Redpath Museum, McGill University

One of Canada's oldest museums, the beautiful Redpath Museum of McGill University has been showcasing natural history and ethnography since 1882. Did you know that the ancestors of all reptiles and mammals came from the sea? The Redpath Museum explains this and much more as it tells the history of life on earth.

Named after its donor, industrial magnate and philanthropist Peter Redpath, the museum was originally built to house the collections of Sir William Dawson, leading Canadian naturalist of the Victorian era. Today, the museum offers extensive collections in the fields of paleontology, zoology, mineralogy, and ethnology (world cultures).

Collections include some 3 million archaeological and ethnographic objects dating from ancient Egypt (including mummies!) to 19th and 20th century Asia, Oceania, South America, and Africa. The Québec exhibit highlights the province’s fossils, rocks, minerals, and zoological specimens. 

The Redpath is as interesting on the outside as it is on the inside: featuring elements of Victorian Classicism, the Redpath represents an unusual and late example of the Greek Revival style in North America.