This morning, a friend drew my attention to a CTV story about an open house at Library and Archives Canada: Public welcomed to get a glimpse of Canadian historical artifacts at Library and Archives open house.

Given my burgeoning interest in family history and my recent finds among LAC's online resources, I jumped at the chance to visit LAC's Preservation Campus, located at 625 Du Carrefour Boulevard in Gatineau. The Preservation Centre includes LAC's Preservation Centre, which opened in 1997, and its Preservation Storage Facility, which opened in 2022. As per LAC's website, both would be accessible to the public Friday, May 24 (today) and Saturday, May 25 (tomorrow) from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

What struck me most, aside from the beauty of the two buildings, was the enthusiasm of the LAC employees. To a person, they seemed to be thrilled to welcome the public to the site. I arrived just after 10:00 AM, and the facility was already busy.

The first LAC employee I encountered (after meeting staff on the way into the Preservation Centre) spoke about the construction of the new library and archives facility being built on Lebreton Flats. Called Ādisōke, which means storytelling in the Anishinābemowin Algonquin language, this joint venture of LAC and the Ottawa Public Library will be located at 555 Albert Street in Ottawa. When the new facility is ready in the summer of 2026, LAC will move its products and services from its current Ottawa location at 395 Wellington Street to Ādisōke. Similarly, the Ottawa Public Library will move its products and services from its Main Branch at 120 Metcalfe Street to the new Central Branch at Ādisōke.

I learned about the construction of the Preservation Centre, the huge white cube that is being opened to the public for the first time. It is the world’s largest automated archive facility.

I visited various vaults in the Preservation Centre, each one temperature and humidity controlled according to the materials it houses. One vault contained a number of beautiful globes, including one presented to Brian Mulroney in 1985 by President Mitterrand of France. Another contained a selection of LAC's more than 500,000 works of art and objects dating back to the seventeenth century. I was taken by one painting called Shooting the Rapids by Frances Anne Hopkins. She was a British painter who accompanied her husband, Hudson's Bay Company official Edward Hopkins, on his voyages to North America. She sketched during her travels and later turned many of those sketches into paintings that portrayed the lives of the voyageurs.

At kiosks and workspaces throughout the Preservation Centre, I chatted with LAC employees, who spoke about various aspects of the institution's work:

I could have stayed much longer than I did.

One of the highlights of my few hours at the Preservation Centre was talking with a lovely mother and daughter who had traveled from Vancouver to the National Capital Region expressly to attend LAC's open house. The daughter is doing a Master's degree in archival studies (or a related field) and smiled the entire time that we were on the tour. It made me happy to see how delighted she was and how supportive her mom was. Like me, they noticed the enthusiasm of the LAC employees. It was a pleasure for me to listen to the daughter as she asked questions and soaked in the whole experience. I love seeing young people find their passions.

Having recently written about LAC's resources and listened to a few episodes of LAC's podcast Discover for a blog post on my great-grandfather, I was already somewhat familiar with the institution's offerings. Nevertheless, I learned more today, including from additional research I did after my visit.

I recommend visiting the open house at LAC's Preservation Campus tomorrow. I found the experience stimulating and look forward to making more use of LAC's services in the future.

In the meantime, I would commend to you Episode 67 – LAC is a gold mine! about the Klondike gold rush. And if you're interested in that subject, I suggest you listen to ReCollections - Dawson City - A ruby in the rough, an episode from Parks Canada's history and archaeology podcast ReCollections, which is accessible through LAC's podcast. And if you love old photos, consult LAC's photo albums on Flickr, which contain more than 11,000 photos.