Timeline: A History of Canada & Its Museums

In this Collaborative Inquiry Project (CIP), it’s been pleasantly surprising to find that Canada is a leader in establishing museum-driven digital collections that can be broadly accessible to the public via online and other mediums. Not only that, but the nation has been delving into virtual museum work for much longer than its counterparts. The most notable of these examples is the Virtual Museum of Canada, established in 2001. Since 2014, the management of the VMC has been transferred to its older counterpart, the Canadian Museum of History—which traces its origin back to 1856 and to the establishment of the Geological Museum, which, from its inception had a mandate to become “a collection for the whole Dominion of Canada.” (Canadian Museum of History, (n.d.)).

This interesting ancestry means Canada had its first museum in 1856, years before it was founded in 1867.
In other words, it appears Canadians have always been into museology.