Canadian War Museum

Description:

• There has been a war museum in the capital since 1880, in various places around town; this is the newest and grandest, opened in 2005. With intentional irony, it was designed by architect Raymond Moriyama, who was one of more than 20,000 Japanese-Canadians interned during World War II; the museum, occupying a windswept rise to the west of Parliament Hill, a bleak setting made even more so by the mausoleum-like sobriety of Moriyama's design. There is little drum beating here, which is a good thing, but it's also visually less compelling than the previous incarnation. Canada's long, often tragic military history is treated with respect yet never jingoism or glorification of combat in displays of uniforms, military equipment, and antique and modern weaponry. The exhibits begin from, well, the beginning: skirmishes within Native Canadian groups, their battles with early French and British explorers, and so on chronologically through the South African and world wars and the Cold War and its conflicts. The exhibits conclude with a depiction of the Canadian military's more recent role in peacekeeping missions.

• © Frommer's 2012