Vancouver

Museum Monday: Vancouver BC’s Museum of Anthropology

It’s been a while since we had a chance to visit the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus.

The whole museum was closed for more than a year while seismic upgrades were made to the spectacular Great Hall, which has 50-foot-tall glass walls and displays of Northwest Coast poles, house posts, carved figures, canoes, feast dishes and other objects primarily from the mid-19th century.

Work by contemporary artists are mixed in here and there, and there are other temporary exhibitions as well as permanent galleries, including the Koerner European Ceramics Gallery, which displays one man’s collection of over 600 objects.

Beyond the Great Hall, our favorite part of the museum is the Multiversity Galleries displaying more than 16,000 objects from the museum’s permanent collection in open storage and in enticing pull-out drawers.

Impossible to see in one visit, many of the exhibit groupings were created in consultation with members of the communities whose relatives and ancestors made the pieces on display.

How to stay entertained at some northwest airports

I’m working on an article about the great amenities at some west coast airports and wanted to share some of my favorites:

Vancouver International Airport:  I love this incredible work of art by Bill Reid, titled  The Spirit of Haida Gwaii: The Jade Canoe, that’s impossible to miss in the center of the International Terminal.

Vancouver Jade Canoe

(Photo: Larry Goldstein Photography)

And I can’t wait to make my way back to YVR to see the recently opened public observation area that includes complimentary telescopes so everyone can get a good look at the airfield activity and the landscape nearby.

I’m happy that Sea-Tac International Airport has a world-class art collection and, on clear days, bonus views of mountains.

SEA RAINIER(Photo: Port of Seattle)

I can’t wait for the new light rail train, which right now stops just shy of the airport, to make it’s way to the airport door.

pdx center

(Photo courtesy Port of Portland)

As usual, though, it’s the amenities at the Portland International Airport that impress me most.  When I used to live in that city, there was free parking at the airport and we’d go out there at least once a week because the city’s only Haagen-Dazs ice-cream store was out at the airport.

Today, I plan layovers at PDX because there’s free Wi-Fi,  lots of good restaurants and pubs, fun permanent artwork, and a pre-security shopping street filled with branches of  locally well-known shops where no sales tax is charged on anything.

Do you have an airport that you actually look forward to visiting? Please share your finds in the comment section below.