History
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The Witness Blanket
The Nelson Museum, Archives & Gallery (NMAG) is honoured to exhibit a replicated portion of The Witness Blanket in the summer of 2024, on tour from the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
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Utopia Unveiled: Intentional Communities in the Kootenays
The counterculture movement brought a wave of creativity to the Kootenays in areas such as theatre, ceramics, filmmaking, weaving, poetry, fine art, and music. Utopia Unveiled explores how this community helped shaped Nelson.
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Elevation
This four-seasons backyard playground produced world-class athletes, built a tourism economy, and hosts adventurers from around the world. This winter, the Nelson Museum, Archives & Gallery presents Elevation – an ambitious exhibition exploring the vast expanse of the mountains in the Kootenays.
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Brain Scans / Neurotransmitting
The exhibition features Ruth Cuthand’s intricately beaded reproductions of MRI scans, as well as a film component from Theo. Both facets of the exhibition illuminate the difficulty of facing mental health challenges, and how families unite in support.
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Lost Orchards: A History of Fruit Farming in the West Kootenays
Fruit ranching in the West Kootenays? Unlikely though it may seem, fruit ranching once played a prominent role in the local economy. In the early 1900s large areas of land were being cleared and cultivated by newly arrived residents, often lured by the promise of a mild climate and easy growing conditions. Many orchards grew…
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60 Years/60 Objects: A Diamond Anniversary
Did you know that in 1949 all bikes in Nelson required a license? Or that J. A. Gilker, opened his first store in a wall tent, and before becoming the first official postmaster used a wooden gin box set on its side to sort the letters in? In celebration of 60th anniversary of the founding…
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Out of the Woods: A History of Forestry in Nelson, BC
Forestry has a long history in our region, and has played an important and continually changing role in the makeup of our communities. From the sawmills that fed the demand for building materials starting in the late 1800s to the “Stop Clearcuts” signs and “Forestry Feeds My Family” bumper stickers many decades later, our relationship…
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Greetings from Nelson: Historic Postcards from the Collection
Before Instagram and Facebook, postcards were a popular way for travelers to send a quick note and image to friends or family. Postcards can be a window on the past, showing us people, places, and even cultural attitudes, as they were at that moment in time. This exhibition will feature many reproductions of postcards from…
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Art Deco in Modern Times
There is little attention paid to our architectural heritage built after the end of World War 1. However there are many buildings, public and private, from the 1920’s into the 1950’s that deserve our appreciation. Using a selection of photographs with accompanying text, Art Deco in Modern Times serves to orient the public to become more…
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Upstream Benefits
Upstream Benefits involves ten artists: Courtney Andersen, Susan Andrews Grace, Amy Bohigian, Brent Bukowski, Boukje Elzinga, Ian Johnston, Maggie Shirley, Natasha Smith, Deborah Thompson and Rachel Yoder, a sampling of the impressive caliber of artists that call the Kootenays home. The artists involved in this exhibition example how artist run culture in the Kootenays has…