I ride by the Redpath factory every day. Twice. One day i noticed a little wee sign saying "Musuem". Hmm... museum you say? I'm curious. A museum about sugar?
My friend and I were both curious and stopped in one day on our way home from work. It was a Sunday and they weren't open but they gave us the hours so we could come back when they were open. So we returned the next day after work, parked our bikes at the bike rack out front and headed in, not really sure where we were headed.
Inside the main door is just a small security desk. The guard asked us if we had an appointment. Nope. We told him we had come just yesterday to ask when they were open and were told we could come back today. The flyer he gave us with the hours said they'd be open and didn't say anything about needing an appointment.
After a phone call and a few minutes of confusion, we were escorted to the back of the building and told to walk towards a guy wearing a white lab coat at the back of the property. He stood back there with a wide stance and his arms crossed in a strange intimidating way. But when we got up close, he was just an odd white hairded, mutton-chopped older man with a fun British accent. He showed us into the Museum and told us that he was just finishing up with a group of seniors (weird?) and then we would have the place to ourselves.
The displays were really nicely put together, going over the history of John Redpath and how he came to Canada and first started his businesses. Once we really got reading about him, it was pretty interesting. The strange museum man would pop in and out every once in a while to see if we had any questions. My only question was if they ever did tours of the actually factory so i could see how sugar was really made. He said they didn't do that because it's a food production factory and everything is all sealed up for health standards. Darn.
It was a strange afternoon at the Redpath Museum, but a fun little piece of Toronto (and Montreal) history.