The Montreal museum of archaelogy and history, Pointe-à-Callière, has launched a “new spectacular multimedia experience of Montreal’s history.”
Projected in a one-of-a-kind room over a large space overlooking archaeological ruins, the multimedia show Generations MTL brings the city’s history to life.
Like a time machine, the show takes visitors on a discovery of Montreal’s key events and the people who helped build the city.
Six Montrealers go back in time to talk about their Montreal and the story of their ancestors. In their own way, they present and represent the city’s past and present and show that the story of the city is also being handed down from generation to generation.
For example, spectators can relive the arrival of Paul Chomedey, Jeanne-Mance and the Filles du roi to New France, the Great Peace of 1701, the Patriots’ Rebellions of 1837, the Flood of 1886, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Depression.
The show also highlights the inspiring women who impacted the city’s development, the passion of Montrealers for hockey and jazz culture, the evolution of Francophone-Anglophone relations, and the contributions of newcomers from yesterday to today.
“Telling a story as rich as that of Montreal in 17 minutes is an incredible feat,” said Francine Lelièvre, executive director of Pointe-à-Callière. “Beyond presenting the city’s historical highlights, we wanted Generations MTL to show off the city’s colours and diversity and what makes it so special.”
Generations MTL is presented in French and English every half-hour during the museum’s opening hours.
22,000 family names
In addition to the MTL Generations show, visitors to the museum can deepen their knowledge of the city with the revamped Building Montréal exhibition, which showcases the symbolic site of the first marketplace.
A chronological journey retraces the major milestones of Montreal’s distant and recent history and lesser-known events, such as the inauguration of an ice railway in 1880 and the 1937 dressmakers’ strike.
The Building Montréal exhibition includes a compelling portrait gallery of just over one thousand faces of Montrealers who express significant moments from their personal or family stories. Created with the help of residents, this gallery reflects the diverse origins of Montreal families, many of which can be found in interactive genealogy terminals that people can use to search for their own ancestors from a bank of 22,000 family names registered in Montreal between 1620 and 1937.
The heart of the exhibition is an archaeological crypt that authentically recreates the history of the marketplace through its ruins, which are set off with impressive illumination and different in situ artifacts that have been returned to their original location. Five models set into the ground under glass panels also go back in time to provide a glimpse of the marketplace in different eras. These small-scale reconstructions transport the visitor to 1350, when the site was a meeting point for First Nations, and then to 1872, when Montreal had become a major Canadian city.
This is an amazing museum that I found by accident a few years ago. With this new exhibit, really, it’s a must-see.