Royal Alberta Museum

You’re probably well-acquainted with magpies, but have you ever seen a “ghost” magpie? Because of a genetic mutation, these rare birds have reduced black pigmentation in their feathers than the black-billed magpies we’re used to seeing, and thus have unique white-grey colouring and blue eyes.

While the ‘ghost’ (imperfect albino) magpie is very rare, they are found most often in and around Edmonton. Recently, however, our Curator of Ornithology was contacted with images of ghost magpies found in Lethbridge – a long way from Edmonton – and one specimen had an extra unique appearance.

Though the bird looks very much like Edmonton’s ghost magpies, it has a single normal-coloured tail feather (central rectrix). This is interesting because we would expect a mutant with a colour defect of this nature to show the defect across the whole body.

This special specimen will be making its way to RAM in the coming weeks so we can inspect it more closely and take a tissue sample for future DNA work. We’ll keep you updated on what we discover!

Have you seen a ghost magpie? We want to hear from you! Email your ghost magpie sightings (location, date, and photo if possible) to [email protected]

In the jungles of Cambodia, enormous temples and intricate relics tell the story of one of the greatest empires of all time – Angkor.

Starting this February, explore the majesty of Angkor’s centuries-old history without the hours and cost of international travel!

See more than 120 objects on display and learn about the history of this grand metropolis, what scientists are still learning, and the relationship between ancient and modern traditions in the region.

Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia opens February 23.

Visit our website for details, or to get your tickets. We can’t wait to see you there!
https://royalalbertamuseum.ca/visit/exhibitions/feature-gallery/angkor

We're on the hunt for friendly new additions to our Admissions and Museum Shop teams! Must love museums, mammoths, and making a visitor's day awesome.

Head to our careers page to apply!

https://bit.ly/3SbuDk9

Wishing you and yours a very happy New Year!

We’re closed today and tomorrow, but we are excited to see you again next year!

P.S. don’t forget, we have a bunch of brand-new drop-in activities kicking off Jan 2. Find out more here: https://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/family-winter-drop-activities-ram

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Need a break from the house? We’re open with plenty of new things to discover!

Visit us this week!

📸:

Sending our warmest holiday wishes from all your friends at RAM! ✨ We hope to see you over the winter break.

Our 2023 holiday hours:
❄️ Open: Dec. 26 – 30, Jan. 2, 10 am – 4 pm (10 am – 8 pm on Thursdays)
❄️ Closed: Dec. 24 – 25, Dec. 31 – Jan. 1

Regular hours resume Jan 3.

Don’t forget to check out our awesome winter drop-in programs! Plan your visit at royalalbertamuseum.ca

It’s time for another language lesson! By popular demand, today we’re sharing the word for “bear” in Alberta’s Indigenous languages:

Cree: Muskwa
Blood: Kááiyo/Pa’ksikoyi
Dene: Sah
Michif: Mashkwa
Nakota Ozîja

What would you like to learn next? Snake or squirrel? 🐍 🐿️

Looking for a unique holiday gift idea?

How about the chance to explore an ancient Cambodian empire?

This February we’ll be unveiling our newest feature exhibition Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia.

With a Mammoth Pass you can give the gift of exploration with a year’s worth of admission to all our galleries, including our exciting new Feature Exhibition!

Visit our website for more details and to gift a pass today!
https://atms.alberta.ca/ram/Selection.aspx?item=203

Escape to the Ice Age this weekend! We’re open 10 am – 4 pm through Sunday.

https://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/visit/

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Our favourite fun fact to bust out at parties: did you know Alberta used to have camels?

Yup! And we’ve got the footprints to prove it!

Yesterday’s camel (Camelops hesternus) was one of the last remnants of a long history of camels in North America. 13,000 years ago, they stood in the newly ice-free, southern Alberta landscape, walking across the soft, muddy ground to the water’s edge, leaving behind footprints sealed with silt and sand.

Thirteen thousand years later, the tracks of this long-gone camel can be seen in our Human History Hall, alongside a fascinating story of one of the oldest known Indigenous heritage sites in Alberta, and a rare tale of hunting now extinct forms of camels for food!

We’ve got a mammoth gift idea for you this holiday season.

Much like the jelly of the month club, our Mammoth Pass is the gift that keeps on giving – for a whole year!

Give the gift of a year’s worth of visits and 10% off at the Museum Shop and café for less than the cost of two visits.

That also means unlimited visits to our exciting new exhibition Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia, coming this February.

Investigate centuries old relics from a grand empire, appreciate the vast beauty of its monuments and then… do it again the next week!

Visit our website to gift a Mammoth Pass.
https://atms.alberta.ca/ram/Selection.aspx?item=203

What are you up to this weekend? Come get spicy with us this Sunday as we whip up some spiced playdough – and you can even take it home when you’re done!

Looking for a more relaxed weekend? Cozy up for a winter story time, or craft cards for your loved ones on Saturday.

We have a whole bunch of awesome winter drop in activities to come – check our website for the full schedule and to plan your visit!

https://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/family-winter-drop-activities-ram

Happy Hanukkah! Today begins the eight-day celebration, which begins with lighting the first candle of a menorah.

The original menorah or candelabrum was a seven-branched oil lamp used in the Tabernacle and later in King Solomon’s Temple (Exodus 25:31). The term was later applied to the eight-branched candelabrum used in the festival of Hanukkah. A ninth candle was added and is called the Shammash, meaning servant. The festival originates from the story of a menorah, like the one pictured here from our collection, that only had enough oil to burn for one day but miraculously continued to burn for eight days until more oil could be found.

This menorah can be seen in our Museum Zone on your next museum visit!

Happy birthday to us! 🎉

It’s been 56 years since we’ve opened our doors, and we’ve had some incredible exhibits and exhibitions in that time! While we anxiously await the February opening of Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia, join us for a trip down memory lane through a handful of our past special exhibitions.

Did you visit any of these? Tell us which RAM feature exhibition was your favourite in the comments!

Is that a spaceship? Well, not exactly. But this funky vehicle does have a special relationship with a certain big star in our solar system!

You might remember the Nanook solar car from our DRIVE: Reimagining the Ride exhibition. Now, it has relocated into our lobby where you can watch as our Object Conservator Lisa will be conducting some cleaning and repair work.

Stop by and see museum conservation in action!

To celebrate our upcoming feature exhibition Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia, we thought we’d share a few fascinating facts about this monumental city.

Located near modern day Siem Reap, Angkor was the capital city of the Khmer empire in Cambodia between the 9th and 15th century. So, when we refer to Angkor as an “ancient” empire, we mean ancient!

The entirety of Angkor is estimated to be the largest pre-industrial city at a surface area of at least 1000 square kilometers. Angkor even had a complex water management system that was believed to have been used for irrigation to mitigate the monsoon season.

With these facts being just the tip of the iceberg, it’s no surprise Angkor is also a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site!

Drop a comment if you’ll be stopping by this February to learn a whole lot more about Angkor at Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia.

Ready to learn more names of animals in Indigenous language? By popular demand, here are the translated names of “dog,” the furry friends of humans for centuries!🐶

Cree: Atim
Blood: Imitaa / Omitaa
Dene: Tłį
Michif: Atim
Nakota: Sûga

What name would you like to learn next: Snake or bear? Drop an emoji in the comments: 🐍 🐻

How many museum folks does it take to sort 5000 eggs? So far, we’re up to nine!

We recently came into a fantastic collection of wild bird egg shells from all over the world, spanning the 1860s-1970s. Unfortunately, the eggs arrived mixed up, and the data cards containing the location, date, species, and collector information had been separated from the clutches.

Thankfully, with our wonderful team of staff, volunteers, summer students, and interns have been able to slowly put clutches back together and match data cards to those clutches, so the eggs can finally be accessioned into our Ornithology oology collection.

As an unexpected bonus, they uncovered some fascinating information while sorting through these many eggs!

This collection originally belonged to a significant Canadian egg collector and naturalist Donald Wilby. Mr. Wilby began collecting bird eggs in Weston, Ontario in 1896, then moved to Heatherdown, Alberta in 1904. He continued to collect and trade eggs with people all over the world, well into his 80s.

One highlight from this collection was a slender-billed vulture (Gyps indica) egg collected by Allan Octavian Hume in India on December 1, 1869. In fact, the very book our staff used as a reference to identify the egg was written by Hume (published in 1889) and the egg they were looking at was one from a series Hume had collected and used to first describe the egg shape, size, and color for that species of vulture!

What other egg-cellent stories will we discover in this collection? Stay tuned!

Today is Museum Shop Sunday so of course we’ve got to shout out our amazing Museum Shop (as if we needed an excuse!)

Our Museum Shop is carefully curated with the same thought and intention that you’ll find in the galleries – and you may notice some other similarities between the two! Every item in the Shop is inspired by the stories and specimens in the galleries and collections. With products from hundreds of incredible local and Indigenous artisans, you can take home a little piece of Alberta.

Where our collections have curators, our Shop has experts ready to help you find the perfect gift for yourself, or the people you love!

If you’re more of an add-to-cart kind of shopper, the Museum Shop is also online, with tons of new products added every week!

Check out our friends at the Museum Shop in person, online, or on Instagram to see the cool stuff in-store!

Home - RAM Shop Apparel Art + Cards Books Food Home Indigenous Jewellery Local New Puzzles + Games RAM Staff Picks Toys Browse By Category

Did you hear? There’s a new feature exhibition coming to RAM in the new year!

Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia digs into the history of a great empire and the modern technology helping researchers continue to decipher its past.

See more than 120 treasured objects from ancient Cambodia and immerse yourself in the beauty, architecture, and artistry of Angkor.

The exhibition starts February 23, 2024.

Keep an eye on our Instagram, Facebook, and X pages or sign up for our newsletter for updates. In the meantime, visit our website for more details on this exciting exhibit.

As you may know, often our curators’ work extends beyond the walls of the museum.

This summer, our Curator of Botany, Dr. Richard Caners, conducted field research in northern Alberta peatlands near Christina Lake.

Peatlands are water-logged ecosystems with surfaces that are dominated by moss plants and are abundant in northern Alberta.

They also have many critical roles including accumulating undecomposed organic matter, or peat, which makes them an important natural means of atmospheric carbon storage.

Moss plants including those found in peatlands are Dr. Caners’ area of botanical expertise, so he’s been collaborating on a related project with Natural Resources Canada Research Scientist, Dr. Anna Dabros, focusing mainly on treed rich fens.

As part of the exploratory process to locate bitumen, industries use cleared corridors known as seismic lines. Dr. Caners and Dr. Dabros are looking at the recovery of mosses on seismic lines and the potential for edge effects on mosses, which is the influence or disturbance that the seismic lines may have on adjacent peatland.

Their project further examines how well mosses can recover on seismic lines with the help of different approaches to restoration, like creating peat mounds to promote regeneration after clearing. Dr. Caners and Dr. Dabros are also working to understand whether restoration measures can mitigate or enhance edge effects of seismic lines on mosses.

Swipe for a behind the scenes look at their recent field work!

We’re hiring!

We’re looking for someone to join our Community Engagement team as the Head of Community Engagement.

In this role, you’ll work closely with community groups and create meaningful relationships that will influence exhibitions, programs, research, and collections here at the museum.

If you have experience in community engagement and are interested in joining the RAM team, we’d love to hear from you.

Check out the full posting on our website or feel free to share the link if you know someone who may be interested.
https://royalalbertamuseum.ca/about/join-our-team/careers

Something monumental is coming to RAM!

This February we’ll be unveiling the exciting new international feature exhibition, Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia.

Experience the vast splendor of Angkor’s scenery and architecture with over 120 treasures from ancient Angkor and Cambodia on display - many of which are on tour for the first time! Reveal the history of a centuries-old empire and explore the modern scientific advances helping researchers decode the stories of an ancient empire.

Mark your calendar! Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia opens February 23.

In the meantime, visit our website for more details and be sure to follow us, or sign up for our newsletter for updates.

Do you have experience working behind the scenes to create museum exhibits that shine?

We’re looking for two special candidates to help us create world class exhibits that will wow our visitors.

We have openings for the roles of Interpretive Planner and Lead Exhibit Technician and we’re looking for just the right candidates.

As the Interpretive planner, you’ll help create engaging and immersive visitor-centered experiences, while as the Lead Exhibit Technician, you’ll guide our Exhibit Technical team through the implementation, maintenance, and disassembly of visitor experiences.

Check out the full job descriptions on our page and feel free to share with anyone you think might be interested. Or, if you think you’d be a fit, be sure to submit your resume! https://royalalbertamuseum.ca/about/join-our-team/careers

It’s not too early to begin thinking about the perfect gift – trust us! Wrap up something historic for the museum lovers on your list. Gift them a Mammoth Pass!

Sweet discounts at the Museum Shop and Café, priority entry, and a whole year of admission for one low price... You might have to gift yourself one, too!

Stop by the Admissions desk, or check out our website for all the details: https://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/visit/mammoth-pass

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(yes, we know that's a Mastodon, not a Mammoth, but you get the idea 😄)

Some recipes transport you to a special time and place. As we cap off , here’s a special Métis recipe perfect for the colder winter days.

https://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/blog/la-pouchine

Interested in joining the RAM team?

We currently have a couple of unique opportunities to join our Collections Services Unit for a special project.

We’re looking to fill the role of Collections Technician, where you’ll work closely with our Head of Conservation to help with the remediation of collections objects.

We’re also looking for a Collections Material Handler to work with our collections and conservation teams to assist with the movement of large collections and storage equipment systems in need of conservation work.

You can find the full descriptions for these positions on our website.
https://royalalbertamuseum.ca/about/join-our-team/careers
The deadline for applications is November 28, so don’t wait too long to apply!