Museum

A reminder to members of City Daily Photo that the theme for August 1st is Garden. 

Today I begin a tour of the Canadian Museum of Nature, one of the national museums in the area. This started out life as the Victoria Memorial Museum Building, sometimes sharing space with other national collections. It is in the Tudor-Gothic style, reflecting other buildings in the city of those styles. Its most recent upgrades include the Queens Lantern, a glass tower that replaces where a stone tower once stood. Modern and older work well together.

The exterior walls have carvings of animals.

The Queens Lantern has a scale model of the Moon inside. We'll get a closer look at it during our visit.

Here we have the main entrance.

Inside, a good look at the stained glass.

At present on the top floor, one of the galleries hosts a temporary exhibit: Under The Canopy- Animals Of The Rainforest. This features live animals from a number of rainforest environments around the world, along with a wealth of information. A panel notes that these animals can't be released back into the wild- most of them were pets (not the brightest idea to do), and effectively are rescues. They are taken care of, and serve as educational ambassadors for their species.

Let's get a look at one of them. The New Caledonian Giant Gecko makes quite a sight to see.

And yes- there are rainforests in Canada.