Burnaby Village Museum - Permanent Exhibits

Permanent Exhibits

• Tom Irvine’s House – 1911 Bachelor’s house.
• Church – replica 1920s church, often used today for weddings.
• War Memorial Fountain – 1923 fountain erected by the Burnaby Civic Employees Union in front of Burnaby’s Municipal Hall.
• Vorce Tram Station – This original 1911 station from the Burnaby Lake interurban line was restored to its original appearance in 2008.
• Interurban 1223 Tram Barn – A restored 1912 B.C. Electric Railway interurban tram, complete with information about the history of the BCER and its role in the development of Burnaby.
• C.W. Parker Carousel – A restored 1912 vintage carousel. Each horse is a work-of-art that was hand-carved and painted. Visitors can ride on the carousel for a small fee.
• Elworth – The 1922 home of Burnaby’s Bateman family. This beautiful home was once part of the exclusive Deer Lake neighbourhood, and remains in its original location today.
• Elworth Garage – The original garage of the Elworth home.
• Drugstore – An example of a typical 1920s drugstore in Burnaby.
• McKay Barbership – A 1920s barbershop, modelled after Burnaby’s McKay barbershop that operated on Kingsway.
• The Stride Studios – A temporary exhibit gallery that features a different special exhibit each year. In 2011, the gallery hosts “Prints from CPR Magic Lantern Slides, 1885-1930,” curated by Michael Lawlor and Bill Jeffries and circulated by the Simon Fraser University Gallery.
• Burnaby Lake General Store – A 1920s General Store, based on an actual store from Burnaby.
• Royal Oak Garage – Based on a 1925 garage on Kingsway in Burnaby.
• Optometrist* Central Park Theatre – Silent movies from the 1920s are played in the theatre.
• Old Curly Locomotive – The oldest surviving steam locomotive in British Columbia, used in the 1880s to build part of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
• Wagner’s Blacksmith Shop – A working blacksmith shop, based on a 1925 Burnaby business.
• Steam Equipment – Examples of how steam was once used to power sawmills and industrial equipment.
• Steam Donkey – Steam donkeys were used to move logs in the forest by winching steel ropes.
• Log Cabin – A reproduction log house. Burnaby’s first settler, William Holmes, built a log cabin in 1860.
• Japanese Ofuro – A replica Ofuro (bathhouse), built in 1977 to commemorate the arrival in B.C. of the first Japanese immigrant in 1877.
• Dow, Fraser & Co. Real Estate Office – A 1927 building originally a grocery store annex.
• Royal Bank - Constructed in Britannia Beach in 1950, this Royal Bank building is set up to look like Burnaby’s Royal Bank, which opened in 1921.
• Treble Clef Phonographs – A 1920s music shop with an operating player piano.
• The Burnaby Post – The working print shop representing the offices of Burnaby’s weekly paper, the Burnaby Post.
• Way Sang Yuen Wat Kee – The contents from this replica Chinese herbalist’s shop came from a store which operated in Victoria from about 1900 to 1971.
• The Home Bakery – The original “Home Bakery” was located on Kingsway, just east of Boundary Road.
• Bandstand – The Museum’s bandstand is based on the Central Park bandstand, built in 1895 and used until the 1920s.
• Vancouver Heights Sheet Metal Works – This little building was once a shed used for horseshoeing on Burnaby’s Lubbock Farm. Today, it houses tinsmithing tools used to make a variety of items out of sheet metal.
• Bell’s Dry Goods - This original store building, built circa 1922, housed the dry-goods business of Flora and William Bell until 1937.
• Seaforth School – A school building opened in Burnaby in 1922 with 20 students. It was located on the north side of Burnaby Lake at Government Street and Piper Avenue.
• Jesse Love Farmhouse – The 1893 farmhouse of Jesse and Martha Love.

Information from the Burnaby Village Museum Visitors Map