You know the drill: The Milwaukee Public Museum as we know it will close forever on January 3, 2027. Then, in the spring of 2027, the new Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin will open its doors at 1310 N. 6th St. and take MPM’s place. The current MPM is in the process of “deinstalling” some exhibits as we speak, though the museum has noted that “the vast majority of object deinstallations will take place after MPM’s last day of operation on January 3, 2027.”
One item that’s already been deinstalled: a 20-foot-long canoe that has been on display at MPM for 30 years. (It’s actually a replica of a canoe, a canoe “carved by the Haida (hi-duh), an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast.”) And now, the canoe has the distinction of being the first MPM exhibit item to be installed in the Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin. Check out this video, courtesy of MPM:
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On March 27, a 20-foot-long canoe that had been on display at MPM for 30 years became the first exhibit component to enter the new museum building. The boat will eventually be on display in the global landscapes gallery called Living in a Dynamic World.
Moving the boat inside was no small feat. Because of its size, the boat needed to be moved into the building before the structure was fully enclosed. Since it is too large for the elevators and too heavy to be safely carried up the stairs, crews used a crane to lift it—secured in a crate approximately 27 feet long and weighing about 2,300 pounds—through a fourth-floor window before the glass was installed.
A bit of background on the object: The boat is a replica of a typical canoe carved by the Haida (hi-duh), an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. They would have used the canoe for fishing and transportation, and the creation of these boats is still a tradition in some Haida communities today. The boat was created in 1996 by exhibit artist Craig Yanek, who constructed the object based on a model in the Museum’s collection using Navy-surplus balsa wood after World War II.
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