The Plaque.

I never know what I am going to find when I poke around in the collection, which is one of the reasons that the digitization project (headed by the lovely Kristen) has been so much fun. See, in order for our team to inventory, document and then photograph all 20,000 items in storage, we have to physically unwrap each artifact and examine it – and that is really the best part. Sure, after the twentieth trophy or hundredth badge it gets a little repetitive, but it is the exciting easter eggs that make it a rewarding experience.

I had one of those the other day when I was poking around downstairs and Kristen handed me a big blue box and asked me to re-accession it because it had been done incorrectly some years earlier.  Upon opening the box I found a plaque unlike any I had ever seen: it was an IACP/Du Pont Kevlar Survivor’s Club award. As the name would suggest, this club, formed in 1987, is open to any officer who survives “potentially fatal and/or disabling injuries through the use of body armor.” Each inductee receives the wooden plaque, a lapel pin and a locket or pin for their spouse (this is the one piece missing from our kit, and in a way I think that that’s lovely.)

A Big Deal.

I had no idea that such a club existed! They  recently accepted their 3000th member, and I just think that this is a great way to promote dual recognition of these awful scenarios:  the award honours the bravery and heroism of the officer alongside appreciation for the actual Kevlar material itself.

As I was accessioning the award and painstakingly recording its every detail, I came across a photocopy of the original police report of the incident. Our man was shot with a sawed off shotgun after intercepting a bank robbery (sounds so John Dillinger!) and survived numerous wounds due to his lucky Kevlar friend. My favourite part of the report details the assailant’s physical characteristics – including his “beer belly.”

Despite the incident taking place in 1984, the Survivor’s Club presented our officer with his award retroactively – an amazing way to not only say thank you, but to commemorate the amazing ways that technology and science can save the lives of the people who protect us.

Plus, its in a neat box, and for museum nerds like me, sometimes that’s more than enough….

It's not the first time we've had zombies here...

This Saturday (Aug 21, 2010), downtown Vancouver will see its streets transformed into a playground for a seething mass of bloody, feral, undead monsters as Vancouver’s annual “Zombie Walk” takes place once again. We here at the museum love a good scare (and are as partial to brains as the next guy) so we have decided to throw open our doors to all of you Zombies – for free!

That’s right, your rotting eyes read that correctly – FREE ADMISSION TO ALL ZOMBIES from 12-4 pm this Saturday. Come on down in your full costume and take what may be the ultimate zombie portrait in our authentic historic morgue and autopsy suite – the perfect way to start your day (of the living dead).

Zombies like brains... we have brains...

But first, a brief list of rules for all you gals and ghouls:

• Dripping and oozing flesh, while appetizing, is not permitted in the museum. All costume components must be dry.
• Brains may be tasty and delicious – but they are not to be consumed in the museum. Same goes for all food and drinks.
• Under the influence of Solanum, T-virus, the Rage virus or Zombie Rabies? No problem. Under the influence of booze or drugs? Sorry, man.
• No biting our paying patrons; we need survivors to pay our wages.

So come one, come all to the old City Morgue – for free – before heading to the walk (it starts at 4:30PM at the Vancouver Art Gallery.)

See you on Saturday – if your eyes don’t fall out first…

The three counterfeit coins in our archives are a great example of an item with a fascinating story to tell.

If these were real, we'd all be on our way to Mexico....

Brothers Paul and William Pankow were notorious schemers, always looking for a “get rich quick” scam that would put them on easy street with minimal effort, and they set their sights on a highly secretive hobby to do so: coin collecting. See, coin collectors, other wise known as numismatists, are an aloof bunch, unwilling to share a lucrative find until the deal has been sealed and the purchase confirmed. The Pankow brothers were counting on this “code of silence” in the collecting world to help them make a small fortune. And they very nearly suceeded.

Variously jailed and committed to mental institutions for petty crimes and arson, the Paul and William were unsavoury characters at best. But no one would have anticipated the sinister way that they learned their counterfeiting craft – the two men kidnapped and held hostage a Vancouver engraver, tying him to a bed frame for five days until he conceded to school them in his expertise. He finally escaped, but could not identify his captors, as they had been wearing KKK style hoods for the entire hostage duration.

It was with newly acquired skills that the Pankows, using aliases,  began their nearly ten year escapade into the world of counterfeit coins. Using exquisite care, the men soldered and etched and melted the tiny digits and symbols from coins, working to recreate the infamous 1936 Canadian penny. These were struck by the mint after the death of King George V, and only 8 authentic coins are known to exist. At the time of the crime, they were worth over 2000 dollars each – big money in the 1950′s. Big, easy money for the Pankows.

A glimpse into their methods.

The brothers were surprisingly adept at the fine detail work required to counterfeit coins, ensuring that they added precisely the right amount of weight required to fool even the most seasoned collector. Along with 1936 penny, the brothers mimicked many, many others, and were only caught when coin collectors began suspecting the haphazard way that the were storing their wares as being too casual for serious collectors.

Not-so-Honest Abe.

Once the Vancouver Police got on the case, they uncovered the men’s true identities and even connected the fraudulent activities to activities to the kidnapping ten years earlier. The men were sentenced to 2 years in prison, but more importantly their very existence alerted many coin collectors to the financially devastating consequences of being swindled by a counterfeiter.

Luckily for us, several 50+ year old fake American collectible pennies are now safe and sound in our collection, and were just waiting for my eager hands to find them and tell their strange tale.

Til next time, museum lovers. In the meantime, remember to always count your change.

One of the gems in our collection - this handmade VPD toy

Who doesn’t love toys? I got to thinking about this question today when Kristin, the Museum’s Assistant Curator, handed me a lovable sock monkey, handmade and dressed in his finest VPD garb. He clearly was a labour of love made for a child or as a keepsake for an adult, his little uniform painstakingly perfect down to the smallest detail.  I unearthed him from his storage box and promptly brought him upstairs, where he is now perched on a spare chair in the Curator’s Office.

But Officer Sock Monkey here is not unique – in fact, he is part of a long lineage of Police themed toys aimed at children. Since the  commercialization of children’s toys in the early 19th century, toys aimed at the different genders have been the norm. While little girls were presented with toys designed to transition them into mothers and wives (babydolls, kitchen playsets, dress-up clothes), boys have traditionally been given “macho” playthings, like army men, action figures – and a lot of police themed toys.

Worth thousands of dollars, tin toys are popular collectables

Seen as the perfect archetype (along with firefighters) for a young boy to ascribe to, the powerful, masculine and ethical Police Officer was an extremely popular image in the first half of the twentieth century. Depicted on motorbikes, in cars or on their own, tiny police constables paraded their way through countless afternoon imagination sessions. Going one step further, full police costumes for tiny tykes have been popular since the 1950′s, including uniforms, badges, holsters and of course, toy guns perfect for playing a game of Cops and Robbers…

A popular stop at the Museum for the young, and the young at heart...

Toy museums around the world now boast collections of tin Police cars, some valued at thousands of dollars, and they are a beloved addition to many personal collections. In fact, here at the Museum we have our own display case chock full of tiny toy cars and I often walk out of the back office to see boys, young and old, staring at them rapturously and ignoring the more traditional “history” all around them.

However, that is not to say that things haven’t changed – these days, both boys and girls are encouraged to play with all kinds of toys and it is just as common to see little girls fascinated with the toys we carry in the gift shop. Companies that traditionally geared their toys solely to boys have realized that there is a whole new market out there, and now make more gender-neutral version of their Police themed products. With a Police Force comprised of 30% women in Vancouver it is no wonder that these Playmobil  sets sell out fast!

Female police officers are part of this set!

So,  Officer Sock Monkey, thank you for opening a can of worms and urging me on to discover the history of Police themed toys. We might even promote you and let you stay upstairs!

And it’s not over yet… we’ve got something happening almost every evening at the museum over the next month, including:

Sins of the City Walking Tours
Until the end of September

Spend some time on Vancouver’s shady side. Our always-popular “naughty little walking tour” sold more than 1200 spots last week thanks to a special promotion through Groupon.com; they always run every Wed, Fri and Sat at 4:00 PM, but we’re adding extra tours all the time because of this huge increase in demand.

When the tour ends, be sure to check out restaurant row in Gastown and grab dinner and/or drinks with your friends.

Get in touch for more info or to book a spot.

Forensics for Adults Workshops
Every Tuesday and Thursday through August at 6 and 9 PM

Nothing says “hot summer evening” quite like spilling a little blood or inspecting a firearm with your friends; these fun and interactive workshops are running one last time in 2010 so be sure to catch them while you can. Topics include:

• Aug 10 – Material Evidence
• Aug 12 – Ballistics
• Aug 17 - Fingerprints
• Aug 19 – To Be Announced (but it’ll be awesome!)
• Aug 24 – Blood Spatter
• Aug 26 – Forensic Pathology

Workshops run twice each evening, at 6:30PM and again at 8:00PM. Tickets are only available through our online store.

Vancouver International Fringe Festival
September 9 to 19, multiple times

Looking for a place to chill? We’re a venue for two different shows at this year’s Fringe including the cool “Unplugged Cop” and the chilling “After the End“, two very different shows that use our space in interesting and unexpected ways.

Get tickets to these shows directly from the Fringe Festival website.

It’s already been a busy summer, and with everything going on this month (and next) it’s not going to let up anytime soon. We can’t think of a cooler place to spend a warm summer evening, but we might be biased…

The supplies for FanTan laid out.

Do you know where I can score some dust, man?

The curatorial staff donned some of the uniforms and holsters from the rental collection, slung some ‘cuffs on our hips and away we went to ensure that even while the party raged, the displayed artifacts was safe and sound and sticky finger-free!

The theme was “Sins of the City” to tie in with our enormously successful

Chris gives away some pasties as a prize!

Serving candy "pills" out of the morgue drawers

walking tour (did you get YOUR Groupon?) and Crystal, the event’s organizer, did a great job with little details that really made the museum come alive.

The house always wins, brother.

We slid out the morgue drawers and placed cups of candy “pills” inside, and there were lines of Pixie Dust cut up on a nearby table. Our Museum Director, Chris, set up a table for some Fantan and Chuckluck gambling (authentic Chinatown games played in the gambling dens of yore) where Yelpers could bet their “clams” to earn prizes.

Delectable hand rolls  from Michi Sushi and sensational tapas from Judas Goat made their rounds in Cigarette Girl-style trays, and UV Vodka and Bear Flag wine really kept all of us well taken care of!

Come up....and see what's on the slab!

Patrick, a Sins guide, regales the flappers with naughty tales

Bet yer clams!

It was great to see the guests having a blast (read their reviews of the party here) with the autopsy table, the booking board and the Prohibited Weapons room – hopefully they will

Museum Cute-a-torial Department

all be back to check out the Sins Tour!

Meanwhile, I think we may make the uniforms mandatory. A little authority looks good on us, no?

(Special thanks to Jun Ying at Kunio Photography for these great shots!)

(Thanks to Carolyn Posynick for drawing this video and this blog post to our attention!)

Much of what Kim the cat says in her report is fair criticism for museums; it’s almost like we have an inferiority complex and so we take ourselves too seriously sometimes.

A few of our favourite quotes:

• “Chances are, the museum people who decide what gets to be put in the museum probably don’t have anything in common with you.”
• “Nothing is allowed to get old and fall apart, which is impossible, and goes against the laws of nature. Museum people fight nature every day…” (our emphasis)
• “The valuable things will get into the museum where the public will be allowed to worship it.”

In the interests of gaining legitimacy and authority, museums have worked hard to be seen as institutions in their communities; maybe videos like the one above are an unfortunate side effect of us taking ourselves too seriously.

What do you think? Do you see museums in general as an accessible place of ideas, or graveyards for objects? How do you feel *we’re* doing in comparison?

Our next task? Improve our selection of clothing. Sure, our “Sinner” shirts and “VanJail” sweats are fun, but our t-shirt designs are mostly… lame. We tried to come up with some ideas on our own, but it was somewhat less than successful.

So, help us! From now until July30, 2010 we want you to submit your ideas to our tshirt design contest. (We’ve even put together some great prizes to help motivate you.)

Here’s the details:

We’re looking for at least one winning design, but will accept more winners if the rumours of your collective awesomeness are to be believed.

Our ideal design will promote our little museum in an artistic, clever and creative way–it could be directly police (or police history) related, it could be about forensic science or even about our creepy building that used to be the city morgue. Let your imagination run with it.

Once you’ve submitted your design, promote it! Popular vote will play a HUGE role in deciding which idea wins. After the popular vote determines the finalists, our jury will pick the design(s) we’re actually going to produce for the shop. The final decision will be based on which design(s) will be easiest to print, which is the most creative and which best reflects the character of the museum.

What’s in it for you? Fame and glory, of course. Plus, the designers of most popular t-shirts will get to pick a prize from the prize pool, starting with the most popular designs and going until we run out of prizes. Everyone who submitted a winning (printed) design will get some shirts with their own design on them.

A big thank-you to everyone at Strutta for making their awesome contest platform available to us! Also, thanks to the Vancouver Attractions Group, Blue Olive Photography, Miss604.com, Axiom Salon & Spa, The Listel Hotel, the Vancouver Trolley Company and MightyUgly.com for fantastic prizes and great support.

We can’t tell you how excited we are for this contest…

-Robert McBeath, when asked why he stormed a German machinegun nest

Last week the museum had the pleasure of hosting a small group of high school students from a tiny village in Scotland, and I was lucky enough to spend some time with them.

Vancouver’s Police Department has a long legacy connecting it to Scotland, the native home of our first police chief (John Stewart) and many of our early officers. But I was surprised to learn of an even deeper connection between Vancouver and Kinlochbervie, a small hamlet boasting a population of 400 residents – we share a former citizen: Robert McBeath. Both cities have reason to be proud of this heroic man, a man who risked his own life time and time again in World War I before becoming a VPD officer – only to be shot and killed on the corner of Davie and Granville St.

A hero for Canada and Scotland

Not too many people in Scotland knew the story of McBeath until a group of dedicated students from his hometown of Kinlochbervie embarked on a project to highlight his acts of bravery and entered their results in a BBC contest meant to showcase “The Lost Generation” – the men and women who fought in World War One. The student’s entry placed in the top five and piqued local interest in McBeath’s legacy, both in Kinlochbervie and Vancouver.

The project detailed McBeath’s accomplishments, notably his joining the army in 1914 at the young age of 16, lying to the recruiters in his eagerness to fight. It was during his time on the frontlines of France, three years later that McBeath and his unit were attacked by German machine guns. The young man volunteered to rush into the enemy’s nest and disarm it using only a revolver and a Lewis gun – seemingly a kamikaze mission.

To everyone’s surprise, McBeath was a success, capturing 3 officers and 30 soldiers, his heroic act earning him the Victoria Cross, a prestigious  honour bestowed upon only 1353 people in history who have committed acts of unusual bravery. His notoriety spread through his home town, and they rallied to support him in his endeavor to move, with his young bride, to Vancouver in 1919. His dreams of sheep farming having failed, McBeath became a police officer with the VPD.

In the line of duty.

He had been serving for just under fourteen months when, after trying to wave down a drunken motorist, he was gunned down. Tragically, this brave young man died on the way to the hospital.  He was the sixth VPD officer (click the link  to have a look at the VPM’s Fallen Officers page)  be killed  in the line of duty.

The people of Vancouver gave him a hero’s send-off, and his funeral was one of the largest in Vancouver’s history, with thousands attending and many local businesses closing for the day. He was interred at Mountainview Cemetery, and though local historians have kept his memory alive, the general public forgot about him – until the plucky wee Scottish students fanned the flames of history with their prize winning project.

News outlets in both countries have picked up on the story, and we were honoured to have the kids come to the museum and to show them around the city. After a tour of the museum, where we talked about VPD’s deep connection to its Scottish traditions, I had the pleasure to lead them on a walking tour of Chinatown and Gastown detailing the city as it would have been in McBeath’s days walking the beat.

Finally, on Sunday, the children dedicated a stone cairn, a stone structure that is traditional Scottish burial/memorial marker at the brand new Tactical Training Centre for the VPD. The children played the bagpipes, read poetry and honoured our shared “local” hero.

The original students who worked on the project.

It was great to see kids getting really involved in history, and amazing that they had the chance to come all the way to Vancouver to visit the final home of their fellow countryman. The next time you are looking for a great activity for a Sunday afternoon, go and say Hello to humble hero Robert McBeath at his grave in Mountainview and “place a stone on his cairn.”

June 17th, 1958.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

This date probably doesn’t mean anything to you. Even if you live and work in Vancouver, and perhaps unknowingly pass the memorial plaque where this date is emblazoned in bronze. Even if you’ve heard about it, maybe vaguely remember a story or two, you probably do not remember the date the Second Narrows Bridge collapsed.

But it is a date that will never be forgotten by the men and women working in the Coroner’s Court that afternoon.

Glen McDonald, Chief Coroner for the city of Vancouver, was at a restaurant when he heard the news. He looked out the window, across the city, to witness the devastation first-hand. “It was an unbelievable sight,” he remembers in his memoir, How Come I’m Dead?, “But there it was.” Though it seemed impossible that such a huge structure could fall so completely, it was a reality which the Coroner had to quickly accept, and to even more quickly respond.

The Second Narrows Bridge was in full-swing construction mode when it fell – eighteen people were crushed or drowned, twenty were grievously injured, and a total of seventy-nine workers plunged the two-hundred and ten feet into the freezing waters below. There was no room at the hospital morgue for so many bodies, so they were sent instead to the Vancouver City Morguet, which now houses our own museum. There was room in the morgue for only ten or twelve bodies at a time, but they had extra space in the basement, and bodies were kept there until they could be identified.

The process of identification was challenging. Many of the workers had been crushed under huge steel beams. McDonald remembers, “Some were no longer human. They looked like abstract Picasso paintings. Twisted, garish, unreal… The memories of that night still haunt me.” The morgue attendants had to resort to creative means to identify the bodies – from dental records to the brand of cigarettes left in their cover-all pockets.

Many people questioned what failure in oversight had led to this terrible tragedy. Could the bridge’s collapse have been prevented? An inquest was held, in our own Coroner’s Court, now the main gallery of our museum. It was where that the jury learned that a company engineer had been on the bridge at the time of the collapse; he had been taking measurements because someone had raised concerns that the bridge had shifted – he was trying to ascertain if there was any danger. He died that day, as the bridge fell. Thanks to that inquest, recommendations were adopted that changed the way steel truss bridges were built, and those same rules help to protect our modern bridgeworkers. And so, in 1994, the Second Narrows Bridge was renamed The Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, to honour those who lost their lives.

So how does this story touch us today? Every engineer in Canada wears an iron ring on their pinky finger. There is a legend that says those rings were once made from the iron of Vancouver’s fallen bridge. During a secret ceremony called the Ritual of Calling an Engineer, the ring is given as a reminder of the responsibility engineers have. They should build safely, not for monetary gain but for the science and art of their craft.

Sadly, the legend is not entirely true: while both ceremony and ring are real, they are not directly related to the Ironworkers of Vancouver; nor are they related to the iron bridge of Quebec, another persistent myth. Still, the fact that the legend still thrives tells us that some Canadians have kept the memory of our Ironworkers alive.

“Grief comes in many forms,” Glen McDonald says in his book, “and we ran into pretty much all of them that night.” For the families of those who died fifty-two years ago today, there is a plaque on the new Second Narrows Bridge. The plaque bears the words, “In memory of those who lost their lives in the process of construction of this, the Second Narrows Bridge.”

And for those for whom a small plaque up high on a bridge is not enough, there is a myth that inspires each new generation of engineers. And there is a small brick building on East Cordova Street, where a team of historians feels a personal attachment to those who died 52 years ago.