George F. MacDonald (July 4, 1938 - January 22, 2020) was a Canadian anthropologist and museum director who pioneered archaeological and ethnohistorical research on the

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terr ...

and

Gitksan Gitxsan (also spelled Gitksan) are an Indigenous peoples in Canada, Indigenous people in Canada whose home territory comprises most of the area known as the Skeena Country in English (: means "people of" and : means "the River of Mist"). Gitksan ...

and was the director of the

Canadian Museum of Civilization The Canadian Museum of History (french: Musée canadien de l’histoire) is a national museum on anthropology, Canadian history, cultural studies, and ethnology in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. The purpose of the museum is to promote the heritage of C ...

from 1983 to 1998. MacDonald was born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. A graduate of the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

(1961: B.A. (Honours) in Anthropology) and of

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(Ph.D. in Anthropology), he is the author of several scholarly publications. He joined what was then called the Canadian Museum of Man in 1960 as Atlantic Provinces Archaeologist. MacDonald oversaw the transition of the museum to its new facility in

Gatineau Gatineau ( ; ) is a city in western Quebec, Canada. It is located on the northern bank of the Ottawa River, immediately across from Ottawa, Ontario. Gatineau is the largest city in the Outaouais administrative region and is part of Canada's N ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, and its reorientation to a more modern, populist form of exhibit. Inspired as much by the ideas of

Marshall Mcluhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...

and

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Epcot Center Epcot, stylized in all uppercase as EPCOT, is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division. Inspired by an unre ...

as by other museums like the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, MacDonald's version of the museum included interactive displays, replicas, and an

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme F ...

theatre.Gillam, Robyn (2001). ''Hall of Mirrors: Museums and the Canadian Public''. Banff, AB: The Banff Centre. .

Notes

Works

* MacDonald, George F. (1983, 2015) ''Haida Monumental Art: Villages of the Queen Charlotte Islands.'' Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. * MacDonald, George F. (1996), ''Haida Art '', University of Washington Press. * MacDonald, George F., and John J. Cove (eds.) (1987) ''Tsimshian Narratives.'' 2 vols. Ottawa: Directorate, Canadian Museum of Civilization.

External links

Biography page at Museum of Civilization website
archived copy
George F. MacDonald profile and books
at BC BookWorld 2020 deaths 1938 births Yale University alumni University of Toronto alumni Canadian curators Canadian archaeologists Canadian civil servants {{Canada-academic-bio-stub