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No conspiracy against Bawlf’s globe project

CEO says B.C. history first priority for Royal B.C. Museum resources

Re: Museum cannot get stuck in the past (Letters, Aug. 29)

I was delighted that our museum provided your class with that special opportunity to hear Maquinna’s story from his family’s perspective. There are always new things to discover and what may someday be accepted as verifiable history can take a long time to reach consensus within the academic community.

One of our upcoming feature exhibitions, on the earliest printed maps, is an example of the sometimes concurrent, sometimes divergent views on our world over time, generally moving from a theological to a geographical perspective but with much disagreement and overlap along the way.

Since our focus at the Royal B.C. Museum must be on the B.C. collection, we simply don’t have the resources to either further the research or digitize the Molyneux Globe at this time.

Mr. Bawlf and I have spoken and we are still open to discussion about displaying the globe on our website once digitized. In the meantime, information on the explorations of Sir Francis Drake and images of the Molyneux Globe are available both in Sam Bawlf’s books and other online sources.

Jack Lohman

Chief Executive Officer

Royal B.C. Museum