We Need a Museum to tell our Natural History
Daphne Davey’s excellent letter of Jan 14th outlined the need for a provincial museum that includes natural history. While the Museum Act of 1983 included natural history, we are still lacking facilities and staff for the PEI Museum & Heritage Foundation to carry out various roles under that act.
The branch museums across the province provide interpretation of specialized topics like shipbuilding on a seasonal basis, but the need remains for a central facility to tell the full story. The natural history story is one of many needing to be told and hopefully it will be told within a central museum that addresses fully for the first time natural history and cultural history.
A new provincial museum facility could tell the full 10,000 year story of human life here as well as the natural history. Integrated interpretation of natural and human history as an interrelated story in a facility with adequate storage and work space would be ideal. Perhaps this year when we acknowledge 300 years of European settlement on PEI and increasingly recognize that reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and our relationship with nature are paramount, we will see the Province commit to this much delayed project.
Significant cultural and natural artifacts have been donated and purchased, while others await repatriation; it is now time to ensure these are housed in adequate space and shown to the public in a central facility. Without staff and facilities, all Islanders are deprived of an opportunity to share in learning more about this special place we call home. We continue to welcome millions of visitors with many asking directions to our provincial museum. We need a place that can tell the story of Prince Edward Island in a museum worthy of this remarkable place.
Ian Scott
Charlottetown
