The Revelstoke Museum and Archives has won a national award for its Land of Thundering Snow exhibition.
Museum curator Cathy English was in Halifax on April 13 to accept the Outstanding Achievement for a Science Exhibition award from the Canadian Museums Association on behalf of the project team and partners. The Canadian Museums Association is a national organization for the advancement of the museum sector and represents museum professionals. The ceremony took place at the historic Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.
“It is admirable that a small local museum would undertake such an ambitious plan for research and education,” the association’s jury noted in a statement. “In the context of this year’s competition, this project was nationally significant and exceeded the current standard of practice by going beyond the conventional approach.”
Land of Thundering Snow is a research, exhibit, and virtual exhibit project created by Revelstoke Museum and Archives, in partnership with Parks Canada, Avalanche Canada, Revelstoke Railway Museum, and Okanagan College. The online exhibit was created through the Virtual Museum Investment Program and is on the Virtual Museum of Canada, managed by the Canadian Museum of History.
Retired Parks Canada biologist and naturalist Dr John Woods developed the content for Land of Thundering Snow, unveiling many previously unheard of stories connected to avalanches, and his first-hand knowledge of the history of Glacier National Park’s avalanche control program – the first of its kind in Canada – makes him an expert in the field. John painstakingly documented the country’s 870 avalanche-related deaths from the past 150 years that can be accessed on the site via an interactive map of Canada. The website also features more than one hour of video content and interviews with those involved in avalanche safety.
The website is www.landofthunderingsnow.ca and the onsite exhibit can be viewed at Revelstoke Museum and Archives.
