And the winner for the longest museum name goes to...

The Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal.

The museum is in the McGill Ghetto and as I walk up Parc I see suitcases outside of one the residences. Summer is here and students are leaving. The ones who are left, along with other people not at work on a Friday afternoon, are lounging around in the sun on Mount Royal. I, on the other hand, am heading indoors to a museum about religious hospital workers. My fifteen minute walk to the museum has giving me all the sun my pale face can handle for the day, so I'm happy to be inside despite the less than thrilling subject matter. The woman at the front desk is even happier. Something tells me that she doesn't get too many visitors.

I am the only person in the museum and the docent gives me a introduction to the building and the exhibits. The atrium was built to accomodate a restored wooden staircase that was in a Hôtel-Dieu in France, where Jeanne Mance would have been before she founded the Hôtel-Dieu de Montreal. The museum tells of the origins of Montreal and the Hotel-Dieu with a look at medical practices of the time and the mission of the Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph religious order, whose nuns cared for the sick. What was once a 210-bed facility is now a hospital with 570 beds affiliated with the University of Montreal.

Montreal's history is inextricably linked to that of the Hôtel-Dieu, a reality that came about after a Frenchman named Le Royer had mystical visions to create a Hôtel-Dieu in Montreal and establish a colony to evangelize the Native peoples. Le Royer never left France and yet he is largely responsible for shaping New France. The museum commemorates the hospitallers and the Hôtel-Dieu's history. As such it doesn't question their mission in New France or the impact they had on the Native population. One text panel reads: "The Iroquois harassed Ville-Marie once again in 1661, killing 12 and capturing 20." Ugh.

The museum is a history museum heavy with text panels. As always there were some questionable English translations: "absolutism became definitive," "10:30 am the nuns gather for particular examen," but I am getting used to these and try to find them amusing rather than annoying. The information is supported by documents, portraits, maps, and religious artifacts.
A patient registry from 1759 indicates that everyone was named Jean, Francois, or Jean-Francois, so nothing much has changed. I particularly liked the recreation of a nun's cell and I'm sure if will be a great conversation starter for school kids.

Perhaps kids will also like the mannequins dressed as nuns. Life sized mannequins freak me out. What freaks me out even more is a glass casket containing a life-sized man, with bloody arms and half-dead eyes. The labels weren't numbered but I believe it was the reliquary of Saint Felix, made in Italy in 1865. Seriously creepy. But it was unexpected and actually kind of woke me up after leaving a very text-heavy gallery.

I did not expect that the Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal would be a thrilling museum. I did learn things, albeit some of the information is questionable. More importantly I'm starting to build a picture of Montreal's history that is more complex than what I learned in school. Visiting so many museums in this city adds to my conceptual scaffolding about Montreal and how it was shaped. Granted I think that many aspects of our history are left out, but I see that my museum mission is starting to have its desired outcome. So what did I learn this afternoon? I learned that hospitaller is a word. I learned that people on the boat rides over from France in the 17th century were subjected to under-nourishment (their word) and promiscuity, which any crossing to America implied.... I learned that a nun named Marie Morin, the first hospitaller born in Canada, was also Canada's first writer (she documented the nuns' lived experiences) and I am presently learning that the internet has no record of this woman. I learned that nuns in the Hôtel-Dieu lived life in the cloisters from 1671 to 1925 when Rome banned the practice, althought the visible signs of the cloisture were not removed until the 1950s. I learned that until the mid-18th century medical practice was basically powerless in curing illness. I also learned that nursing was the prerogative of religious communities until the development of medical techniques. However it was only in 1970, with the introduction of the Health Insurance Act and the implementation of universal health care that religious communities ceased to have administrative control over the care of the sick.

I appreciate this particular museum as part of my larger experience of Montreal museums and what they say about the city. I think that there is a lot of information in the permanent exhibit and the exhibition space is well laid out which quality displays. The temporary exhibit, which was only in French, repeated much of what was described in the permanent exhibit. The museum was interesting. Not my favourite, but I could definitely have spent more time reading.

12 down, 20 to go.