Tribute to Canada’s Northern frontier opens at Canadian Museum of Civilization
Hull, Quebec, January 17, 2002 — A 1940s Bell 47D-1 helicopter and a 1972 Olympique Ski-Doo are among the relics of a pioneering era in the Canadian North featured in a new exhibit which opens today at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC). The exhibit, called Northern Visions, is centred around an exact, full-scale replica of Yellowknife’s legendary Wildcat Cafe, which was built in 1937 and restored in the 1970s.
“This exhibit gives us a taste of the great personalities, the communications challenges and the pioneering spirit that have shaped our country’s Northern reaches,” said Dr. Victor Rabinovitch, President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation.
Visitors can see displays about transportation and communication in the Northwest Territories as it was opened up for exploration and development since the end of the Second World War. They can take a seat at the Cafe’s pine tables and benches and listen to recorded firsthand accounts of Northern life.
The recorded interviews are with residents of the Northwest Territories such as René Fumoleau, a priest and author who has worked for almost 50 years among the Dene; the Honourable Anthony Whitford, Speaker of the N.W.T.’s Legislative Assembly; a prospector, an RCMP officer, a helicopter pilot, Northern journalists, and a Dene elder. And there are tales of the Wildcat Cafe itself, from Stephen Fancott, the architect responsible for its restoration, and from Tracy Riley, a blues singer who is also a waitress at the famous eatery.
Another new display adjacent to the Museum’s Wildcat Cafe is a radio shack, recreated in minute detail from a 1970s-era photograph and complete with a collection of pet rocks. It features the type of hi-frequency radio equipment used for communications by a researcher stationed alone on Bathurst Island for months at a time. The radio equipment includes Canadian-made Spilsbury and Marconi models of the period. Radios such as these represented the only means of long-distance communication in much of the North — and a lifeline to help or rescue — until the advent of satellite telephones in the 1990s. The display also features clips of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Northern short-wave service, which covered 5 million square kilometres and several Native and Inuit dialects.
The Bell 47D-1 helicopter was installed last summer on the Museum’s Level 4, on a “cliff” overlooking the Wildcat Cafe. Its perch demonstrates the daring take-offs and landings which made ’copters ideal for Northern missions like transporting people and goods, mapping, surveying, and carrying out geological exploration. When taking off from high mountain summits where the air is thin, helicopter pilots would sometimes be obliged to “jump” from the edge of a cliff, reaching sufficient speed in their descent to be able to take off and fly. This particular helicopter was donated to the Museum by Centennial College in Scarborough, Ontario.
The exhibit also features a 1972 Olympique Ski-Doo from Yellowknife. This Ski-Doo is one of the early models — manufactured by the Canadian company Bombardier — whose name entered the language to describe a popular form of recreational vehicle. In the North, the Ski-Doo became a key piece of work equipment for trappers, prospectors, mining companies and the RCMP. The Olympique model had “bogey wheels” which made it especially adapted to Northern conditions, as it could travel alternately over ice and rough ground.
Northern Visions is an exhibit in the Museum’s permanent Canada Hall, which offers a walk through a thousand years of Canadian history in realistic environments. Like other period settings in the Canada Hall, the Wildcat Cafe will be used for special events with a Northern flavour, such as musical performances and storytelling.
FACT SHEET
Media Information:
Senior Media Relations Officer
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Tel.: (819) 776-7167
Media Relations Officer
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Tel.: (819) 776-7169
Fax: (819) 776-7187
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