The RCMP Heritage Centre (french: Le Centre du patrimoine de la GRC) is a law enforcement museum located in

Regina, Saskatchewan Regina () is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, after Saskatoon, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 census, Regina had a city populatio ...

, Canada. The museum houses a number of exhibits on the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

(RCMP) and artifacts relating to the police force. The heritage centre's was designed by Nick Milkovich Architects, and is situated in the northeast end of

RCMP Academy, Depot Division RCMP Academy, Depot Division (commonly known as "Depot", not ) is the police training academy for Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) "cadets." Providing training since its establishment in 1885, the facility is located in the west part of Reg ...

. Construction for the RCMP Heritage Centre began in 2005 to replace the RCMP Centennial Museum, also located at Depot Division. The RCMP Heritage Centre was officially opened to the public in May 2007.

History

The first museum on the

, the RCMP Centennial Museum, was opened to the public in 1933. Situated at

in Regina,

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

, the Centennial Museum was later closed to the public in October 2006. The RCMP Heritage Centre was established in order to replace the Centennial Museum, with its collections relocated to the Heritage Centre following its completion. Construction for the RCMP Heritage Centre began in 2005. The facility was officially opened to the public on 23 May 2007.

Architecture

The centre is situated in a south of Dewdney Avenue, adjacent to "F" Division headquarters at RCMP Academy, Depot Division in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Completed in 2007, the building was estimated to have cost C$40 million. Nick Milkovich Architects was the design architect for the project, with

Arthur Erickson Arthur Charles Erickson (June 14, 1924 – May 20, 2009) was a Canadian architect and urban planner. He studied Engineering at the University of British Columbia and, in 1950, received his B.Arch. (Honours) from McGill University. He is known ...

serving as a design consultant for the building; P3 Architects served as the architect of record for the project. Construction of the building was contracted to

PCL Construction The PCL family of companies is a group of independent general contracting construction companies in Canada, the United States, Australia and the Caribbean. PCL has headquarters in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, with the United States head office in D ...

. Building materials used for the construct the heritage centre includes concrete, glass,

Tyndall stone Tyndall Stone is a registered trademark name by Gillis Quarries Ltd. Tyndall Stone is a dolomitic limestone that is quarried from the Selkirk Member of the Ordovician Red River Formation in the vicinity of Garson and Tyndall, Manitoba, Cana ...

, and limestone quarried from Manitoba. The massing of the building was designed to appear like it is sinking and rising into the landscape. The building's roof resembles windblown snow, or encampments used by the

First Nation Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

s and North-West Mounted Police during the 19th century. The building features a "swooping" rooftop, making the height of the building roof range between . The northeast exterior of the building features 21 oval-shaped columns varying from in length. The interior of the building features coloured concrete floors, with metal ceilings. The building also includes a 124-seat lecture hall/theatre.

Exhibitions

The heritage centre's main gallery holds a permanent exhibition that explore the history of the force, or exhibits practices in

forensic Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...

s. Exhibits in the main gallery includes ''Creating a Mounted Police'', ''Maintaining Law and Order in the West'', ''Protecting the North'', ''Serving all of Canada'', ''Preserving the Tradition'', and ''Cracking the Case''. The heritage centre "Feature Exhibition" is situated in a different hall, and exhibits specialty items from its collection for a limited time. A number of the items in the institution's collection originates from the collections of the defunct RCMP Centennial Museum. Beginning in 2016, the museum also began to operate interactive

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

exhibits.

References

External links

* {{Law enforcement agencies in Canada Museums in Regina, Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police Law enforcement museums in Canada Arthur Erickson buildings 2007 establishments in Saskatchewan

History

Architecture

Exhibitions

See also

References

External links