The Vikings visited the Royal BC Museum in Victoria from May 16 - November 11, 2014. Vikings was a brand new 8,000 square foot exhibit with almost 500 original artifacts, which is opening at the museum on May 16th.
Canada’s History spoke with Mark Dickson, Head of Exhibitions at the museum, and Dr. Erin McGuire, an anthropologist and expert on Vikings at the University of Victoria. Listen to the full podcast here:
The exhibit will be hands on and interactive with eight different sections that delve into all facets of Viking life from clothing and swords to burial practices and shipbuilding.
“It’s a contemporary look at Vikings trying to somewhat debunk the folklore tradition of them being marauders, raiders, and pillagers of civilizations,” describes Dickson.
“They actually had a very cultural side to them as well. This exhibit is really going to challenge us to not think of Vikings as the stereotypical warrior types.”
For McGuire the exhibit is an exceptional opportunity to celebrate her life’s passion.
“I hope to see lots of people come out to it. I think this is a really exciting exhibition,” she explains, “there are going to be artifacts on display in this exhibition that have never left Scandinavia . . . it’s going to be a chance to see some really neat stuff and some of the most iconic artifacts of the Viking age.”
One of the highlights that McGuire is looking forward to is seeing the collection of small amulets that connected Vikings to their Gods.
“There’s some really fascinating ones there – a little figure that might be seen as a priest of Oden, a beautiful little silver figurine of what might be the goddess Freya, little figures of Valkyries that carried dead off to Valhalla. Those are the things that inspire me and intrigue me the most and I’ll be happy to see these up close again.”
Visitors will also have the chance to see a life-size replica of a Viking ship outside the museum. For Dickson it's spaces like this that drive home what life for Vikings must have been like.
“It gives you a sense of scale as to how small this boat was . . . I can’t imagine 20 or 30 foot seas, pounding rain, it must have been an absolutely miserable experience to cross the North Atlantic.”
“This very small culture, this very small population, colonized across the Atlantic in these essentially open boats with oars and a very small sail. They were a very hardy group of people.”
Vikings visited Canada almost 1000 years ago, most notably documented at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. McGuire explains how the original impetus was likely a search for timber to supply their ships and woodworking needs.
“The L’Anse aux Meadows site has evidence of ship repair going on, so it just seems likely to me that this was one of the big draws for them to Canada.”
The exhibit will also feature a series of public talks and a special joint archaeology course offered between the museum and the University of Victoria. For more information on the all the programming and the exhibit go to http://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/.
The Vikings exhibit is a joint venture between and produced by The Swedish History Museum in Sweden and MuseumsPartner in Austria.