Museum tour leaves visitors wanting more

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This article was published 20/09/2014 (3504 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When a Via Rail train from Toronto pulled into Winnipeg Saturday morning for a short stopover, tourists on board from Venezuela hoofed it over to the weirdly beautiful building near the station.

“We saw it out the window,” said Angel Hualde, 28, who was taking photos of his parents and sister in front of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights where people with passes for a free preview tour were lined up.

“We wanted to know what it is,” the Venezuelan said before returning to the train for the journey to Vancouver. “It is very nice,” just judging from outward appearances, he said.

Inside, it got favourable reviews, too, from the first of 9,000 visitors this weekend who got a preview tour of the CMHR. Although most had one complaint about the experience.

It was too short.

“It was a brief tour — just scratching the surface,” said Maureen Polischuk. The sneak peek inside the new museum was limited to four of the 11 galleries. The tour was free but just 60 minutes long. When it’s open to the public, people can pay $15 per adult and stay all day.

“I think it’s the kind of place where I’d want six hours,” said Polischuk, a mother of four. She was there Saturday morning with her husband, their youngest child and her neighbour, Bernice Marmel.

“It’s fabulous,” said Marmel. “The potential for learning about human rights is enormous.”

The preview tour left Adam Bernardo also wanting more.

“I’m really glad they built it in Winnipeg. I’m proud of it,” said the young man of Filipino descent.

“I’ve been to museums around the world and I think it’s comparable,” said Bernardo, who plans to return once the building is open to the general public Sept. 27.

“It reminds me of the Guggenheim,” he said.

Winnipeg high school teachers Erin Ward and Peiki Loay, waiting for their morning tour to begin, said they were eager to see the much-talked-about and looked-at CMHR for themselves and their students.

“It’s the first national museum outside of Ottawa. I wanted to see what it’s going to look like inside,” said Ward.

“I camped out in front of my computer to get tickets,” said Loay. “I’m really interested to see how kids might be engaged with things.”

She had heard the museum explores how human rights came to be — something her students and most people need to know, she said.

“I think history is important — if you understand what happened in the past you have a better orientation for the future,” said Loay.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca