Museums - Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia began collecting ethnographic material in 1927. Twenty years later, this material served as the founding collection of the new Museum of Anthropology, which opened in the basement of UBC’s main library in 1949. MOA’s collections remained in the library until 1976, when they were moved to their current structure designed by renowned Canadian architect Arthur Erickson following Walter and Marianne Koerner’s 1975 gift of their extensive Northwest Coast First Nations art collection. Erickson’s building is inspired by traditional northern Northwest Coast post-and-beam–style architecture.
The museum houses some 35,000 ethnographic and 500,000 archaeological objects, the majority of which originate from the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. Massive totem poles, carved boxes, bowls, and feast dishes are featured in the museum’s Great Hall, while smaller pieces in gold, silver, argillite, wood, ceramic, and other materials are exhibited elsewhere in the galleries.
The museum’s extensive Visible Storage System provides public access to approximately 13,000 objects from around the world for comparison and study, as well as for community-based research by artists, elders, students, and others. In addition to First Nations material, the museum also holds significant collections from East and South Asia, the South Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and Europe. Early major donations to MOA include a large collection gathered by F. Burnett of mostly South Pacific materials, which also contained sixty Northwest Coast objects and some archaeological artifacts. The Buttimer Collection of 130 First Nations baskets was also significant.
Important Northwest Coast collections at MOA were acquired through purchase with funds received from H.R. MacMillan. The majority of the over 2,000 objects purchased with MacMillan funds were acquired directly from First Nations families or through First Nations agents in the communities between 1948 and 1965. MacMillan funds also allowed MOA to purchase about fifteen collections of Northwest Coast artifacts assembled by missionaries and others. These include the Rev. G.H. Raley Collection of over 600 objects (1948); the Revs. Collison Collection of almost 200 objects (1960), and the Edith Bevan Cross Collection of almost 700 objects (1962). Both MacMillan and Koerner financed the acquisition of totem poles and other monumental carvings collected as part of the BC Totem Pole Preservation Project in the 1950s, which brought thirty-seven massive carvings to MOA.