History

The Redpath Museum is the oldest building in Canada built as a museum. Completed in 1882, it originally housed the collections of Sir William Dawson, then Principal of McGill. The museum currently holds extensive collections in the fields of paleontology, zoology, minerology, and world cultures (ethnology). It has several research labs and a Victorian teaching auditorium. The museum is open to the public. Read more about the Museum's history and architecture and about its directors.

The Redpath Museum, one of Canada's oldest free-standing museums, functions as a unique interdisciplinary unit within the Faculty of Science. As a Museum it preserves and displays large collections of ancient and modern organisms, minerals, and world culture (ethnological) artefacts. As an academic unit it serves as a centre for the teaching and writing of science, as well as a research centre for the history of life and biodiversity of the planet.

Research
Research at the museum is focused on evolution, from working out the details of the 3,5 billion year history of life on the planet to examining how creatures and systems are changing today. The researchers of the museum can be found on the staff page and their findings can be found both on their individual staff pages and in the publications section of the site.

Courses taught at the Museum
Museum courses include Science Writing, offered at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as a new museum studies course, Science and Museums, which focuses on the history of research and management of natural history collections. Museum staff teach courses in several departments such as Biology or the School of the Environment, or Anthropology, and yet more courses are taught in the museum by videoconference from the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at Macdonald College.

At the graduate level, students wanting to study biosystematics and evolutionary biology can find several supervisors working on a variety of topics. Students from other, related departments can also be supported by the museum.

Exhibits and public programming
Exhibits at the museum are found on all three floors and focus on natural history, world cultures (ethnology), and mineralogy. Popular specimens include dinosaurs, shells, mummies and a wide variety of Quebec minerals.

A robust public programme includes activities such as documentary films, public lectures, Sunday discovery workshops for children and tours inside and outside of the museum.

Please follow the links below if you are looking for the:
Faculty of Science
Department of Biology
Faculty of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences
Department of Natural Resource Sciences

Mission Statement

The Redpath Museum exists to preserve and foster the study of the history and diversity of the natural world. Its mandate includes geological, biological and cultural diversity. It conducts conventional academic teaching and research activities on the scale of academic departments of comparable size, and also provides academic services to other units. Its distinctive feature is the preservation and curation of objects, the registration of their existence, and the provision of access to other collections. Through the public display and interpretation of these objects, it both advances undergraduate and graduate education, and serves the wider community on whose continued goodwill the University eventually relies.