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Interview with Laura Evans, Director of Advancement at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa

on 4/21/2017
We learned from Laura Evans, Director of Advancement at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, the museum was born out of the Geological Survey of Canada. The deepest roots of the museum date back to the geological exploration of Canada. For over 150 years, they've been exploring the natural world, which often yields all kinds of interesting rocks, minerals, and gems, so there are lots of ties between the two worlds. They are working on an interesting project right now hoping to repatriate the Foxfire Diamond back to Canada, and offer it a permanent home at the Canadian Museum of Nature.


Laura Evans, Director of Advancement at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa

Al Alper, Jr: This is Al Alper, Jr. President of Metals News. We're here at PDAC 2017, and I'm sitting with Laura Evans, who is the Director of Advancement at the Canadian Museum of Nature Ottawa. So, Laura tell us a bit about your foray into mining this week?

Laura Evans: Thanks Al, for the opportunity to talk about the museum a little bit. We're here at PDAC 2017 because we have a long history of working with the mining industry. We're actually born out of the Geological Survey of Canada, and so the deepest roots of the museum date back to the geological exploration of Canada. So for over 160 years, we've been exploring the natural world, and that often yields all kinds of interesting rocks, minerals, gems, and so there're lots of ties between our two worlds.



Al Alper, Jr: A lot of synergy.

Laura Evans: Yes.

Al Alper, Jr: Tell us more about your museum

Laura Evans: We're Canada's national, natural history and natural sciences museum. We have been around since 1856. We are located in Ottawa in a historic building, which was the former seat of Parliament. When Parliament burned in 1916, our building became the emergency headquarters of the Canadian Government, and housed the House of Commons and the Senate for about four years. So interestingly enough, for a time, the Senate was actually housed on the mineral floor, which is now currently the fossil gallery.



Al Alper, Jr: That's really interesting.

Laura Evans: A lot of people don't know that.


187.63 ct , Largest known, uncut gem quality Canadian diamond

Al Alper, Jr: That’s a massive undertaking, really fascinating. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about?

Laura Evans: Well, we're working on a really interesting project right now, hoping to repatriate the Foxfire Diamond back to Canada, and offer it a permanent home at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. A really exciting possibility that would be huge for capturing the imagination of public audiences! With help from some generous benefactors, we hope to be able to share with Canada and the world, the largest gem quality diamond ever found in North America. Bringing this paragon of nature to Canada’s national museum would be fantastic.

Al Alper, Jr: The Prospector and Developer's Association of Canada (PDAC), their members and the mining industry as a whole provide a great service to the museum, bringing in samples.

Laura Evans: Yes, It's a great, big world out there, and our scientists can't be everywhere, and they certainly wouldn't be able to collect everything, although our mandate is to collect and preserve the natural history of Canada and the world. So a lot of the things that we have in our collection have been unearthed because of mining, and oftentimes mines will either donate samples to us or we are able to acquire them through donation or some sort of partnership. So the partnership with the mining industry and with various different companies is key to our ability to achieve our mandate and collect and preserve the natural world.

Al Alper, Jr: Do they often find things and have you come out and collect them?

Laura Evans: Mining companies do partner with our Museum to provide opportunities for specimens uncovered through their processes to be incorporated into Canada’s national collection, and we’d like to work with more companies in this way.

Other times we have research scientists who actually have collaborative relationships with various different mines. For instance, Scott Ercit was involved with the Tanco Mine in Manitoba. We have Paula Piilonen, another research scientist, who's working with a mine in Cambodia. So our acquisitions come in various different ways. Part of what I'm doing here, is creating partnerships and sharing the Museum’s story. We welcome the opportunity to partner with the mining industry to tell the story of Canada’s rich natural heritage.



Laura Evans: We have an extensive collection of gems, rocks, minerals, and mineral occurrences, which are used for research and education, and some really interesting and beautiful gems some of “nature’s wonders” are on display in the Earth Gallery.

Al Alper, Jr: Tell us a little bit more about your collection. What would students and tourists expect to see?

Laura Evans: One interesting thing people don't know is, in addition to the front-facing Victoria Memorial Museum Building on McLeod Street in Ottawa, we also have the Natural Heritage Campus, a research and collections facility in Gatineau, Quebec. It is 76 hectares, of living lab and environmental monitoring, and the facility is also where all of our research scientists conduct their lab work. The facility is where we keep all of the national collection that’s not on display, is also designed to provide the standards of safety, security and preservation necessary to safeguard Canada's natural history collection. Also soon to be the new home of a lot of the collections from the Geological Survey of Canada. The GSC has recognized our expertise in collections preservation and management, and we will house many of their major collections, including the national meteorite and tektite collections, which'll be very cool. So that's underway right now, and we have 450 cases of specimens that have already arrived at the National Heritage campus on Pink Road in Gatineau, which a lot of people don't even know about.



Al Alper, Jr: That's excellent. Thank you very much for your time.

Laura Evans: Thanks, Allen.

http://www.nature.ca/

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