A fall tradition continues this year on Saturday, October 17 as the Canadian Museum of Nature invites visitors to its national research and collections facility in Gatineau, Quebec.
Meet experts, visit labs, and ignite your curiosity about nature. The event is free and suitable for all ages, but visitors should reserve timed-tickets starting October 6 through the museum’s website at nature.ca/openhouse.
Get close to some of the museum’s scientific collections of more than 15 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils and minerals, as well as a selection of rare books and nature art. Engage with the curators, researchers, technicians, collections staff and volunteers who work with these wonderful treasures to document the diversity of the natural world,
A highlight this year is the display of an extinct rhino fossil from Canada’s High Arctic, a discovery by museum scientists that made headlines in 2025. See dinosaur bones and other fossils, marvel at colourful minerals, then roam through the National Herbarium of Canada, with plants of all kinds pressed and preserved, including lichens, seaweed and mosses.
The popular Large Skeleton Room entices with its wall of antlers, whale bones and animal skeletons, while a selection of Canadian reptile, amphibian and fish specimens will be on view in the Wet Vertebrate Lab. The invertebrate collections feature tiny pinned insects, colourful corals, and other marine life that account for much of Earth’s biodiversity.
Enjoy selections from the museum’s Rare Book and Nature Art collections, then pop into the museum’s National Biodiversity Cryobank of Canada and learn about the story of a bacteria that has genetic material encoding a poem.
Museum partners will also be onsite, including Polar Knowledge Canada, the Government of Nunavut, the Students on Ice Foundation, the Bank of Canada, members of the Mushkegowuk Council, the Ottawa Society of Botanical Artists, and Library and Archives Canada.
The collections and the research undertaken at the museum provide fundamental evidence and knowledge about the biological and geological diversity of Canada and other parts of the world. Each year, hundreds of researchers from across Canada and around the world access the collections to address questions about environmental change over time, biodiversity loss, species at risk, climate impacts, and other nature-based issues.
The website, nature.ca/openhouse, has information about the location (1740 Pink Road in Gatineau), parking for the event, what you can expect upon arrival, and other details. Visiting hours are from 9am until 4pm, with the last timed-ticket slot at 2:30pm The Open House is made possible thanks to the support of Black & McDonald.