The Glenbow Museum is a museum in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The Glenbow Museum is one of the largest museums in Western Canada. The museum is primarily concerned with documenting the history of exploration and development in Western Canada. The exhibit is housed in 20 rooms totaling 8,600 m². Museum collection and has more than one million objects.

History

The Glenbow-Alberta Institute was formed in 1966 when oil magnate and philanthropist Eric L. Harvey donated his extensive historical collection to the people of Alberta. It is located in downtown Calgary across the street from the Calgary Tower. The Institute operates the Glenbow Museum, which is open to the public and houses not only its own museum collection, but also a very extensive art collection, library and archive.

The museum’s exhibition consists of 4 main sections:

  • Cultural History
  • Ethnography
  • Military history
  • Mineralogy

Cultural History

The cultural history collection contains more than 100,000 objects from many parts of the world. These items help you visualize life in Western Canada from the late 19th century to the present day. They show how people made a living, how they vacationed, what gods they worshiped, how they dressed and ate. The collection also includes examples of ceramics from Alberta and Western Canada, as well as a clothing collection, a numismatic collection, and a collection devoted to northern exploration.

The museum’s painting collection is divided into 3 sections according to the time of painting – pre-1914, 1915 to 1969, and 1970 to the present. The most interesting works in the collection are:

  • Frances Anna Hopkins, “Canoe in the Fog, Upper Lake” (1869)
  • Emily Carr, “Among the Firs” (1931).
  • James MacDonald, “Lake O’Hara in the Snow.”
  • Jack Shedbolt, “Heraldic Forms” (1931).
  • William Bradford, “The English Arctic Expedition in Search of John Franklin.”
  • Theophilus Hamel, “The Alphabet.”
  • Thomas Martin, “Train in the Mountains.”
  • George Agnew Reed, “At the Window” (1888)
  • Lionel Lemoine Fitzgerald, “Composition No. 1” (1951)
  • Maxwell Bennett Bates, “Girl with Yellow Hair” (1956)

Ethnography

The ethnographic collection includes approximately 48,000 items used by the indigenous peoples of North America (Indians and Eskimos), particularly of the Northern Plains, but also of the Northwest Coast, Arctic, and Subarctic, as well as from parts of South America, Africa, Oceania, and Asia.

Military History

The weapons collection includes some 26,000 items spanning many countries over nearly five centuries, particularly European, Asian, and North American firearms and edged weapons. Japanese armor and weapons and Canadian medals and orders are also well represented.

Mineralogy

The museum’s extensive mineral collection includes minerals and precious and semi-precious stones from around the world, but is dominated by minerals found in Western Canada. The most valuable mineral specimens are selected for the “Treasures of the Mineral World” exhibit, which is very popular with visitors of all ages. The exhibit includes glow-in-the-dark minerals, pyrite, also called “fool’s gold,” and rock crystal crystals in all the colors of the rainbow.

Archive and Library

The museum’s archive contains more than 2 million photographs, as well as unpublished manuscripts, notes, documents, letters and diaries on the history of Western Canada. The museum’s library contains more than 100,000 books, periodicals, newspapers, magazines, catalogs and rare maps, also with a primary focus on Western Canada.