More coverage of the story that first emerged over a year ago, about one of the earliest examples of a birch bark canoe, owned by a family in Cornwall, who decided to return it to Canada.

From:
Vancouver Sun

Rare birchbark canoe repatriated from U.K. to Peterborough museum
By Mike Fuhrmann, The Canadian Press August 17, 2012

PETERBOROUGH, Ont. – The latest arrival at the Canadian Canoe Museum, a six-metre-long birchbark craft, is in poor shape. Ribs poke out from the sides and much of the frame has disintegrated.

But the vessel’s remarkable history — and the fact that it has survived at all, becoming one of oldest birchbark canoes in the world — make it a “stunning find,” says museum curator Jeremy Ward.
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Another restitution story, only tenuously connected to that of the Parthenon Marbles via the Elgin name – but interesting none the less.

From:
Vancouver Sun

Statuette returned, but was it stolen?
Note says it was taken 50 years ago, although archives uncertain they ever owned it
By Ari Altstedter, Postmedia News June 7, 2011

Someone entered the first-floor men’s room of the Lord Elgin Hotel in downtown Ottawa on Saturday, carefully placing a shopping bag on the floor and leaving.

Inside was a century-old bronze statuette and an anonymous typed note.
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This article suggests that maybe the British Museum is waiting for the Greeks to thank them before they will then return the Elgin Marbles. I have to say that I very much doubt that all should be required. Furthermore, surely the British Museum should be thanking Greece for the loan of these artefacts for so many years?

From:
Vancouver Sun

Has the British Museum lost its marbles?
By Andre Gerolymatos, Special to the Sun
August 17, 2009

For two centuries, Greek governments have been at loggerheads with the British Museum over the ownership of the so-called Elgin Marbles. These ancient sculptures are an integral part of the Parthenon that crowns the Acropolis in the centre of Athens and Greeks have argued that the British should reunite them to their original place. The Greek case rests on the simple fact that the marbles are Greek property and that they had been illegally removed from the Parthenon and shipped to the British Museum.

The British position is more complicated. The British Museum officials have argued that the marbles were safer in London than in Athens anyway; the Greeks could not restore the marbles onto the Parthenon, as the pollution in Athens would destroy the antiquities eventually. Now that the Greeks have constructed a state-of-the-art museum at the foot of the Acropolis (designed to house the marbles) the British position has shifted and claims that the marbles belong to the world accusing the Greek government of falling victim to shrill nationalism. This is not the position of the Salinas Museum in Palermo that decided to return their slab of the Parthenon Frieze, which they held for more than two hundred years. German and Swedish museums have also followed the example of the Italians and have used the occasion of the new Acropolis Museum to return parts of the Parthenon frieze.
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More coverage of Influence, Janet Munsil’s play who’s plot revolves around the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum.

From:
Vancouver Sun

Gods of Greece must be pleased with Influence
Peter Birnie, Vancouver Sun
Published: Sunday, November 09, 2008

Review: A delicious trip into history awaits with the world premiere of Influence. Janet Munsil has written a winner, one which is sure to have a healthy future when it’s tidied up just a titch.

Just as John Keats was obsessed with the gods of ancient Greece, Munsil wraps herself up in an intoxicatingly self-conscious study of what drove the romantic poet, and indeed drives all great artists, to become beholden to their muses. Katrina Dunn does a terrific job of directing this fast-paced romp ’round artistic licence, drawing precise and near-perfect performances from her talented cast.
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