It’s the last call to see the Currency Museum’s “Road Trip!” exhibit, which closes March 31.
Road Trip! began in September 2012 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Trans-Canada Highway, which passes through Centretown as the Queensway.
“The Trans-Canada Highway allowed people and merchandise to cross our country a lot easier than just a train . . . in a time when plane travelling wasn’t as frequent,” says Louise-Anne Laroche, co-ordinator for public research and evaluation.
“We want to show that our economy is not regional, it’s national.”
The Trans-Canada Highway Act of 1949 connected various pre-existing provincial road ways into a cross-Canada system, which wasn’t completed until 1972. Construction of the highway began during a prosperous economic time through the 1950s. Two-thirds of Canadians owned cars by 1960 and trucking had become an increasingly efficient way of transporting goods. Today, 80 per cent of shipped goods in Canada use roadways.
The vision of the Trans-Canada Highway even inspired the design of the 1954 Landscape Series bank notes which featured images of rural Canada.
The Road Trip! exhibit includes carpeting that looks like roads, as well as information displays shaped like road signs that discuss the history and importance of the highway.
The design was partly chosen to cater to children and families, and to serve as the focus of a series of activities during March Break.
Laroche says that it’s crucial to have something to interest kids in order to make the museum as accessible as possible.
“By providing children with activities, it allows the adults to visit the exhibition quietly,” she says.
But the Road Trip! exhibit has another role. Because it’s located just outside the main entrance, it helps attract passersby into the Currency Museum to see its other exhibits.
Road Trip! is about “something more familiar. It draws on that to bring people into the museum to see more,” Laroche says.
The Bank of Canada established the Currency Museum in 1980 as an extension of the National Currency Collection. It had been collecting currency-related artifacts since the 1950s and decided a museum was the best way to display those objects while disseminating information about the Bank of Canada in an engaging manner.
“There’s something really evocative about genuine objects, genuine artifacts,” said Raewyn Passmore, one of three curators at the museum.
She says part of the museum’s mission is to preserve Canada’s monetary history and help Canadians better understand economics and financial systems.
“Unless something like a change in bank notes occurs, most people don’t really give a whole lot of thought to what money is, how it works, how it’s created, and what’s behind it,” she says.