[5] The museum's collections comprise approximately 7 million objects, including natural history specimens, artifacts, and archival records.

[6] The natural history collections have 750,000 records of specimens almost exclusively from BC and neighbouring states, provinces, or territories.

The collections are divided into eight disciplines: Entomology, Botany, Palaeontology, Ichthyology, Invertebrate Zoology, Herpetology, Mammalogy, and Ornithology.

The Royal BC Museum partners with and houses the IMAX Victoria theater, which shows educational films as well as commercial entertainment.

Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie, Charles Semlin, William Fraser Tolmie, and former Premier George A. Walkem were amongst those who wanted to stop European and American museums from appropriating BC artifacts.

[11] Notably, the petitioners argued that the export of First Nations artifacts was particularly troubling, under the premise that “their loss [was] frequently irreparable.”[12] On October 25, 1886, the 15-by-20-foot Provincial Museum of Natural History and Anthropology opened in the Birdcages (the former BC Legislative buildings).

[13] The first curator was naturalist John Fannin, who donated his own large collection of preserved birds and animals to the museum.

[18] The museum is situated in the cultural precinct, an area comprising various significant historical buildings near the Inner Harbour.

[20] The gallery has been criticized by indigenous scholars for its portrayal of First Nations people, and its use of controversial images and film from Edward Curtis.

ft.) begins with "Century Hall," a collection of artifacts and replicas of BC's history over the last 200 years.

Old Town was designed and constructed between 1969 and 1972, and presents twenty separate building displays of various scales,[24] including a replica of a cobblestone streetscape of early twentieth-century Victoria (with a silent movie theatre, a hotel, a train station, old automobiles, and Chinatown).

Also within the Becoming BC galleries is an exploration narrative containing models of the original Fort Victoria, a Port Moody train station, the 1902 Tremblay Homestead (from Peace River District), and a large-scale replica of Captain George Vancouver's ship HMS Discovery.

contains information, artifacts, and life-sized displays of the diverse geography of the province from prehistoric time to present day (including the Fraser River delta and the popular woolly mammoth).

Visitors may also view the Ocean Station in this gallery, a mock Victorian-era submarine that houses a 360-litre aquarium.

The Museum Act authorizes the Royal BC Museum to enable the preservation and management of the collection by securing, receiving, providing access to, and maintaining artifacts that adroitly illustrate the natural or human history of British Columbia.

There are 165 000 artifacts in the collection ranging from silverware to textiles to furniture to items related to canneries, mines, and breweries.

Notably, the collection includes a lion's head from the 1970s Vancouver Chinese Freemasons Athletic Club that exemplifies the traditional Hoshan style, as well as the Man Yuk Tong collection that preserves the authentic herbs, prescriptions, and miscellaneous implements used in the original Chinese Herbalist Shop.

The Natural History collections are divided into eight disciplines: Entomology, Botany, Mammalogy, Ornithology, Ichthyology, Invertebrate Zoology, Palaeontology, and Herpetology.

This collection provides basic information for assessing the status of BC insects and other terrestrial arthropods.

The ornithology collection contains 19 335 study skins, 3027 skeletons, 2713 clutches of eggs, 375 nests and 43 fluid-preserved specimens.

Since the discovery of the remains of Kwäday Dän Ts’inchi in 1999, conservators have been involved with the Champagne and Aishihik people in recovery, analysis, treatment and publication projects.

There are also annual events, including Remembrance Day commemorations, the Heritage Fair, and a Carol Along with the Carillon and other Christmas activities at Helmcken House.

[42] Living Landscapes was an award-winning, successful "regional outreach program involving intensive cooperation with other museums, First Nations, educators, naturalists, and other agencies."

"[43] In 2000 the focus of Living Landscapes was on the Upper Fraser Basin, a "vast area extending across most of south-central British Columbia including the Fraser River valley upstream from Big Bar Creek, as well as it is tributary drainages such as the Chilcotin, Quesnel, and Nechako Rivers.

Visitors met and interacted with local Living Landscapes researchers and Victoria-based RBCM curators.

The events featured exhibits from the RBCM's permanent collections as well as "illustrated talks and demonstrations on a variety of topics by local and museum experts.

"[42] Initially, Living Landscapes focused on "in-field programming has been the northern, central and southern interior of British Columbia."

The department is responsible for maintaining the permanent galleries and constructing the exhibitions, as well as setting them up and taking them down.

The Exhibition Arts department is made up of specialists with a variety of skill sets, including carpenters, blacksmiths, metal workers, welders, and people who specialize in casting, finishing, jewellery, multimedia, lighting, large format printing, and software and hardware computation.

The museum has produced thousands of books, papers, pamphlets and other documents about its collections, research and activities since that time.