 |
|
Manitoba Children’s Museum locomotive by Michael Peck |
Manitoba Children’s Museum, Winnipeg, Man.—There’s no greater measure of this Winnipeg active-education nirvana’s success than the fact that it’s well-nigh impossible to take a snapshot without a child in or running through it. We’re talking Pat-Morita-catching-a-fly-with-chopsticks hard. See, I can’t use a photo of anyone without getting their consent, and children aren’t able to legally give it, so the staff here is understandably concerned when some yutz like me pulls out a Canon and starts snapping away. Thus, the idea is to capture unused spaces—and good luck with that.
The little tykes are everywhere, just devouring the joint, loving it. Even when I visit shortly before closing time and there are only a handful, they’re so fired up by the cool surroundings—the fake oak tree they can climb into and slide out of, the real locomotive and passenger car (the museum’s housed in a former train-repair facility), the working TV studio, the build-your-own city … I could go on and on—that they’re left trying to do everything at once, flying from place to place as fast as their wee Crocs can take them.
And the fun overload apparently renders them impervious to physical injury. As museum Director of Marketing and Communications Lisa Dziedzic (who’s nice enough to show me around even though I walk in unannounced) and I reach the top of a stairway, one little guy rounds a corner and gives himself a physics lesson, getting ahead of his own feet and hitting the deck with a meaty slap. “You OK?” she asks. He jumps up without looking at her, repeats the routine and kisses wood once more. Then he’s off, most likely to play with the giant vat of wet sand, rocks, toy trucks and construction equipment Dziedzic says is one of the more popular attractions.
Trying to get any work done in a space designed for, and ruled by, kids requires patience and understanding, which the staff has in spades. Nothing shakes them, and they maintain a state of happy but controlled mayhem that allows for learning sneakily cloaked in fun. “I hope that’s not real bread,” Dziedzic says as we pass what appears to be an errant baguette slice left on the floor. It isn’t, but it’s a pretty convincing fake, and I have no idea what it came from.
I finally manage to get a shot of the locomotive sans little people. All finished, I pick up my notepad, which has only been on the floor long enough to violate the five-second dropped-food rule by a hair. I didn’t get away as clean as I thought: there’s a sneaker print smack in the middle of it. — Michael Peck
