PAC Museum 2017 Celebrations

Pointe-­à­‐Callière Museum 2017

25th ANNIVERSARY

May 19 - June 20, 2017
Free admission to PAC Museum and all its exhibitions.

2017 will be a year of great celebrations in Canada and Quebec, as well as at the Pointe-­à­‐Callière (PAC) Museum of Archaeology and History, located in the Old Montreal. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the PAC Museum's existence, the 375th anniversary of the founding of the city of Montreal, and the 150th anniversary of the Canada Confederation signed on July 1, 1867, the date of birth of Canada as a country.

The PAC museum was first opened to the public in 1992, to mark the Montreal's 350th birthday. On January 25, the Museum has already started to celebrate it's 25th anniversary. A splendid birthday chocolate cake was cut by Francine Lelièvre, the Museum’s Executive Director.

Pointe-à-Callière plans to be one of the key sites for Montréal’s 375th birthday celebrations thanks to its rich and varied program of activities. The highlight will be the opening of a new historic site, a new PAC building named Fort Ville-Marie – Québecor Pavilion, and an opening of an access to the Montréal’s first sewer collector. Starting on May 19, 2017, the visitors will be able to stroll through a 110-metre section of the sewer collector and enjoy a multi-sensory, contemplative experience thanks to the Memory Collector, a light installation projected onto the stone walls within a specially designed sound environment.

The Montreal was founded on May 17, 1642 (375 years ago), under the authority of the Roman Catholic Société Notre-Dame de Montréal. Right on the site of the present PAC museum, missionaries Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, Jeanne Mance, and a few French colonists set up a mission named Ville Marie, to create a colony dedicated to the Virgin Mary. See the maquette - model of the Montreal's first fortification just below. The settlement was enclosed by the St. Laurence river (pictured above the Fort in the photo below), and the small Sainte-Pierre river that was enclosed by the city's first underground sewer collector canal in 1832 (image above).

The PAC Museum had also just launched a new multi-media show that complements the Nicilas Sologub's stained glass work featured at the very top of this article It will also commemorate the events that led to the signing of the Great Peace Treaty of Montreal between the New France and 40 First Nations of North America on August 1, 1701. Here are some images from that show:

In addition, the PAC's permanent exhibition called Building of Montreal, located under the street level, now has a new multimedia installation. It brings to life and illustrates the remains of old masonry and building structures in the museum's archaeological crypt, including one of the only walls from the 1744 fortification that has been preserved and can be seen by the visitors.

In addition to a one month of free admission for everybody between May 19 -June 20, 2017, anyone who is celebrating his or her's 25th birthday (the same as Pointe-à-Callière), will get in for free all-year-long, with proof of age. Another PAC's birthday present: every month, a lifetime membership to the Museum will be awarded to a visitor who has shared a photo taken at the Museum on Instagram, with the #pointeacalliere hashtag.

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Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.

For more information about the museum and its 2017 activities, visit the PAC Museum's website.