Vancouver Maritime Museum

MARITIME ARTIFACTS

The Vancouver Maritime Museum houses a world-class collection of maritime artifacts.

As the primary local repository for maritime history, the Vancouver Maritime Museum houses over 15,000 artifacts either in storage or on display. The collection has been built principally by artifact donations from the community.

Our holdings reflect the maritime history and heritage of Vancouver, the Pacific Northwest and the Arctic, and the collection represents European, Asian, North American and Indigenous sources. We strive to represent these communities and their connections to the sea through the acquisition of cultural and scientific objects relating to countries on the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans.

Artifacts within the collection relate to:

Maritime technologies
Model making
The Royal Canadian Navy
Marine art
Arctic art and culture
Coastal trade and leisure
Immigration

LEONARD G. MCCANN ARCHIVES

The Vancouver Maritime Museum Archives is named for Leonard G. McCann, Curator Emeritus of the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Mr. McCann joined the museum in the early 1960s, and during his distinguished career spanning over 30 years, he authored several treatises and helped build the VMM library, archives and artifact collections. He also mentored and inspired scholars and students. His personal library and archives were donated to the museum in 2006.

To date, the archival collection includes 60 meters of processed fonds and collections related to vessels, shipping companies and maritime personalities. As records are processed, new descriptions will be added to our online collections database.
Photographs

The photograph collection contains approximately 125,000 slides, negatives and prints from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection is primarily organized by vessel name, with some of the images in scrapbooks and photograph albums.
Maps and Charts

Our holdings include maps and nautical charts dating from 1892 to present day and encompass the entire west coast of North America and Alaska, with specific focus on British Columbia’s coastal waterways. They were produced by a variety of sources including the British Admiralty, the Canadian Hydrographic Office, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office.
Ship Plans

Our collection of ship plans consists of over 2700 plans of commercial and private vessels including fishing vessels, freighters, naval vessels, passenger vessels, recreational vessels (motor and sail), small craft, tugs, barges and scows. Some ship plans contain strong detailed information on them (i.e. freighters or naval vessels) while pleasure craft plans are often unnamed and referred to only by “hull number.” Of special note are the plans we have for the Ben Franklin/PX-15 submersible and the historic vessels Beaver and the St. Roch.

W.B. & M.H. CHUNG LIBRARY

The W.B. and M.H. Chung Library was built in 1993 thanks to the generosity of its namesakes, Drs. Wallace and Madeline Chung. The Library provides public access to information about maritime history, art, culture and technology.

The Library holds over 12,000 books and published manuscripts dating 1678-present; and 510 bound and unbound periodicals. The library collection is catalogued and classified according to the Library of Congress Classification system. The primary focus of the collection is the maritime exploration and history of the Pacific Northwest, specifically Vancouver and coastal British Columbia. Other subjects include early Arctic and Antarctic exploration, Canadian naval history, naval architecture, and the science of navigation.
Library Services

For information about research services, ordering reproductions, or other information please contact the librarian & archivist at archives@vanmaritime.com.