View From Nepean Point. Ottawa, Canada
Nepean Point is a hill with scenic lookout in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, overlooking the Ottawa River, Parliament, the Canadian Museum of History, and other features of downtown Ottawa and Gatineau. It is located between the National Gallery of Canada and Alexandra Bridge.
At the peak of the hill is a statue of French explorer Samuel de Champlain holding his famous astrolabe upside-down. It was made by sculptor Hamilton MacCarthy in 1915.
Morning Star - Canadian Museum of Civilization
Alex Janvier's masterpiece Morning Star, painted in 1993, adorns one of the domes in the Grand Hall of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It is rare that artists are given complete artistic freedom when decorating the walls of a national museum; this mural stands as an exception to the rule. Further, Janvier was permitted to select the location for his mural. He chose the north side of the museum that faces the Parliament buildings. Seven stories up, covering 418 square metres (4,500 square feet), Janvier, with the help of his son, Dean, completed the mural in just over three months. Named Morning Star in honour of his Dene heritage, Janvier recounts the history of the land we live on from an Aboriginal perspective. The four colour coded sections should be read counter clockwise as they chronologically move through periods of Canadian history. Yellow represents the time of pre-contact, blue depicts the contact period and the period of decline, red is symbolic of the times when Native people demand their voices be heard, and white symbolizes a time of healing and mutual respect. When you look at the piece in its entirety, it appears to have exploded from the tiny white circle in the centre which is the morning star.
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Sérandite Mineral - Canadian Museum of Nature
Sérandite is a rare mineral species that is coveted by collectors. The most beautiful specimens in the world come from the quarries at Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec. The Canadian Museum of Nature's striking specimen is considered one of the best ever found at this rich locality. It was collected in the early 1970s and is on display in the museum's new Earth Gallery.
The colour of sérandite varies from pale pink to deep orange. The deep orange colour is most prized by collectors, due to the manganese content in its structure. The museum's specimen is notable for the large number and size of its sérandite crystals, the intensity of colour and the close association with a cascade of round, snow-white analcime crystals.
The creation of sérandite begins with magma, the molten rock that lies beneath the earth's crust. The magma penetrates fractures in the crust, then cools and becomes an igneous rock (or pluton). A cocktail of elements in the Mont Saint-Hilaire intrusion gave rise to hundreds of mineral species, some extremely rare. Among these are the sérandite. The pluton at Mont Saint-Hilaire belongs to a series known as the Monteregian Hills. This geological feature is an alignment in the St. Lawrence Valley that developed during the Cretaceous period, about 120-134 million years ago.
Vodou Exhibition at Canadian Museum of Civilization
Exhibition of Haitian Vodou/voodoo objects and artifacts filmed at Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa. Exhibition runs until Feb 23, 2014. Don't miss this exciting, moving and powerful show.
Naming Ceremony
This video documents the naming ceremony that took place on Sept. 5, 2013, conducted by Algonquin Elder Annie Smith St. Georges, for the Statue known as Anishinabe Scout, and now named Kitchi Sibi Omàmìwininì Anishinabe. The ceremony took place on the opening night of an art exhibition at Blink Gallery titled Scout, and featured work by the 007 Art Collective, a group of 7 Indigenous artists whom all made artwork along the theme of the Anishiabe Scout statue. For the exhibition, the 007 collective invited artist Howard Adler as a Special Agent or guest artist, who also had artwork in the show. It should be reinforced here, that the Naming Ceremony took place at the request of Howard Adler, who video recorded the naming ceremony, and presented the resulting video as a conceptual/documentary art piece in the Scout exhibition.
This Scout statue was built in 1918 by Artist Hamilton MacCarthy, the same artist sculpted other works of public art, including the monument to Samuel de Champlain built in 1915 found on Nepean point in Ottawa. In fact, the Kitchi Sibi Omàmìwininì statue was actually built a few years after the Champlain statue at the request of the Ottawa community in order to acknowledge the role Algonquin and Huron guides had in assisting Champlain's on his travels. In the 1990's, Ovide Mecredi, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, called the interplay between the two statues racist due to the Scout kneeling subserviently at the feet of Champlain. Ironically, the Kitchi Sibi Omàmìwininì statue was originally meant to be seated in a canoe, and to be holding a paddle, but the City ran out of money to pay MacCarthy to complete the work, so it was placed incomplete at the base of the Champlain statue. In the aftermath of the political pressure from the AFN, the Scout statue was moved to it's current location in nearby Major Hill's Park. The exact circumstances of the move are unclear, but Ottawa's National Capital Commission would have been involved. It should be noted that there was backlash against the Scout's relocation, from both non-Indigenous peoples that denied any racist connotations, as well as Indigenous peoples who thought that a new location for the statue would simply erase the ways Canadian history is written and fraught with colonial/racist narratives.
2013 marks the 400th anniversary of Chaplains first visit through the Outaouais region.
September Wedding at the Museum of Civilization
Marie-Pier & Ken got married in Gatineau and had their photos taken at the Museum of Civilization. For more information on e-sessions and wedding services visit
Les Premiers Peuples du Canada -- Chefs-d'œuvre du Musée canadien des civilisations
Une exposition spéciale du Canada a été choisie pour inaugurer le nouveau Museo Nacional de las Culturas à Mexico. Entièrement rénové, le musée a rouvert ses portes en mettant à l'affiche cette exposition canadienne à titre d'exposition internationale inaugurale. L'exposition Les Premiers Peuples du Canada -- Chefs-d'œuvre du Musée canadien des civilisations a aussi été présentée dans d'importants musées à Osaka (Japon), Hanovre (Allemagne) et Beijing (Chine).
Kneeling Indian Tracker Counter-Party to the Samuel De Champlain Light Show, Second Angle
Another angle...
2013 marks the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain (French explorer, cartographer, and Founder of New France) visiting the Ottawa River valley region - for about two weeks. (He may or may not have dropped an astrolabe while there.) A statue of Champlain which still stands behind the National Art Gallery for many years had a another statue of a kneeling Indian tracker at his feet, which was problematic for a number of reasons. This second statue was moved due to protests a few years ago... just to the next hill over, in a secluded path corner, surrounded and hidden by plants, unacknowledged. The Anishinaabe tracker statue kneels before Parliament Hill, and gazes (longingly?) towards Samuel de Champlain's statue.
On the night of September 19th, 2013, as the Champlain statue on Nepean Point was light up with a frankly alarming light show - the phraseflying saucer-like was used by observers - some local people of the Anishinaabe nation decided to hold another light show to counter the one at the Champlain monument, and it was awesome. The music was better and enthusiasm was high. The tracker got his own glow sticks and we all danced to A Tribe Called Red and tried to ignore the terrible music coming from that strange UFO on Nepean Point.
Anishinaabe-Aki! Kneeling Indian Tracker Counter-Party to the Samuel De Champlain Light Show
2013 marks the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain (French explorer, cartographer, and Founder of New France) visiting the Ottawa River valley region - for about two weeks. (He may or may not have dropped an astrolabe while there.) A statue of Champlain which still stands behind the National Art Gallery for many years had a another statue of a kneeling Indian tracker at his feet, which was problematic for a number of reasons. This second statue was moved due to protests a few years ago... just to the next hill over, in a secluded path corner, surrounded and hidden by plants, unacknowledged. The Anishinaabe tracker statue kneels before Parliament Hill, and gazes (longingly?) towards Samuel de Champlain's statue.
On the night of September 19th, 2013, as the Champlain statue on Nepean Point was light up with a frankly alarming light show - the phraseflying saucer-like was used by observers - some local people of the Anishinaabe nation decided to hold another light show to counter the one at the Champlain monument, and it was awesome. The music was better and enthusiasm was high. The tracker got his own glow sticks and we all danced to A Tribe Called Red and tried to ignore the terrible music coming from that strange UFO on Nepean Point.