Quebec City in wintertime. Photo: Cephas via Wikimedia. Used under 
As major winter storm has passed through parts of Canada of late, so have storm-related gallery and museum closures.
On February 12, the Art Gallery of Guelph, McMichael Collection, Power Plant and Doris McCarthy Gallery—all located in Southern Ontario—were closed. A combination of freezing rain, snow, high winds and ice pellets was the cause, with authorities urging drivers to stay off the roads unless necessary and hundreds of flights were cancelled at Pearson International Airport.
The Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum, both located in downtown Toronto close to subway lines, remained open.
For the first time since 2011, school was also cancelled on Tuesday in the Toronto area due to weather conditions. (The AGO tweeted an archival William Notman image of Montrealers tobogganing in 1886 and tweeted, “turn your snow day into an art day! We are OPEN from 10:30am to 5pm, so if you’re not at work or school – get your sled and come visit us! #onstorm.”)
On February 13, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax and the Musée national des beaux arts du Québec were also closed due to large amounts of snow. The Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton opted for a later opening on Wednesday instead. It had to reschedule a curator talk to February 20 as well.
Extremely cold weather in recent weeks has also affected some galleries. On February 5, the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton said it would be postponing its youth event“Swarm” to February 19 due to very low temperatures.
Yet many galleries on the Canadian prairies have been open as usual.
On January 27, the Winnipeg Art Gallery continued with a scheduled outdoor activity on its rooftop for what it called its “Arctic Chill Out” event. Temperatures were reportedly in the range of minus 26 degrees Celsius.
