Latest news with #ManitobaMuseum
CTV News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Augmented reality exhibit brings people closer to orcas
Winnipeg Watch The Manitoba Museum is using augmented reality to bring visitors below the waves.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Health
- Winnipeg Free Press
Immersive film at Manitoba Museum allows humans to hear like orcas
Manitoba Museum's latest exhibition invites visitors to dive deep into the waters of the Salish Sea and immerse themselves in the world of the endangered southern resident killer whales. The augmented-reality experience Critical Distance is a 15-minute animated film that launches its Canadian tour in Winnipeg for Ocean Week 2025, and will be showing at the Science Gallery until Aug. 31. The film, on tour with Nature Canada in association with the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada, makes a strong case for ocean conservation, says Scott Mullenix from Nature Canada. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS A group of participants watch Critical Distance via AR goggles at the Manitoba Museum. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS A group of participants watch Critical Distance via AR goggles at the Manitoba Museum. 'Some people get pretty emotional going through the experience. We want to take that emotion and engagement and turn it into something useful for the orca pod and the ocean that Nature Canada is trying to protect. We thought a great way to do that would be to have visitors understand the different roles they can play,' he says. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Adam May is co-creator of Critical Distance. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Adam May is co-creator of Critical Distance. The immersive short focuses on the J Pod, one of three pods in the acoustic clan who are residents of the waters. The audience follows eight-year-old orca Kiki and her family as they navigate the challenges thrown up by human activity. Sound is vital to the orca whales, who use echolocation to communicate, and sound pollution is threatening the pod's ability to hunt, bond and navigate. The term 'critical distance' refers to the point in space where direct sound, such as an orca's call, is equal in intensity to reverberant or background noise. Placed in the middle of the pod, viewers hear and see the clicks, whistles and calls the members of the pod use to communicate with each other. These vocalizations are typically effective across long distances in a natural ocean environment, but the orcas, who live beneath a busy shipping area, struggle to make themselves heard. 'Some people get pretty emotional going through the experience. We want to take that emotion and engagement and turn it into something useful.'–Scott Mullenix Human activity, especially from boats, ships and underwater construction, has introduced significant noise pollution into marine habitats. This background noise effectively reduces the critical distance, which means orcas have to be much closer to each other before their calls are distinguishable from the surrounding noise. Submerged underwater with Kiki, the contrast in the varying sounds different vessels make become obvious – paddle boats barely make a splash, but motorboats and trawlers jar the quiet, littering the water with their loud vibrations. Sounds are translated into visuals so the audience can see what the orcas hear; it's a simple but effective method to experience the world from an entirely different perspective. After the AR animation, visitors are invited to join the movement to protect Canada's ocean by connecting directly with ocean conservation experts through Nature Canada's Ask the Experts section. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Critical Distance participants are fully immersed in the orca's experience. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Critical Distance participants are fully immersed in the orca's experience. Visitors can ask whatever they want about orcas, threats to the Salish Sea or the ocean in general. Their questions will be sent to experts who include Adam Olsen, lead negotiator and member of Tsartlip First Nation; Julia Laforge, protected areas policy manager at Nature Canada; and Rebecca Brushett, marine planning and engagement co-ordinator at Ecology Action Centre, who will reply with answers. The hope is that the experience will encourage people to lobby for change to protect one of the country's most endangered marine mammals — at last count, there were fewer than 80 southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea. AV KitchingReporter AV Kitching is an arts and life writer at the Free Press. She has been a journalist for more than two decades and has worked across three continents writing about people, travel, food, and fashion. Read more about AV. Every piece of reporting AV produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CTV News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Manitoba Museum exhibit offers augmented reality experience with orcas
An audience takes part in 'Critical Distance' at the Manitoba Museum on June 3, 2025. (Ken Gabel/CTV News) The Manitoba Museum is launching a new exhibit that will provide visitors with an immersive experience into the world of orcas. On Tuesday, the museum opened 'Critical Distance'—an augmented reality (AR) experience that will teach Manitobans about a group of endangered orcas, known as the Southern Resident Killer Whales. During this exhibit, visitors are transported to the Salish Sea through AR technology. Audiences follow Kiki, a nine-year-old orca, and her family as they face the challenges of noise pollution and declining salmon stock. 'What this experience does is allow audiences to experience echolocation, which is how the orcas hunt and feed,' said Adam May, one of the creators of the exhibit. 'Through a mixed reality experience, they see the orcas as they see each other, so through sound waves effectively. As the experience progresses, you see how human impact is affecting them and how they can lose each other in an ocean full of sound.' The goal of the exhibit is to make a compelling case for ocean conservation, as there are only 73 Southern Resident Killer Whales left in the Salish Sea. May explained the experience is a combination of the real world and animation. 'That's a really unique thing that mixed reality can do; it can take us into worlds that we couldn't otherwise get to as a human,' he said. 'And we can get closer to these species and understand why they're so important for us to save.' 'Critical Distance' is on at the Manitoba Museum through the month of June from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. Those aged 10 and over are welcome.
Observer
27-05-2025
- Science
- Observer
This Fossil's 3 Eyes Are Not Its Most Surprising Feature
More than 500 million years before 'The Simpsons' introduced us to Blinky, a fish with an extra eye swimming through Springfield's Old Fishin' Hole, a three-eyed predator chased prey through seas of the Cambrian Period. Known as Mosura fentoni, this creature is a worthy addition to the bizarre bestiary preserved in the Burgess Shale, a fossil deposit in the Canadian Rockies. But the animal's anatomy, described in the journal Royal Society Open Science, shows it may not be as alien as it looks. The first Mosura specimen was unearthed by a paleontologist more than a century ago. Over recent decades, paleontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto have uncovered many more Mosura fossils, which they nicknamed 'sea moths' because of flaps that help them swim. Sea moths were not fish, but they were related to radiodonts, a group of arthropods that dominated Cambrian food chains. But a closer inspection would not occur until Mosura specimens were unearthed in 2012 in a Burgess Shale outcrop. Having both old and new specimens encouraged researchers to 'finally figure this animal out,' said Joseph Moysiuk, who studied the Marble Canyon fossils as a doctoral student. Moysiuk teamed up with his adviser at the Royal Ontario Museum, Jean-Bernard Caron, to examine 60 sea moth specimens. The specimens were photographed under polarized light to capture the flattened fossils' detailed anatomy. A defining feature of living arthropods is the division of their bodies into specialized parts. For example, crustaceans like crabs have different appendages adapted to perform certain functions like feeding or walking. Fossils of many early arthropod ancestors reveal relatively simple body plans. Researchers have therefore long proposed that segmentation took a long time to evolve. Mosura bucks this trend. Despite measuring only 2.5 inches long, the creature's body was divided into as many as 26 segments. 'It's something that we've never seen in this group of animals before,' said Moysiuk, who is now at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. In addition to its wide swimming flaps, the animal possessed a highly segmented trunk at the back of its body brimming with gills, resembling the abdomenlike structures that horseshoe crabs, woodlice and some insects use to breathe. — JACK TAMISIEA / NYT
Winnipeg Free Press
22-05-2025
- General
- Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba Museum apologizes for holding ancestral belongings
The Manitoba Museum issued a historic apology Thursday to First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities for holding ancestral belongings, including biological and physical remains, in its collections in downtown Winnipeg. 'By accepting, inheriting and keeping ancestral remains in the museum collection, the Manitoba Museum has contributed to and played a role in colonization,' the statement, composed by the museum's board of governors, reads. 'These actions have perpetuated the forced displacement of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and their life experiences, contributing to systemic discrimination and racism, including the history of violence perpetrated against Indigenous Peoples. 'We recognize that keeping ancestral remains in the museum collections has had, and will continue to have, a serious impact on our relationships with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We regret the harm and disrespect caused to the ancestors and to First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, and we apologize for our actions, inactions and failures, past and present.' Museum officials were joined Thursday by representatives of the Southern Chiefs' Organization, elders from the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, community leaders from Inuit and Métis communities, and staff from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Following a pipe ceremony, museum CEO Dorota Blumczynska delivered the apology, vowing that no ancestors will enter the museum in the future. Many of those ancestors — defined by the museum as 'the physical or biological remains, and more broadly, the spirits of Original Peoples' — were removed from burial locations by early 20th-century archeologists or brought to the museum by members of the public. The remains held at the museum, which opened in 1970 as the Museum of Man & Nature, belong to at least 40 individuals, the majority of whom are believed by the museum to have been buried within the last 500 years in southern Manitoba, though some originated in northern Manitoba and potentially the United States. Supplied Manitoba Museum CEO Dorota Blumczynska Supplied Manitoba Museum CEO Dorota Blumczynska None are from or near Indian residential school sites, the museum says. None of the ancestors was ever on display at the museum; however, some belongings were displayed 'many years ago.' One replica of an ancestor was on view in the museum's Grasslands gallery until the 1980s. 'It was wrong to display this,' the museum's website says. In all cases, the museum, along with its Indigenous advisory circle, is conducting research to determine kinship communities in order to repatriate the ancestors and belongings to their places of origin according to local traditions and customs. 'The Manitoba Museum is located on Treaty 1 territory in the same part of this great nation as the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation,' Blumczynska told the Free Press. 'We understand our role in the harm that's been done and also the responsibility we have to do the work that can hopefully one day provide space for healing. 'As a direct action and a commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we believe that by doing this we can be thoughtful and meaningful allies on our shared journey of truth and reconciliation.' The work to repatriate the ancestors and their belongings will take several years, said Blumczynska, who added that the museum has been undergoing its Homeward Journey project since 2022. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
