Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!).
On the surface, the photograph that is featured in today's post may seem a little macabre in comparison to what we've covered in the past. But it is an interesting photograph from an interesting place in Vancouver: The Vancouver Police Museum. Within this 1932 heritage building was the City Coroners Service until they were transferred to VGH in 1980, and in 1986 the museum opened despite the laboratories still operating on the ground floor. This is where former Vancouver Mayor and BC Chief Coroner Larry Campbell would have worked for the Vancouver District Coroner's Office, loosely inspiring the CBC drama Di Vinci's Inquest.
If you can stomach it, it really is a fascinating place, if clearly not for everyone. Evidently Zanzibargirl was game, visiting there recently and bringing back some photographic evidence to share with us. I think the hipstamatic treatment of the photograph marries really nicely with the subject matter here, very cold and ominous. It also reminded me of the time I visited the Museum, and I'd love to share an anecdote with you below the Autopsy table.
I found myself at the Vancouver Police Museum a few years ago when I went on the Haunted Halloween Trolley Tour. We arrived at the museum and that portion of the tour was how autopsies are performed, in the very same lab you see in the above photo. Dressed in appropriate medical gear were either student doctors or actors or combinations thereof who described the process with such detail and technical knowledge that suddenly one woman's knees just collapsed and she hit the floor - fainted. As everyone in the room was murmuring to each other, the now-revived woman given a glass of water, I turned to one of the tour guides and asked quietly, "how often does someone in the crowd faint like that?" She replied, "oh - we average about one per tour."
