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The Museum is located in the heart of downtown Ottawa, at the Rideau Canal locks between Parliament Hill and the Chateau Laurier – one of the most picturesque sites in the city. It takes 20-30 minutes to tour the small building, which houses artifacts from the 1830s construction of the canal. The Bytown Museum is housed in Ottawa’s oldest stone building, the Commissariat of Lt. Colonel John By, Royal Engineers. Built in 1827, the building was the treasury and a storehouse during the building of the Rideau Canal. The Museum is operated by the Historical Society of Ottawa. The Bytown Museum tells the story of Col. By, the construction of the Rideau Canal as well as the early years of the city of Ottawa.

There are over 1,500 exhibits at the museum. Explore a kitchen from 1850’s Bytown, and appreciate how people lived without electricity, electronic appliances or running water. Other exhibits include a replica of a store’s “Toy Department” and the Victorian Parlour, which was a fixture in every middle class home from the mid nineteenth century, right up until the First World War. One of the weirdest exhibits the museum has is the cast of D’Arcy McGee’s death hand.

The mandate of the Bytown Museum is to collect, preserve, research, exhibit and educate the public in regards to the growth and development of Bytown, the City of Ottawa, Canada, and its environs from the founding of Bytown to 1918. The museum’s collection of over 7,000 artifacts includes some singularly important pieces. The stone work throughout this area is original, from the crypt construction of the larger 1872 Church. It was re-pointed and cleaned. Prior to its restoration for the Columbarium it had been covered with a lathe plaster, and a wainscot. The late Victorian Writing Desk located in the niche is a gift to the Columbarium from friends of the late Roberta Tilton, founder of the Women’s Auxiliary. It was the desk where all her correspondence was written prior to 1885 when she started the organization.