Founder’s Hall

This museum is sorely in need of a technological update. Opened in 2001, it contains a walkthrough tour of Canada’s history of confederation. While the information is interesting, the tour is run with earphones that contain a radio receiver. Each stop is transmitted continuously in one direction. This means that if you are not standing in the correct spot, or turn your head away from the display, you get earfulls of static. The headset is also heavy and uncomfortable because of the receiver. Additionally, many of the touch-​screen displays aren’t functioning. Finally, the tour theme is a journalist’s view of confederation there had been journalists that were crosses between a tongue-​in-​cheek CBC reporter and the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was just too light an atmosphere for these important events.
I’ve been to many museums, both in Canada and abroad. With digital techonology, they can now set tracks at each station, and have tourists dial in their stop number in a digital player, rather than continuously running on radio-​waves. This would prevent having to listen to the back-​half of an event, wait for it to restart, and then listen to the front-​half.
On the bright side, it’s an informative (if superficial) tour of Canada’s confederation years.