Moonlight and Magic 2024
The museum will be open from 5:00 pm – 8:30 pm for Courtenay’s 2024 Moonlight and Magic event on Friday, November 15th. With this year’s theme of Electric Creatures, you may spot our famous fossil out walking the streets!
Elasmosaur’s Birthday
Courtenay’s very own Puntledge River elasmosaur is turning 80,000,036 this November! Join us at the museum on Saturday, November 16th from 11:00am – 2:00pm for a special birthday party for the elasmosaur and celebrate its official designation as the provincial fossil of BC.
Saturday Kids’ Crafts!
From now until August 24th, the museum will be hosting a Summer Kids’ Craft event every Saturday from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. Admission will be by donation.
Canada Day Open House
The Courtenay and District Museum will celebrate Canada Day with an open house from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm on Monday, July 1st. Guests are welcome to enjoy live music by Alan Jossul, enter to win a door prize, and try their hand at kids’ crafts.
Summer Kids’ Crafts Are Back!
Starting next Saturday, from June 22nd to August 24th, the museum will be hosting a Summer Kids Craft event every Saturday from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. Join our Kids Craft Coordinator, Hannah, as she guides youth and parents through the steps to make new weekly creations you can take home. The museum will provide all the materials and tools needed, and donations for the event will be put towards more supplies and designs for the next installment.
Now Live: Vaux’s Swifts Chimney Cam at the Courtenay Museum
We’re excited to broadcast the vaux’s swifts return to the Courtenay Museum’s brick chimney this year. With help from Mayor Bob Wells, City of Courtenay staff and ACS Computer Solutions, the museum has placed not one but two live cameras on the roof to view the swift traffic inside and outside the chimney.
Spring Fling Wrap-Up
We want to extend a big thank you to the nearly-600 attendees who came to the museum’s Spring Fling and Easter Things event on March 23rd. And a huge thank you to Mr. Day and his crew, the Barnyard Party Animals family, and Amy from Magical Faces for making the event such a success.
Event: Spring Fling and Easter Things
We hope you can join us at the Courtenay and District Museum on Saturday, March 23rd for our annual “Spring Fling and Easter Things”. The event runs from 11:00 am – 2:00 pm. Admission is by donation. Princess Maquinna, sometimes referred to as the “Ugly Princess” but most often “Old Faithful,” transported Indigenous people, settlers, missionaries, loggers, cannery workers, prospectors and travellers of all kinds up and down Vancouver Island’s rugged and dangerous west coast, stopping at up to forty ports of call on her seven-day run.
Upcoming Lecture: The Best Loved Boat: Princess Maquinna
Kennedy’s talk, based on the book of the same title, tells the story of the BC built ship, the Princess Maquinna that sailed up and down the west cost of Vancouver Island for nearly forty years from 1913 until 1952. Princess Maquinna, sometimes referred to as the “Ugly Princess” but most often “Old Faithful,” transported Indigenous people, settlers, missionaries, loggers, cannery workers, prospectors and travellers of all kinds up and down Vancouver Island’s rugged and dangerous west coast, stopping at up to forty ports of call on her seven-day run.
Upcoming Lecture: Tales of the Elasmosaur
Join Courtenay Museum Natural History Curator, Pat Trask, for an evening all about palaeontological discovery in the Comox Valley. Trask will focus on the 1988 discovery of the Puntledge River elasmosaur, discoveries made by others in the Comox Valley and on his more recent discovery of a juvenile elasmosaur on the Trent River. Lecture will include slides and a walk through the exhibit area.