Granville Island’s Three Marvelous Museums

Museums that rekindle childhood

The kid has ginger hair and freckles, and looks about five years old. Tense with anticipation, he is staring at the railway track. A locomotive shrieks and emerges out of a tunnel and, drawing several carriages behind it, disappears around a bend. He flashes me a gap-toothed grin. “Wow!” he breathes. “Cool!”

I am in Vancouver, BC Canada, at the Granville Island Model Trains Museum and, like the youngster, now excitedly peering at another section of the model railway. I, too, am “wowed”. Laid out before me-floor to ceiling-is an 80-foot long diorama, with five tracks covering four levels.

The teeny trains, including replicas of the Royal Hudson, C.N. and C.P. railcars, traverse a landscape resembling BC’s Kettle Valley. They trundle, chug and hoot past lakes, along mountain ledges, through tunnels, over amazingly life-like trestle bridges, and weave through forests of cedar, hemlock and fir trees-6,000 of them to be exact. Each branch of every tree has been individually glued into place. Mounted on wooden struts overlaid by Styrofoam and bound together by fast-drying orthopedic bandages, the entire display took a Warren Jones-a gifted diorama artist-and a team of dedicated architects and craftsmen, over a year to complete.

And that’s not all. Beech-wood cabinets line the walls and on their glass shelves stand thousands of miniature trains. It is, in fact, the largest collection of toy trains on earth. They range from gleaming brass miniature locomotives and wind-up trains from the turn of the last century, to a pink train set, circa 1958, designed for girls by Joshua Lionel Cowen - a rare and valuable addition to the Museum collection.

When he came up with the idea of the Granville Island Museums, owner-curator John Keith-King had a couple of objectives in mind. The first was to showcase the extraordinary skill of craftsmen who lived and worked in this Province. The second was to celebrate in a unique way, the joys of sports fishing, our West Coast marine heritage and the history of naval vessels over the centuries. The Sports Fishing Museum and the Model Ships Museum opened two years ago. Then, recalling the magic of his boyhood fascination with trains, Keith-King unveiled his latest addition to the Museums-a show-stopper if ever there was one-the Model Trains Museum.

Beyond any doubt, the Museum collections encompass a superb array of model-building craftsmanship. The Train Museum boasts a 7.5 gauge Union Pacific model which took a year-and-a-half to build, is 24 feet long, weighs over a ton, and is capable of pulling 15 cars with 20 to 25 passengers. This working model and three others in the Museum are the creation of 80-year-old James Ramsey, an elementary school drop out, and a self-taught mechanical genius who works out of his modest home in East Vancouver.

No less compelling is “Big Boy” originally built in 1941, and restored with almost fanatical zeal by Warren Jones-who disassembled it, sandblasted every screw, nut and bolt, stripped, greased, re-assembled, painted and buffed it to a fine sheen.

Despite the fact that I don’t know one end of a rod from another, the Sports Fishing Museum engrosses me for the better part of an hour. Keen sports fishermen, on the other hand, will find enough to mesmerize them for the entire day. Apart from the world’s largest collection of Hardy reels (including a rare Zane Grey valued around $10,000), many of them crafted with a jeweler’s precision, there are fly-boxes, creels, glass minnow transporters, lures, nets, gaffs, rods (over 500 of them), photographs, paintings and-for me the most riveting of all-an enormous collection of mounted fly-plates, each one an exquisite work of art.

The Model Ships Museum has its own wonders. The display of war ships spans several centuries, from Admiral Nelson’s HMS “Victory” to a modern Russian titanium nuclear submarine. Keith-King points out an example of engineering ingenuity: a US submarine which can submerge and re-surface. It also fires underwater torpedoes, has a periscope which moves up and down, rear guns that swivel and shoot blanks, and a variety of sound effects: a sonar ping, the rumble of diesel engines and a dive klaxon. The model has been featured in two episodes of the X-files, where it appears on film as a full-size sub.

At centre stage in the Ships Museum is a 13-foot long 700 pound, meticulously detailed model of the HMS Hood, which took model ship-builder Rodney Henriksen, 20 years to complete.

As Keith-King and I turn to leave, a white-haired gentleman clears his throat. He wears the same expression of bemusement as the small boy in the Model Trains Museum. “See this model of the HMS Lion?” he says to us. “Well, during World War I, my Dad was personnel officer in the Royal Navy when she limped into Edinburgh after the Battle of Jutland. My father was responsible for mustering the marines who served on the Lion after she was re-fitted and sent back into action.” He smiles reminiscently. “As for the HMS Hood...I was a young chap at the time, but I saw her in Portsmouth Harbour before she was eventually sunk by the Bismarck in 1941...”

Keith-King’s eyes light up. This is what his Museums are all about. Rekindling memories, evoking true-to-life tales, keeping the flame of history alive-and delighting all those who walk in, whether they are five or seventy-five years old.

If You Go:

The unpretentious entrance to all three museums is located at 1502 Duranleau Street, Granville Island, Vancouver. It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Phone (604)683-1939; Fax(604)683-7533. Visit their comprehensive web-site at www.granvilleislandmuseums.com for further information.

Author: Margaret Deefholts