Victoria - Royal British Columbia Museum

British Columbia's provincial museum is situated in Heritage Court, midway between the Parliament Building and the empress Court Hotel. It is by far the best museum of natural and cultural history in Canada.

On the first floor a series of dioramas recreate the varies landscapes and wildlife of the province (including a life-size mammoth featured to particular effect). On the second floor visitors are taken on a journey through time; reconstructions of an old sawmill, a gold mine, a fish processing factory and a turn-of-the-century street bringing to life days long past. The museum's Indian History Gallery houses what is almost certainly the finest and most comprehensive exhibition of any on the history, culture and art of the north-west coast Indians (including canoes, wooden masks, a variety of textiles, a Salish earth house and a traditional Kwakiutl Big House). Haunting Indian songs are played through loudspeakers. Be sure also to visit Thunderbird Park located behind the museum. Here, in addition to some marvelously carved totem poles, a typical Haida Long House has been erected, in which Indian craftsmen can be seen at work. The museum's newest attraction is the National Geographic Theatre (opened 1998), turning the spotlight on a range of natural phenomena and traces of long forgotten cultures.

In front of the museum stands the 30 m (98 ft)-high Carillon, a bell tower paid for in earlier times by Canadians of Netherlands extraction.