Nonsuch visits will be a no-go at Manitoba Museum for several months
Popular gallery to be renewed and narrative of Hudson's Bay ship will be altered, museum says
One of the Manitoba Museum's most popular exhibits is going to be off limits for several months.
The Nonsuch gallery will be closed down for renewal starting Jan. 8 and won't be reopened until summer 2018. So visitors are encouraged to take a last look at the replica of the ship that sailed into Hudson Bay in the first trading voyage for what would two years later become the Hudson's Bay Company.
"The Nonsuch ship is a beloved icon of the museum. We sometimes call her a jewel and as such, we would never fundamentally change the artifact itself," said Claudette Leclerc, executive director and CEO of the museum.
"However, the setting of this jewel needs to be enhanced and updated for today's audiences."
The Nonsuch replica was built in England in 1968 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Hudson's Bay Company. The replica sailed 14,000 kilometres of salt and fresh water before finding her home at the Manitoba Museum, in the gallery which officially opened in 1974.
The gallery, which is the cornerstone for the museum's curriculum-based programs on the fur trade, replicates a stone quay at low tide in 1668, the year the original Nonsuch began her journey to Hudson Bay. The ship rests on a hard gravel sand bed so that her hull is visible, while the quay is fronted by a warehouse and workshops.
The renewal of the gallery will see minimal impacts on the ship, with the exception of re-rigging her for historical accuracy and longevity, according to a news release from the museum.
"One of the biggest changes that will take place in the gallery relates to flipping our current narrative," said Amelia Fay, curator of the HBC Museum Collection, which is housed at the Manitoba Museum.
The current storyline places the Nonsuch in Deptford, England, awaiting the voyage that would eventually launch the Hudson's Bay Company.
"Instead of the ship departing from England, we are now situating the ship at the return of her voyage from Hudson Bay. The cargo hold would have been filled with furs from trading with the Cree of Hudson Bay," Fay said.
"Imagine all the tales the sailors would have from their winter spent at the mouth of the Rupert River [modern day Waskagnaish, Que.]. We are planning to share many exciting stories with our visitors."