Cool Storage

Storage rooms don’t normally top the list of cool things. But that would change if everyone’s storage rooms were as fascinating as the ones at the Royal Alberta Museum.

Behind the door that says “Staff Only” is a treasure trove of storage rooms that house many of the museum’s artifacts. During Edmonton Historic Week the museum offers behind the scenes tours that allow the public a glimpse at items that aren’t displayed. We toured two of the rooms that store items from the Western Canadian History collection.

In the home entertainment room we saw the progression of musical entertainment from something called an Orchestral Regina (a cross between a jukebox and a music box that played large metal discs), to a 1928 jukebox with only eight songs to choose from, to vintage radios dating from the 1920s to 1950s. Other highlights were the 1948 Philco black and white TV with a nine inch screen and a radio handmade from scrounged parts by a POW in a World War II internment camp near Lethbridge.

The artifacts in the medical room span diverse disciplines such as pharmacy, surgery, dental, and veterinary medicine. We saw x-ray machines and foot-powered drills that looked like something out of an old Hollywood horror movie. The really scary thing was that this equipment was in use from 1900 to the 1950s! No wonder people were so scared to go to the doctor or dentist. The coolest item was one of the first heart-lung machines used for open heart surgery in the late 1960s.

The curator leading our tour promised that next year the tour will offer a sneak peak of the domestic collection which includes household items like children’s toys, prams, sleds and furniture. Sign me up. That’s a storage room I’d like to spend some time in.