Princess Patrica, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, visited BC while on a tour of the province with her family in 1912. A regiment was formed and named after Princess Patricia - Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. "The Patricias" served in both world wars, the Korean War, and in Cold War and Peacekeeping missions as well.

John Macoun is one of the founding contributors of the Royal BC Museum's botany collection. Macoun worked as a botanist for CP rail and collected and documented hundreds of species. His collection documents and provides samples for species that are now considered invasive and his collection also provides some hints about our changing climate.

This specimen was donated to the museum in 2004 after being caught by a local fisherman. It was one of the first Humboldt Squid to be collected off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Being able to document the presence of this species will help determine where the species goes and their habitat range.

The Royal BC Museum houses nearly 100,000 fossils. Many of the pieces in the fossil collection were found by amateur collectors instead of archaeologists. Marji Johns of the Royal BC Museum and archives discusses the collection, the history of donation to the museum, some significant items, and where fossils have been found within the province.

While on a deep water survey trip on October 11, 2006 museum scientists and researchers were thrilled to pull up a Spiny-Eared Assfish, the first discovered in BC waters.

The Royal BC Museum houses a diverse collection of animal skeletons and skulls. None are quite so intriguing as the "mammoth marmot" skull with overgrown, tusk-like teeth.

The Newcombe collections consists of over 1400 pieces of Indigenous art. The items were collected by Charles Newcombe and his son William in the mid to late 1800s. Most of the items came with detailed documentation almost as valuable and informative as the objects themselves.