Celebrating 100 Years

This year, 2024, is the Museum of Northern BC’s 100th year. Since 1924, thousands of treasures telling the stories of this community and this region have been added to the collection, cared for, researched, and exhibited as part of the collective memory we have all inherited from the past. Many hundreds of temporary exhibits have been offered in the Museum’s Ruth Harvey Art Gallery celebrating the creative and artistic talents of the contemporary people of the region. And, in the last almost 30 years since the move to the new museum building, many thousands of adults and children have experienced, enjoyed and learned from the diverse range of programs the Museum offers – art gallery receptions, museum tours, bus tours, family programs, school programs for all grades and performances in the Tsimshian longhouse.

So far, in this our 100th year, we have celebrated: the creative genius of teenagers - with the exhibit Teens, Creative Minds; the art of Mark Thibeault - with a retrospective Postcards from the Pacific; artworks by northern artists from the museum collection - with the exhibit Celebrating Northern Artists; and the powerful Tsimshian housefront paintings depicting the crests and power of the nine Tsimshian tribes by Lianna Spence – with an offsite exhibit at the Atlin Terminal, Ksiyeen, Out of the Mists.  Currently we are hosting an exhibit curated by Judy Thompson on the life and art of her grandmother - From Usk to Doreen and Everywhere in Between, the Life Along the Skeena River of artist, Elizabeth Linda Lowrie.

The Museum’s upcoming temporary exhibit offers an overview of the 100-year history of the Museum, community and province - with an display of art, artifacts, photos and stories, Celebrating 100 Years. In 2025, as we move into the Museum’s next 100 years, we plan to focus on the future, especially the role of today’s young people in shaping it, and we will continue to celebrate the thousands of years of sustainable living and creating by First Nations in the amazing Northwest Coast landscape, and the diversity of the people who have left their homelands and have been privileged to make their lives within this landscape.