HALIFAX -- Like other museums and galleries, the Halifax Citadel Army Museum is closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, for the next couple of weeks, the museum will offer virtual tours every Wednesday and Friday on its Facebook page.

“The Army Museum was established in 1953 and our mission is to preserve and present the military heritage of Atlantic Canada,” says Ken Hynes, curator of the Halifax Citadel Army Museum.

“With a special focus on Nova Scotia soldiers and the record of their service through the last, more than one century, from the beginning of the First World War to present day.”

When the museum closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the staff wondered what they could do to reach out to the community and potential visitors.

They decided to present virtual tours of the museum.

“What you can expect on the virtual tour is me talking and taking video of the various exhibit spaces,” says Hynes.

“Obviously it will have to be a fairly general virtual tour because I could spend hours talking about the things in the museum, but hopefully one will get a great overview of each of the exhibit spaces. We have five and I will focus in on two or three of the artifacts in each of the exhibit spaces.”

Hynes says he hopes the virtual tours will give people a taste of what they can see at the museum when it reopens.