Nepean Museum (https://www.nepeanmuseum.ca)

16 Rowley Ave, $ Pay-what-you-can

Wednesday – Sunday 10 am – 5 pm

This is a large, one-room museum with good panels and pictures, though not as many artefacts on display as some of the other small museums in the Ottawa area.  I spent about half an hour there and enjoyed myself.  The facilities are also set up for entertaining children with different activities, but that might just be for the season as I went there just before Christmas. 

What I first enjoyed about this place were all the maps.  I love maps, and there are many on display here, which really gave me a good visual understanding of how the lots and concessions worked in the township’s original survey. 

Because the settlement of Nepean pre-dated the city of Ottawa, I was pleased to see so much pre-1855 information.  There were panels, illustrations, as well as artefacts such as saws, relating to the early settlement period, going back to the first Honeywells. 

Curiously, they only had one mention of Sir Evan Nepean, and that was on the description of two shoe-buckles that he’d worn. 

It was an interesting visit, especially for the display of community identity for a community that pre-dated Ottawa, and was eventually subsumed by the larger, younger city.