As a history student, I was anxiously looking forward to visiting the Storyeum since I first read about the new museum cum entertainment complex cum dinner theatre in a January Vancouver Sun article. Complete with a fancy three-dimensional cross-section of the Storyeum's facilities, the Sun referred to it as a “heritage theme park” and provided some interesting details as to the project's origins and development.

The article, like the press package I received at the information desk when I arrived to review the spectacle, noted that Storyeum's 105,000 square feet of space made it larger than six hockey rinks, and that it had cost somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-million dollars to organize and build. It is as a result, is the most expensive tourist attraction ever built in Vancouver.

The Storyeum is the work of millionaire Petcetera founder Danny Guillaume. Mr. Guillaume -- a fan of pets, the past and profits -- along with his historico-entertainment entity Historical Xperiences [sic.] unearthed and opened the famous (in Saskatchewan, at least) Moose Jaw Tunnels. As a native of Regina, I was familiar with the tunnels -- where, legend has it, Al Capone used to hang out when things were getting a little hot in Chicago or Tijuana -- and while I had never visited them, knew that along with a big, fancy spa and a big, fancy casino, they had played a large part in the reinvention of Moose Jaw's economy and identity after the closure of the Air Force base[1].

Not surprisingly, then, Storyeum is being marketed as a tool to “revitalize” the Gastown neighborhood and its economy. It's no wonder, then, that City Hall is alleged to have given Historical Xperiences a nice deal on the land. The Storyeum is 'nestled' underneath the remains of the old, hulking Gastown parking garage, which has also been renovated.

The people in charge of Storyeum hope that it will become one of the city's most popular attractions and, by virtue of its location in close proximity to the harbour, will be a strong draw for the legions of cruise ship passengers en route to Alaska who pass through the area in the summer.

It was, therefore, with great excitement that I packed up my critical toolbox-backpack and grabbed several of my closest nerdy historical pals and headed off to enjoy about twenty million dollars worth of top-notch historical entertainment. Of course, I was hoping for a real workout of my finely honed critical mind. Me and my nerdy crew were going to problematize everything there was to problematize about the Storyeum. We were more than confident in our ability to leave no problematic stone unturned.

We smugly boarded the time-machine disguised as an elevator that takes visitors back in time, and down a few floors, to the world of prehistoric coastal B.C. (even though it wasn't yet known by that name). Fish and blue lighting that suggests water play a big part in this part of the story, complete with the first of several slightly abstract, highly sentimental and more than a little spooky voice-overs. This one had something to do with volcanoes and lava forming the coastal mountains.

After an agonizingly slow trip down and back in time, we emerged into a tunnel done up to look like a stylized river and proceeded into a forest clearing for the first “act” of the story. The story of humankind in B.C., it seems, begins with some dude stranded in a forest looking for that just-right cedar that he will fell and carve to make his very own canoe. My first impression was “oh, here we go” -- native history is mythologized and abstract and Native people are pure, simple and live at one with their surroundings.

That, certainly, seemed to be the message. However, as I was to find out, one of the most -- perhaps the only -- interesting things about the Storyeum is that all of what it presents as history is more myth than fact. After the first scene closes, we move into a long house for a naming ceremony, the message of which is less than clear. The child in the scene is given a name by her grandmother and as the scene closes, the creepy voice over cuts in and makes some lame pronouncement about the arrival of European colonizers and how while the people who call this place home may lose their way of lives and their culture, their memories will live on in their names. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, but it sure sounds touchy-feely.

That seems to be the overall theme of the Storyeum; it manages to deal with a lot of really dark themes from the province's history -- you know, genocide, racism, poverty, the exploitation of workers -- in a way that isn't totally dismissive, but on the other hand, is for the most part triumphalist, and is supposed to represent a celebration of how far we've come. It is difficult, therefore, to criticize the content of the show because all the themes and people that have been silenced or left out of traditional white-washed narratives are both present and central to the grand story that the Storyeum gives its audience.

The biggest problem with the show, then, becomes the fact that it simply fails to entertain the viewer or provide them with any solid ideas about the history of the province. It's a theatrical presentation of 200 years of British Columbia's history that alludes to a variety of different periods and events in highly abstract ways with little context or substance.

The cost of admission, furthermore, is an outrageous twenty-two dollars. A staff member told one of my companions that the pricing scheme was, in fact, fair because going to the Storyeum was like going to a film (about twelve dollars) and visiting a museum (ten dollars?) all rolled into one (grand total about twenty-two dollars). Unfortunately, I'd take watching a bad historical movie or going to a real museum any day of the week. The Storyeum is more like a budget Disneyland attraction (in terms of the quality, not the cost of entry) than it is like a museum and more like one of those traveling drama troupes they make you watch in high school than a bad (but often satisfying) Steven Spielberg historical epic.

[1]The base is still used as some kind of NATO training facility and operates as a public-private partnership.

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