It is true that our museum is enormously successful. It’s a very unique museum, unique in Canada, I believe, because it is located on an archeological and historic site. The museum spotlights the place where Montreal was founded. The plan is to extend the site from the Place de Youville to McGill Street, which is the place where the Parliament of the united Province of Canada met. That plan is currently being developed.
That uniqueness is one of the factors that makes the museum successful. Another factor is that it is tied into school programs. What we present in the museum is part of the required learning material for school students. So we have an impressive number of students who come to the museum with their teachers to learn how Montreal was born.
Another unique factor about the museum is the use of new technologies in presenting exhibits. It was already a significant factor in 1992, and I believe museums have used the Pointe-à-Callière museum as a model. In 1992, our museum already had an interactive presentation with evocative images, technological images, inside which visitors could participate and ask questions.
The presentation in Pointe-à-Callière is dynamic and uses new technologies to draw the public into a unique and multisensory experience. We go as far as the use of light to engage the public and ultimately to create a space for meditation in the Fort de Ville-Marie where people can relive the experience of the first founders of Montreal.
That is what makes the museum attractive.