The Adam Project | H.R. MacMillan Space Centre — the lecture that outran its own physics

Louis Reed is at the front of a room explaining fixed time and the arrow it flies along, and two versions of his son are sitting in the audience, forty years apart, neither of them supposed to be there. The lecture hall belongs to the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vanier Park, and it is the one location in the film where the set dressing barely had to lie. This is a building that has been teaching people about deep space since 1968.

The money came from a lumber baron. H.R. MacMillan made his fortune in British Columbia timber and put a piece of it into a planetarium, which is why a domed theatre sits on the Kitsilano waterfront sharing a roof with the Museum of Vancouver. The roof itself is the giveaway from a distance — a wide white cone meant to echo a Haida hat. Out front, George Norris's stainless steel crab crouches over a fountain, catching whatever light the day gives it.

Go on a weekday and the place is full of school groups. The planetarium still runs star shows under the dome, the ground floor still has the hands-on gallery where children push buttons harder than necessary, and the observatory next door opens on clear Saturday nights for free. Stand in the lobby and you are standing where a father and two sons who should never have shared a room shared one.

Vanier Park, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver. Ten minutes on foot from Kitsilano Beach, or arrive the good way — by the little ferry across False Creek.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.