Exhibit: Hudson's Bay Company Montreal Gallery
Venue: The Bay / La Baie on St Catherines St
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Date: September, 2004
Client: Lord Cultural Resources
Contributors: Mystus - interactives, production design, fabrication, installation; Lord - project management, design, artifact management, copy writing; Hbc - archive acquisition

Visitor Experience:
The exhibition comprised three distinct storyline areas plus an entrance introduction area. The visitor enters the gallery with the view of an impressive 12' by 8' interactive map showing the development of the Hudson's Bay Co over 350 years of history. Beside the map are an interactive video station and computer kiosk where the visitor can listen to oral histories and ask questions back to Hbc archive staff. A turn of the century depiction of Morgan's, absorbed by Hbc in the 60's, is the first area approached by the visitor after leaving the map area. The gallery is housed in the extension to the original Morgan's store, now Hbc St Catherines St. In the store are several themed elements and life cast mannequins and some low-tech interactives. The next area deals with the life of the Voyageurs, who were the transportation arm of Hbc in the early days. The highlight of this area is a half replica of an original 36 ft. cargo canoe which twelve voyageurs would have paddled inland, set in a themed portage stop. The visitor can weigh themselves in comparison to the weight of the bales that Voyageurs carried, and also pack a miniature canoe with the 75 items carried by the voyageurs en route. The third area is a temporary gallery depicting the history of early Hbc trading. This portion will later travel to other Hbc stores.

Mystus Expertise:
Mystus used all of its talents for this project including, electronics, production design, microprocessor control, graphic development and production, video production, audio production, mechanical interactives development, millwork fabrication, metalwork fabrication, as well as on site installation.

Unique Features:
The interactive map is particularly impressive at 12' x 8'. We developed a better technique of diffusing the light from the leds for side viewing. The 'pack your canoe' interactive has a sensor driven mechanism built in to dump the canoe when visitors have left so the next visitors get a fresh go at it.

*Project Challenges:
This is the largest shoe to date that Mystus has done the entire fabrication of. It was a challenge but all went actually quite smoothly, and again with short completion dates. The canoe dumping mechanism was a particular challenge to keep it simple, intuitive and robust.