The Canadian Human Rights Museum

Where to begin on this incredible national museum. On the way in, I heard a guy in the lobby say that this was the only national museum outside of Ottawa. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I do know that the facility is worthy of the designation of being a national museum. As Hil remarked when we were leaving: It is a place that all Canadians can be proud of.

The museum stands out in the Winnipeg skyline.

It has clearly been designed for people of all ages to encounter their privilege. Here Arden is seen in a replica of the jail cell that Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in.

Most of the exhibits have some form of interactive element to them that is designed to either inform or promote action. Each of the girls designed their own apartheid resistance poster at the Mandela exhibit. Charlotte and Ruby on a large smart table and Arden on an iPad. Posters here go C, R, A.

And there are opportunities for reflection throughout the museum.

It would be an omission if I failed to mention the helpful, knowledgeable, and kind staff. I don’t have any pictures of them though.

Most notably, there are parts of the museum that just take your breath away. Such as this work by a Aboriginal Winnipeg artist that incorporates over 10,000 handprints from children in clay in a piece that symbolizes an origin story. The piece is probably at least 30m tall.

Charlotte is seen here exploring a timeline of the last 150 years of human history and some of the most nasty things that we have done to one another.

Many of the images in the museum were hard to look at. Including images from the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Khmer Rouge, residential schools, and Japanese interment camps. Other images were uplifting. Same sex marriage, the celebration of the struggle of Viola Davis, Canadian peace keeping efforts, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. Hil and I were both grateful to have the time, space, and well curated prompts to have conversations with our daughters about some very difficult topics.

Walking out of the museum, it’s hard to summarize what I felt other than to say that I felt a deep sense of gratitude. Gratitude to be born free in Canada. Gratitude to live in a country that is openly willing to acknowledge and grapple with things that are hard to talk about. And gratitude for the encouraging tone of the museum. Despite the atrocities depicted, despite the mistakes made around the world and here in Canada, despite the suffering that has taken place in my own lifetime, I did not leave the museum with a sense of foreboding or guilt. I left the museum knowing that I was living in a time and that my daughters were growing up in a time when our small actions of awareness and kindness and love can make humanity better in small and meaningful ways.