There are a few fetuses, morgue drawers and a tickle trunk full of gun holsters, bullet-proof vests and uniforms. I’m rummaging through the Vancouver Police Museum, housed in the same building as the city morgue, a forensics lab and, at one time, Vancouver's autopsy facility.

The Vancouver Police Museum

“We have all the heroics and the horrific stories, all the good narratives and none of the boring stuff in between,” smiles Executive Director Chris Mathieson, clearly having way too much fun at work.

He’s right: there’s the morbid humour of past coroner Glen McDonald, the 20,000 autopsies over 50 years to consider, all the confiscated weapons on display and the 18 morgue drawers, of which 17 were used at one time. Why only 17? Well, there had to be a beer fridge, of course. (Worker laws were just a little bit different up until 1980 when the coroner service closed.)

All Those Guns

Some museums have collections of art, others have ancient relics. At the Vancouver Police Museum, opened in 1986, behind the glass cases sit home-made guns, vintage handcuffs, leg irons, tear gas containers and even projectiles.

Want to see an encapsulated splenic cyst? Step right up to the exhibit on the side wall. Prefer to see thousands of colourful pills collected from overdoses?

Check out the tube (once eight feet long in a candy cane shape) in the room once used when family members had to identify a body.

Adults Just Want to Have Fun

Although the Vancouver Police Museum deals with some pretty grown up stuff, it’s the kids who have always been the most frequent visitors. That is, until the parents pestered the staff enough to get their own programming.

And with a macabre wand the museum made their dreams come true. Starting in the spring of 2010, adult workshops like forensics for adults (blood spatter, forensic pathology and ballistics) happen throughout the week. And with the popularity of TV shows like CSI and NCIS, Chris often has to cut registration off at 30 people so that the groups don’t get too big.

This is on top of the summer walking tours they do that cover Vancouver’s vice-filled days of brothels, gambling houses and opium dens (called Sins of the City), and the seasonal Halloween Haunted Trolley Tours.

Says Chris, “We don’t give our guides a script, we give them some really cool information.”

The Museum’s Mystery

My favourite part of the museum? Definitely the gory undertakings in the autopsy room.

But, not everything at the museum happened in the past: there’s a distinct bullet hole in the back window that follows through to the roof.

If you’ve taken a ballistics workshop (or watch way too many crime shows), you’ll know that the shooter had to be beneath the window and, in this case, from the alley below.

No one seems to know what happened there, but I’m sure it’ll be written into the next chapter of the Vancouver Police Museum’s fascinating history.