The Redpath Museum, on the McGill University campus, is a natural history potpourri, a wunderkammer writ large.
Exhibits on zoology, mineralogy, paleontology, and, um, ethnology, fill the place, which is the oldest building built as a museum in Canada. 
It was completed 1882, and has a very Victorian feel (but lacks the requisite dust and must).
La defense du Narval, and some other, defenseless, specimens.
A slice of Douglas Fir with a diameter of about six feet.
It was 300+ years old when it was cut down. Except for the fossils, minerals, and the world cultures material, of course, an awful lot of killing filled up collections like these.
Yes, a deeply ambivalent fascination.
Musée Redpath
4 responses to “Musée Redpath”
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One of my favorite evolution courses was taught there… Perfect setting.
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Yes, the evolution exhibit is excellent (although I didn’t get any noteworthy pictures of it, except for one of the Burgess Shale critters). Sadly, down here in the U.S. such things would be wildly controversial: the fantastic Darwin exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History couldn’t get a corporate sponsor.
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[…] Passenger pigeon died in 1914. This specimen is in the Redpath in Montreal, which I profiled in an earlier post. (All my Montreal posts are […]
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Hi mthew, I am a public programmer at the Redpath Museum and I would really like to use your pics from the Redpath to create some posts for our social media site. I would really like to credit you by name. Please write me at to let me know how you feel about this.
Thanks, your pics are great.
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