Nova Scotia Museum Provincial Collection
Our collections, over a million objects and growing, reflect the incredible diversity of Nova Scotia’s human and natural histories. Curators, researchers, interpreters and collections care professionals work with collections objects and cultural belongings representing archaeology, botany, geology, cultural history, Mi’kmaq Cultural History, and zoology. Take some time to explore and learn about our collections, research, exhibits, publications, and behind the scenes work at the Nova Scotia Museum.
Explore Our Collections
This site allows users to explore of some of the highlights in the Nova Scotia Museum collection. We will be adding content regularly. Please come back to see what’s new as we build our online collection.
Archaeology Collection
The Archaeology Collection of the Nova Scotia Museum is significant in size and continues to grow each year as professional archaeologists, archaeology students, researchers and the general public add to the collection through research projects, cultural resource management projects and donations. Beyond the volume is the breath and range of artifacts that provide clues and insights to the daily lives of people living across the varied and plentiful Nova Scotia landscape. From pre-contact periods as far back as 10,000 - 13,000 years to recent historic times, cultural evidence of the daily lives of every historic cultural group in Nova Scotia can be found in the archaeology collection.
Artifacts representing the Mi’kmaw, Acadians, African-Nova Scotians, the English, the Scottish, the Irish, and the Anglo-American are all represented in the collection and continue to tell rich stories of the Nova Scotia and Maritime past. It is exciting to work with the collection and share it with all Nova Scotians and visitors to the province. The artifacts presented in the Nova Scotia Museum’s Collections & Research Virtual Exhibit are just a sampling of items under the stewardship of the Nova Scotia Museum. The archaeology curators look forward to sharing more.
Botany Collection
The botany collection for the Nova Scotia Museum is housed in an herbarium. This is a collection of preserved plant specimens, either whole or parts. We house approximately 50,000 individual specimens of vascular plants, mosses, mushrooms, seaweeds and lichens. Some of our collections are seeds, cones, wood, bark or commercial products of plant parts. The earliest collection is of a skeletonized poplar leaf, collected in 1847 in Hants Co. Each collection provides an object collected from a certain place in a certain time by an individual. There are standards to providing specimens for the collection so that researchers may use the objects to identify other individuals, a lesson we took from Linnaeus as indicated in his quote!
We have about 12,000 images of a botanical nature including habitat pictures, images of models and living plant portraits.
Mi'kmaw Cultural Heritage
The Mi'kmaw Cultural Heritage collection consists of numerous items that are both functional and decorative. Over hundreds of years the Mi’kmaq have mastered an array of complex yet creative techniques they incorporated into cultural objects.
The community belongings that make up the provincial Mi'kmaw Cultural Heritage collection are seen as ‘living objects’ in the sense that human hands from the past crafted them and imbued a spirit within them.
These objects are derived from the use of an enormous range of natural materials. The ingenious use of those raw materials combined with the impressive quality of their workmanship makes them all the more fascinating and an important component of the cultural heritage of Nova Scotia.
By the early twentieth century many traditional artistic skills were forgotten, however, in recent decades we have witnessed a resurgence of these practices. Contemporary Mi’kmaw artisans blend aspects of ‘old and new’ into their works through incorporating traditional designs, materials, and techniques. We are seeing the revival of many traditional Mi’kmaw artistic skills, as well as the creation of modern Mi’kmaw art forms that are still distinctively Mi’kmaw.
Geology Collection
The Geology Collections of the Nova Scotia Museum tell the labyrinthine story of the geological history of the province through representative rocks, minerals, gemstones, and fossils (vertebrate, invertebrate, palaeobotanical and traces). The Geology Collections also include comparative rocks, minerals, gemstones, meteorites and fossils from across Canada and around the world. Nova Scotia has a complex geological history that extends back over a billion years through geological time, recording the coming together of three ancient continents to form the modern landscape of today with which we are so familiar.
Highlights of the collections include Canada’s oldest dinosaurs, the world’s smallest dinosaur footprints, the world’s oldest reptile, the world’s oldest land snail, fossil trackways that are the world’s earliest evidence of herding behaviour in vertebrates, fossils of some the world’s first vertebrates to walk on land, fossils trees of ancient forests, fossils of some of our earliest ancestors – protomammals – that are not preserved anywhere else in the world, fossils from an Ice Age landscape including and adult and baby male mastodon and a soft-bodied Painted Turtle hatchling, exquisite specimens of gold, spectacular specimens of agate and zeolites.
History Collection
The history collection contains treasures spanning from the late 1700s up to and well into the 1900s. It encompasses a wide range of objects including textiles, ceramics, photographs, furniture (locally made), furnishings (architectural details, stoves, fireplace surrounds, NS silver, glass, toys, lighting) and even illustrated books.
Much of the history collection is represented at NSM sites all across the province, such as at the historic house museums, living history museums and villages and historic mills. The remarkable variety of objects range from outstanding original artifacts such as furnishings and paintings at the 200 year old Uniacke Estate Museum Park, the collection of plows (one of the best in North America) and agricultural equipment at Ross Farm Museum to historic firefighting equipment at the Fire Fighter’s Museum in Yarmouth. This is just a small sampling of what the history collection encompasses.
Marine History Collection
The marine collection of the Nova Scotia Museum at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is the oldest and largest single collection of marine artifacts in Canada. The collection started in 1948 when a group of naval officers formed the Maritime Museum of Canada in Halifax. It became part of the Nova Scotia Museum in 1967 which added an even older group of marine artifacts collected by the Mechanics Institute back in the 1830s. Artifacts in the collection encompass both the technology of the sea and the social history of mariners, as well as historical representation of the sea to communities ashore. This range is embodied by objects large and small, from tiny ship models to the 200 foot steam ship CSS Acadia and from humble sailor’s knives to ship portraits and fine silverware.
The vast majority of artifacts have been donated through the generosity of Nova Scotians. These donors have shaped the collection for years by selecting the maritime museum as the place to preserve their family’s connection to the sea. In recent times the museum has worked to more actively shape the collection by filling gaps and identifying new areas for collection. The focus of the collection is Nova Scotia, that is objects connected to the sea that were made or used by Nova Scotians, but many aspects of the collection are nationally and internationally significant due to the global nature of shipping and Nova Scotia’s lead role in Canadian seafaring.
Zoology Collection
The Zoological collection contains approximately half million catalogued specimens spanning 173 years and all continents except for Antarctica. The majority of the collections represent Natural History Collections from Nova Scotia, with synoptic collections in several areas, reflecting the interests of Curatorial staff over the years. Those collections have a strong bias towards Lepidoptera (Moths and Butterflies) and Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles.
Collection Policies
The Nova Scotia Museum operates 16 museums around the province interpreting the rich natural and human heritage of Nova Scotia and manages the provincial collection of over one million artifacts and specimens. This includes the development, care, preservation, documentation and management of the collection that covers archaeology, history, marine history, industrial history, ethnography, botany, geology, paleontology and zoology.
Image Requests
We invite you to complete the following form to submit your image request. Whether you're seeking high-resolution captures of museum artifacts, detailed exhibition views, or specific perspectives on our collections, please provide as much detail as possible regarding your desired visual. Including information about intended use, specific elements of interest, and any relevant contextual details will enable us to best fulfill your requirements. Your thoughtful input is greatly appreciated as we work to bring the richness and detail of our museum holdings to your projects.