Best Vancouver Museums for Nature Lovers

October 20, 2021

5 min read

A child in a red and white striped shirt holding a small container with an insect inside, examining it on a display table.

Surrounded by mountains and ocean, Vancouver is a nature-focused city. This attitude is reflected in the city’s museums too. Crawl inside a replica beaver lodge at a science museum, marvel at a blue whale skeleton at a natural history museum, or enjoy nature-inspired paintings at an art gallery. Soak up some nature in the heart of the city at these Vancouver area museums.

Science World

The interactive exhibits at Science World have lots to offer for nature lovers. The new Backyard Adventures exhibit is designed to help little learners explore nature close to home. You can dig in an augmented reality garden bed, collect pollen from flowers, or listen to birds and frogs. At the Search: Sara Stern Gallery you can crawl into a beaver lodge, visit Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, and touch dinosaur bones.

Two children sitting face-to-face inside a structure made of sticks and rocks, with a rainbow reflection on the left side.

Beatty Biodiversity Museum

The Beatty Biodiversity Museum at UBC has over 500 natural history exhibits to discover including fossils, shells, insects, fungi, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and plants. The stand-out is the giant blue whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling. Don’t miss the short documentary about the skeleton’s long journey from the beaches of PEI to the museum.

Vancouver Art Gallery

The Vancouver Art Gallery contains over 12,000 works of art with a focus on British Columbia and Canadian art. So it should be no surprise that many of those works are inspired by the beauty of BC’s natural landscape. Be sure to visit the Edith Heath and Emily Carr: From the Earth exhibition, until March 2022. Both artists were inspired by the land and landscape of the West Coast.

Abstract painting of a large bird sculpture surrounded by swirling green foliage with hills and a cloudy sky in the background.

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre

The HR MacMillan Space Centre is an astronomy museum in Vanier Park next to the Museum of Vancouver. The planetarium lets you lean back in your seat to immerse yourself in a journey through the universe to experience planets, meteor showers, nebulas, black holes, galaxies, and more. You can also visit the Gordon MacMillan Southam Observatory to peer through a 1/2 metre Cassegrain telescope and observe the night sky.

A large group of people seated in a planetarium watching a colorful cosmic nebula projection on a domed ceiling.

Vancouver Aquarium

If you love the ocean, be sure to visit the Vancouver Aquarium. You can hang out with barking sea lions or get mesmerized by floating jellyfish. Don’t miss the Graham Amazon Gallery to experience the heat, humidity, and wildlife of the Amazon rainforest. You can even get hands-on with sea cucumbers, green anemones, and other residents of the BC Coast at the Touch Pools exhibit.

Bloedel Conservatory

Step inside the dome at the Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park to spend time with over 100 exotic birds surrounded by over 500 exotic plants and flowers. It’s a temperature-controlled environment, so it’s tropical inside year-round.

Lush green tropical plants under a large glass dome ceiling with a geometric metal framework.

Vancouver Maritime Museum

Located in Vanier Park, the Vancouver Maritime Museum has tons of exhibits celebrating the maritime history of British Columbia and the Canadian Arctic. Paddlers will love the Canoe Cultures: Ho’-ku-melh exhibit that showcases indigenous canoeing traditions. Visit the Lighthouses and Shipwrecks exhibit to learn about famous maritime disasters along BC’s coasts. One of the highlights is the shipwreck of the SS Valencia along the West Coast Trail.