Who needs paintings, sculptures, and dinosaur bones when you’ve got gophers, potatoes, and Star Trek?
Museum: Gopher Hole Museum
Location: Torrington, Alberta
Details: Have you ever dreamed of seeing a gopher dressed as Mountie? Or maybe you’ve fantasized about gophers working as hairdressers and styling each other’s locks. How about a gopher dressed as a preacher or an angel gopher with a halo and harp floating in the air above his head? At the Gopher Hole Museum in Torrington, Alberta (just north of Calgary), these visions are all on display for you to behold and admire. About the size of a garage, the museum displays 44 dioramas with 71 stuffed gophers (really Richardson’s ground squirrels, to be accurate) elaborately dressed as townspeople doing a wide range of activities, including bank officer, robber, and firefighter. Don’t miss: The gophersmith hammering at his anvil; the clown gopher clutching his balloons; a ’50s-style female gopher showing off her poodle skirt while holding hands with a young male gopher in a leather jacket.
Museum: Canadian Potato Museum
Location: O’leary, PEI
Details: Potatoes are an important crop for the residents of Prince Edward Island, so it’s no surprise that O’Leary has its own potato museum. The museum is serious for the most part, displaying information about the history of potato farming and the numerous types of potatoes. Visitors can see an expansive collection of farm machinery and implements. Don’t miss: Tiny coffins, each holding an infected potato that has gone on to the great spud farm in the sky.
Museum: Bata Shoe Museum
Location: Toronto
Details: From the long, pointed sabatons of medieval times to Nike Air Jordans, you can learn a lot about history from what people wore below the knees at the Bata Shoe Museum. Housed in a unique, modern wedge of a building that resembles a shoe box, this is one of the most extensive collections of footwear in the world with more than 10,000 items spanning a history of 4,500 years. Intricately crafted beaded moccasins tell a story about trade patterns in Native North America. Dutch wooden clogs were perfect for working the wet bog in the Netherlands. The museum displays every kind of footwear—ancient funerary sandals, Chinese silk shoes, haute couture pumps, chestnut-crushing clogs from France, and sumo wrestling shoes called geta.
This shoe shrine showcases the foot-gear of the famous as well—Marilyn Monroe’s red high heels, the blue Adidas running shoes worn Terry Fox, Elvis Presley’s blue suede shoes, and Justin Bieber’s burgundy, Supra SkyTop II high-tops he delicate paper shoe sculptures of French artist Thierry Agnone.
Museum: Vulcan Tourism and Trek Station
Location: Vulcan, Alberta
Details: If you’re a Trekkie, you’ll want to put on your pointy ears and boldly go about an hour southeast of Calgary to the tiny town of Vulcan (population 2,000), named not after Spock’s home planet but the Roman god of fire. Seeing how the popularity of Star Trek swelled in the decades after the television show first aired in 1966, the townspeople of Vulcan said, “Chaw’ maH tlhap vam qep ghoS!” That’s Klingon for “Let’s get this party started!” the town started small in 1995 by erecting a replica of the Enterprise, starship. In 1998, the Vulcan Tourism Trek Station was opened, which is a visitor center and museum shaped like a spaceship and packed with Trek–related items. Visitors are greeted in English, Vulcan, and Klingon. The center is a chance to slip into costumes, sit in Kirk’s chair, and have their photos taken as crew members of the Enterprise. Don’t miss: After the museum closes, visitors can let loose with Klingon Karaoke, Lunar Liquor, or stop by Tribbles Small Dog Grooming. Green women even take the stage at the strip club.
In 2010, Leonard Nimoy, at age 79, made his first visit to the museum and the town, saying, “I’ve been a Vulcan for 44 years. It’s about time I came home.” Of course, he couldn’t leave without giving his blessing to the locals: “May each and every one of you live long and prosper.” They unveiled a bronze bust of Mr. Spock during his visit. Nimoy contributed a handprint, giving the famous Vulcan peace sign. It was cast in bronze and placed below the bust.
Museum: Niagara Apothecary
Location: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario
Details: The museum itself is Canada’s oldest apothecary—a pharmacy that operated between 1820 and 1964 and is now restored to its 1869 state. The museum’s most famous collection is bottles and jars first imported from Britain in about 1830 used to store medicinal remedies. Visitors often seek out a handsome piece of glazed white china dating back to the 19th century. The 50-centimeter-(20-inch-)tall container features a perforated lid to assure a suitable degree of ventilation for its contents—leeches.
Canada is the world’s largest producer of ice wine.
Don’t miss: The Victorian-era enema box looks especially uncomfortable. Those who needed to…ahem…loosen up a bit would impale themselves on an ivory projection and then push down on a plunger to send fluid up.
Museum: Sardine Museum and Herring Hall of Fame
Location: Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick
Details: A collection of three historic smoke sheds houses artifacts from the days when smoking herring was a major industry on the island. The museum also displays an extensive collection of sardine tins from around the world. Michael Zimmer, who founded the museum, was known to float around the cove in a boat that resembled an open can of sardines; his boat is on display.
Museum: Corkscrew Inn Wine Museum
Location: Vancouver
Details: Upon first walking into the Corkscrew Inn Wine Museum, the walls may appear to be decorated with implements of torture. But once you start to take a closer look, you realize that you’re surrounded by devices to remove cork. Most people don’t give a corkscrew a second thought, but the Corkscrew Inn Wine Museum has collected scores, some dating back to the 1700s. Not all were made strictly for wine either; some were made to open medicine, cologne, and shoe polish bottles. Others are specifically designed to open certain beers. A few of the highlights are a ladies’ gold and mother of pearl pocket corkscrew made in France in the mid-19th century, corkscrews hidden in figurines of clowns and knights, and elegant Art Deco designs from the Austrian designer Karl Hagenauer (1898–1956). Don’t miss: The Corkscrew Inn also has unique stained glass windows with images of corkscrews and a collection of wine-related antiques, including vine-pruning shears, grape-picking knives, wine bottles, and wine glasses.
Yellowknife has a Ragged Ass Road.
Location: Springhill, Nova Scotia
Details: For some Canadians, Anne Murray is a superstar on the level of Elvis, and going to the Anne Murray Centre is like going to Graceland. For those who aren’t fans of the 70s soft rock icon, this place can seem very strange. The museum displays minute details of the singer’s life. There’s the first record player she owned, the dress she wore representing Nova Scotia in the 1971 Rose Ball Parade, and the outfit she wore at the Vancouver Olympics. Fans can walk down the rows of gold and platinum albums. Don’t miss: Murray’s grade school report cards.
Museum: Accordion Museum
Location: Montmagny, Quebec
Details: Everything you ever wanted to know about accordions is waiting for you at the Accordion Museum. The accordion has had an influence on music in the Quebec region, and the museum traces the history of the instrument and displays many different types, including an ancient Chinese version that dates back 4,000 years.
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A GROSS (BUT REAL) CANADIAN CARTOON
The main characters on The Brothers Grunt (1994) share their names with famous crooners—Bing, Dean, Frank, Perry, Sammy, and Tony, all voiced by one person (Doug Parker)—but they’re actually some of the most grotesque creatures ever to appear on TV. The show followed five of the brothers’ adventures after they left their monastery home on a quest to find the sixth, Perry and bring him home to fulfill his destiny as his people’s “Chosen One.” Less human than some sort of toad-like creatures, the linguistically-challenged Brothers Grunt meandered through 27 episodes, puking, farting, and rarely wearing more than underpants, with their theme song summing up the problematic nature of their brotherly endeavor: “It’s hard to find that for which you hunt / When your speech is a bunch of grunts/And when you have incredible needs / For cold martinis and melted cheese.” TV critic Charles Solomon warned viewers, “Parents who dislike Beavis and Butt-head won’t want their children exposed to gags about used condoms, urinals, police beatings, and nipples.”
Lameque, NB, has a peat moss festival and the locals decorate their homes and offices with bales of peat.