The Niagara Falls Museum, Canada's oldest museum, opened in 1827. The museum over recent years has changed its focus. We are presently looking to acquire either by purchase or exhange, old ethnographic material form the South Pacific, Hawaii, Africa, Indonesia and the Americas. Our main focus is on collecting North American Indian artifacts, Eskimo, Woodlands, Great Lakes, Sub Arctic, Plains, and Northwest Coast Indian art, especially related to Canada.

As we are the oldest museum in Canada we are able to offer old natural history specimens, materials, fossils, plant and animal specimens. Many of these specimens have been associated with early collectors such as Louis Agassiz and Edward Cope.

We are also interested in material that is in need of restoration and conservation. The Niagara Falls museum has funds available to purchase old ethnographic material. Should you have any material that you are willing to de-accession, we would be very much appreciate you contacting us.

Niagara Falls Museum
19th Century Cabinet of Curiosities

An exhibit has been created in two lower galleries of the museum which reproduces how the Niagara Falls Museum was exhibited in the 19th century. Catching the romance of the time with material such as fossils and shells supplied by the famous Louis Agassiz of Harvard University, Wild Bill Hickock's saddle, Sitting Bull's moccasins gifted to the museum by US President Van Buren and curiosities and oddities from around the world.

The layout for the museum is based on a traditional
museum layout, as seen in this image.
Click to Enlarge

The two lower galleries of the collection. (Click image to enlarge)

The upper main gallery area is dedicated to the ethnographic collection. This includes a number of objects from the South Pacific exhibit from the Pan American Worlds Fair Exposition in Buffalo in 1901 and North American native material from the famous Wood's Museum of Chicago . The entire contents of the Wood's Museum were purchased by the Niagara Falls Museum after the great Chicago fire of 1871 which damaged the museum.

The museum is a wealth of information and is also visited by elementary school students, high school students, university students and academics. We offer walking guided tours by appointment and with the 19th century cabinet of curiosity exhibit and the ethnographic collection there is much to see.

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