About the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is the marine history division of the Nova Scotia Museum a family of 27 museums operated by the Province of Nova Scotia. The mandate of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic: to create for all an awareness, appreciation and understanding of Nova Scotia's marine heritage through collection, preservation, research, interpretation and exhibition.

	Collection Preservation Research Interpretation School Programs Exhibition Gift Store and Facility Rental History Awards Contact Us For a more detailed subject index to the Museum, try the Museum A to Z Page.

Collection	The collection includes artifacts, images, charts and plans relating to the marine history of Nova Scotia. The Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian merchant marine, Nova Scotia small craft and local shipwrecks are particular strengths of the collection much of which represents the period 1850 to the present. The collection includes everything from sextants, binnacles and figureheads to small craft, anchors, armaments and marine portraits and our largest artifact, the 1913 hydrographic vessel CSS Acadia.

Preservation	The museum preserves artifacts by keeping them in a carefully monitored environment. More active conservation is carried out by curatorial staff. The museum has a full-time boatbuilder to restore and conserve the small craft collection. Conservation and restoration work is on-going on the CSS Acadia.

Research	The museum conducts research to develop exhibits, to document its collection and answer public enquiries. Two recent major research projects were a survey of small craft throughout the province to document vanishing designs and traditional boatbuilding methods and an oral history programme to record life aboard the hydrographic ship CSS Acadia and cableships that operated from Halifax. The museum offers annual research grants for marine history and works with a number of research associates to explore topics of mutual interest.

Interpretation	Interpretation is one of the Museum's methods of translating the past to visitors, bringing history to life so that it is more easily understood. Museum interpreters create unique and compelling programs to engage visitors such as roving Press Gangs who press visitors in the manner of the forcible recruitment gangs of the Royal Navy which lurked in Nova Scotia from the 1750s to 1815. Other programs teach visitors to hoist signal flags, demonstrate knotwork and explore the perilous world of medicine at sea in the age of sail. View our current Programs The Museum also carries out a regular program of boatbuilding to preserve and demonstrate traditional boatbuilding techniques by building replicas of of small craft in the Museum's collection. Past projects have included Elson Perry a replica of the Port Medway Boat. The latest project is replica of the sloop Marila.

School Programs	The Museum offers school classes which may be booked by Nova Scotian teachers and other educational groups. These programs use the Museum setting to give students a visual and hands-on lesson in a variety of marine subjects including the Halifax Explosion, the Navy and the Age of Sail. For more information about school classes at the Museum, please see the Nova Scotia Museum School Programs page for this season's Learning Resources Catalogue. Please scroll down on the left and click on the link to the Maritime Museum page. The Museum also offers a special sleep-over program for school classes, grades 4 through 7 called Night Watch at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. For more information, go to The Night Watch Web Page.

Exhibition	The Museum plans, designs and fabricates temporary and permanent exhibits. Major permanent exhibits include the Small Craft Gallery; Halifax Wrecked, the Story of the Halifax Explosion; North Atlantic Convoy, The World War II struggle against German U-boats, Titanic: The Unsinkable Ship and Halifax, and most recently, Shipwreck Treasures of Nova Scotia. Smaller exhibits explore the experience of single handed sailors such as Joshua Slocum or allow visitors to step into the moving deckhouse of the coastal schooner Rayo. A rich cross-section of the museum's collection is displayed in Visible Storage.

Retail Activities	Marine Heritage Store Visit Marine Heritage Store in the Maritime Museum for a wide selection of maritime gifts. The shop is open during museum hours. See also: Facility Rental and admission fees.

History	The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is the oldest and largest Maritime Museum in Canada. Having celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1998, the Museum has developed a unique history of its own. The idea of this maritime museum can be credited to a group of Royal Canadian Navy officers who envisaged a maritime museum where relics of Canada's naval past could be preserved. Starting with a small space at HMC Dockyard, the museum moved to quarters in the Halifax Citadel in 1952 and became the Maritime Museum of Canada in 1957. Floods and fires in the early 1960s caused temporary relocations to a variety of sites until 1965 when a home was found in a former bakery building at the Navy's Victualling Depot. The museum became the Marine History section of the Nova Scotia Museum in 1967. The exhibits remained on Citadel Hill while the offices, library and some of the collection moved to the new Nova Scotia Museum building on Summer Street in Halifax in 1970. Through the 1970s, a long search for a permanent home ensued. Finally, in 1982, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic was established on the site of the historic William Robertson & Son Ship Chandlery and A.M. Smith and Co. Properties on the Halifax Waterfront. It opened to the public on January 22, of that year. Since then, nearly two and a half million people have visited the Museum. The Museum is a valuable historical, cultural and educational institution. It is the largest site in Nova Scotia that collects and interprets various elements of Nova Scotia's marine history. Visitors are introduced to the age of steamships, local small craft, the Royal Canadian and Merchant Navies, World War II convoys and The Battle of the Atlantic, the Halifax Explosion of 1917, and Nova Scotia's role in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster.

Awards	The Museum has received a variety of significant awards, including: Attractions Canada 1999 National Award Winner for Best Indoor Site, an Honourable Mention from the Canadian Museums Association for the exhibit Titanic: The Unsinkable Ship and Halifax, the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia's (TIANS) 1998 Attractions Award, and an Award of Merit from the 1998 Amtec Music Festival for the production of Dan McKinnon's CD "Between Wind & Water".

Contact Us Address: 1675 Lower Water Street Halifax Nova Scotia CANADA B3J 1S3	General Enquiries	(902) 424-7490
	Museum Operations	(902) 424-6440	mooreme@gov.ns.ca
	Public Relations & Marketing	(902) 424-6447	marshajd@gov.ns.ca
	Visitor Services	(902) 424-6449	sykorace@gov.ns.ca
	Group Bookings	(902) 424-6446	macmicrs@gov.ns.ca
	Facility Rental	(902) 424-7584	breckech@gov.ns.ca
	Library	(902) 424-7890	mmalibry@gov.ns.ca
	Fax	(902) 424-0612
	Marine Heritage Store	(902) 423-9787
	Complete Staff List

		This page and all contents copyright of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Contact webmasterwith questions or comments regarding this page. Last updated 17 May 2007 - RSM. privacy statement