The Canadian Museum of Nature (; CMN) is a national natural history museum based in Canada's National Capital Region. The museum's exhibitions and public programs are housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum Building, a in Ottawa, Ontario. The museum's administrative offices and scientific centres are housed at a separate location, the Natural Heritage Campus, in Gatineau, Quebec.

The museum originated from a museum established by the Geological Survey of Canada in 1856. Initially based in Montreal, the museum relocated to downtown Ottawa in 1881. In 1911, the museum relocated to the Victoria Memorial Museum Building. Initially, a natural history museum, the institution later expanded to include an anthropology and human history department; with the institution renamed the National Museum of Canada in 1927. The departments of the national museum were later split into separate national institutions, with the natural history department forming the National Museum of Natural Sciences in 1968. The museum adopted its current name in 1990 after it was made its own autonomous crown corporation. From 2004 to 2010, the museum renovated and expanded the Victoria Memorial Museum Building.

The museum's collection contains over 14.6 million specimens of the natural world, several of which are displayed in its permanent exhibitions. The museum also hosts and organizes several travelling exhibitions and supports and conducts several research programs relating to natural history.

History

Early museum (1856–1968)

The Canadian Museum of Nature originates from the collecting efforts of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), an organization established in 1842 in Montreal. In 1856 the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada passed an act that enabled the GSC to establish a museum to exhibit items found from its geological and archaeological field trips; with the museum initially established in Montreal. with the museum formally split from the GSC.

Management of the National Museum was transferred from the Department of Mines to the Department of Resources and Development in 1950. The National Museum of Natural Sciences formed a part of the NMC until the organization was dissolved in 1988. The same act also renamed the National Museum of Natural Sciences into the Canadian Museum of Nature. On 22 May 2010, International Day for Biological Diversity, the museum building was reopened to the public.

Victoria Memorial Museum Building

thumb|The Victoria Memorial Museum Building from Argyle Avenue. The building houses the museum's exhibitions and other programs.

The Victoria Memorial Museum Building in Ottawa houses the museum's exhibitions and galleries and other public programs operated by the museum. The building is located on a property is located in Centretown, a neighbourhood of Ottawa. Situated approximately south of Centre Block on Parliament Hill, the building was initially designed to mirror the Canadian Parliament Buildings as a part of a larger envisioned planned capital. The property is surrounded by several roadways including O'Connor Street to the west, and Metcalfe Street to the east. Metcalfe Street's southern and northern portions also terminate north and south of the building as it detours to the east of the property.

The building is the first purpose-built museum building erected in Canada. The theatre company was forced to vacate the space after a fire ravaged Centre Block, forcing the temporary relocation of the parliament to the building until 1920. A glass and steel tower erected in the place of the former central tower was built between 2004 and 2010. The new central tower, named the Queens' Lantern was formally opened in May 2010. In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the museum also hosts and organizes several travelling exhibitions.

thumb|left|[[Caribou diorama in the museum's Mammal Gallery]]

The permanent exhibitions at the museum include the Bird Gallery; with over 500 specimens mounted throughout the gallery, representing over 450 species. Several diorama backgrounds featured in the Bird Gallery were painted by James Perry Wilson. The Mammal Gallery is a gallery centred on mammals found in Canada, and also includes several dioramas painted by Clarence Tillenius during the mid-20th century. The Earth Gallery is a permanent exhibition focused on minerals, rocks, and other geological forces. A goodwill Lunar sample gifted to Canada by the United States is on display in the Earth Gallery. A fairly complete specimen of an Edmontosaurus in the museum's Fossil Gallery was the first specimen to be mounted in a Canadian museum; having been acquired by the museum in 1912 and on display since 1913. The other permanent exhibitions include Nature Live, a gallery that houses live arachnids, insects and other invertebrates; and the Water Gallery, which focuses on marine animals and hydrology.

thumb|Skeleton of a [[blue whale in the museum's Water Gallery exhibition]]

The newest permanent exhibition to be introduced at the museum is the Canada Goose Arctic Experience, with over 200 specimens and artifacts from the Canadian Arctic on display in the exhibition. The Arctic Experience gallery was opened in June 2017, coinciding with the 150th anniversary celebrations for Canada.

Collections

thumb|A piece of [[labradorite from the museum's collection]]

Collecting efforts by the Canadian Museum of Nature forms a part of the museum's core mandate, with the collection intended to be used to facilitate "interest in, knowledge of and appreciation and respect for the natural world." The museum's collection includes algae, amphibians, birds, bryophytes, fishes, gemstones, invertebrate animals, lichens, mammals, minerals, mosses, palaeobotany material, reptiles, rocks, vascular plants, and vertebrate fossils. In addition these specimens, the museum's collection also includes a collection of art and film pertaining to natural history, audio recording of animal behaviours, and animal models; the latter two typically employed in the museum's exhibitions. Although a number of these items are on display in its exhibitions, many of these specimens are held at an off-site storage facility, the Natural Heritage Campus in Gatineau, Quebec. Since 2001, there were approximately 43,000 specimens added to the museum's collections annually; acquired primarily through fieldwork by staff, research associates and other collaborators. Other early researchers who helped build up the institution's collections includes Erling Porsild, Charles Mortram Sternberg, and Percy A. Taverner. The Traill collection forms a part of the National Herbarium of Canada, the museum's botany collection. The museum also holds the largest collection of Arctic plant specimens from Canada; with over 100,000 Arctic plant specimens forming part of the National Herbarium of Canada collection. The holotype for the Vagaceratops was similarly mistaken for a different species when its fossils were first delivered to the museum in 1958; with museum researchers later discovering the fossil was a new species after removing it from the plaster field during the 1990s. The species was discovered by American palaeontologists Edward Daeschler, Farish Jenkins, and Neil Shubin on Ellesmere Island, who studied the fossils in the United States before they were sent to the Canadian Museum of Nature. Museum researchers have been conducting research on Arctic flora since the 1980s, with a particular emphasis on alkali grass. Other major research programs the museum took part in include several excavations of the Foremost Formation for dinosaur remains, and the China-Canada Dinosaur Project between 1986 and 1991.

Between 1972 and 1995, the institution published its own scientific journal, Syllogeus.

Library and archives

The museum also operates a library and archive at the Natural Heritage Centre. The library contains over 35,000 books, 2,000 periodic titles, museum publications, and microfilms relating to natural history.