Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
Established	1948
Location	1675 Lower Water Street Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3J 1S3
Type	Maritime Museum
Director	Calum Ewing
Curator	Roger Marsters
Website	maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is a Canadian maritime museum located in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The museum is a member institution of the Nova Scotia Museum and is the oldest and largest maritime museum in Canada with a collection of over 30,000 artifacts including 70 small craft and a steamship: the CSS Acadia, a 180-foot steam-powered hydrographic survey ship launched in 1913.

The museum was founded in 1948. It was first known as the Maritime Museum of Canada and located at HMC Dockyard, the naval base on Halifax Harbour. Several naval officers served as volunteer chairs of the museum until 1959 when Niels Jannasch was hired as the museum's founding director, serving until 1985. The museum moved through several locations over the next three decades before its current building was constructed in 1981 as part of a waterfront redevelopment program. The museum received the CSS Acadia in 1982. Today the museum is part of the Nova Scotia Museum system.

The Museum was one of the first attractions to open on the redeveloped Halifax Waterfront. Its location provides the museum with several piers and boatsheds, as well as a strategic view of the Halifax Harbour looking seaward towards the Harbourmaster office and Georges Island and across to Dartmouth. Among its facilities is the restored 1880s Robertson Store ship chandler building, as well as modern exhibit galleries in the Devonian Wing (the modern museum building). HMCS Sackville, a World War II Flower-class corvette is docked adjacent to the museum in the summer months but is not owned or administered by the museum.