist corporate sponsors, as evidenced by our RBC Blue Water Gallery, the Talisman Energy Fossil Gallery, the Vale Earth Gallery, the Genome Canada travelling exhibition, the NSERC Discovery Centre in our Blue Water Gallery, and the Canadian Wildlife Federation sponsorship of our upcoming whales exhibit.
The project will also be built on our ability to develop national Arctic-themed programs. Arctic Odyssey was a special exhibition at the museum in 1998. “Sila: Clue in to Climate Change”, is a small travelling exhibit currently on the road. Our researchers participated in the annual Students on Ice expeditions to the Arctic and the Antarctic, and our polar perspectives program in 2007 to 2009 was a national educational program linking high school students from across Canada with those in the north, discussing the question, “What does the Arctic mean to you?”
Arctic 2017 will be an inspiring connection with Canada's Arctic. The project will advance each year, starting in 2013, and culminate in the opening of a signature gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature in 2017.
In 2013 we will launch our multi-year project with a national Arctic film festival. We're in the early discussions currently about a collaboration with the National Arts Centre's Arctic Scene program and the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada. The festival would provide an ideal platform to launch the museum's Arctic 2017 project. It would also be a wonderful year to celebrate that wonderful expedition in 1913, one hundred years prior.
Then in 2014 we will launch a national digital education program. This will be reaching schools across Canada in collaboration with Students on Ice and the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada and the Canadian Association of Science Centres.
In 2015 a national and international travelling exhibit on Canada's Arctic will be launched. The intent is to offer the exhibit to museums across Canada and then to Canadian embassies around the world, with special focus on those countries that are members of the Arctic Council. It will be our opportunity to showcase the story of Canada's Arctic.
The travelling exhibit would also provide opportunities to engage youth in each host city in outreach programs designed to inspire the next generation to explore Canada from sea to sea to sea, and the programs would be designed in collaboration with Students on Ice, who are known to be experts in engaging youth.
In 2016 the Canadian Museum of Nature's Arctic exploration and discovery program will be launched. This will be an ongoing and intensified presence in Canada's Arctic research centres in addition to the polar continental shelf program in Resolute Bay and also the Canadian High Arctic research station in Cambridge Bay, which is slated to open in either 2016 or 2017. The museum's two research centres of excellence would provide a platform for enhanced fundraising opportunities for the museum, which would fund our research programs.
Arctic plants and Arctic animals would be the two areas of focus for our increased research activity in the north, involving the recruitment of research scientists and post-doctoral students and the digitization of our Arctic plant and animal collections for the benefit of science, education, and posterity.
In 2017 the official opening will take place of a permanent gallery on Canada's Arctic at the Canadian Museum of Nature to celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary, featuring a ceremonial space in Ottawa that would provide a unique backdrop for Arctic-related conversations and celebrations. The gallery would provide a 21st-century immersive experience, including interactive displays, digital media, an igloo web portal for live links with Arctic expeditions, scientists, and Students on Ice.
The gallery would also provide opportunities to showcase Parks Canada's eight northern parks by featuring the live webcam feeds located in Canada's parks.
Also, the gallery opening would launch a year-long program of events on-site, online, and across Canada, celebrating Canada's Arctic and Canada's 150th anniversary.
Canada's Arctic could be a theme that all of Canada could rally around. We are, after all, the true north, strong and free. Canada's Arctic 2017 will be a celebration of Canada from sea to sea to sea. It could ensure Canada's north has appropriate recognition in the nation's capital through a permanent gallery at the national natural history museum. It could provide a unique national and international project that could inspire, connect, and educate Canadians and the world on Canada's Arctic. It could build on Canada's chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2013 and 2014. It could provide opportunities and unique backdrops for key Canadian government officials, partners, and others as they progress with northern strategies and plans. And it could provide a theme for celebrations in communities, schools, universities, colleges, and libraries across Canada.
The Arctic is mysterious, majestic, and extreme, and therefore it inspires both awe and wonder. What an enticing and intriguing theme for a 150th anniversary celebration.
Thank you for the opportunity to share our plans and for your attention.