Fat tears roll down the cheeks of my four-year-old as we stand in the Natural History Gallery of the Royal B.C. Museum.

I don't know why I am surprised. Although my own memories of visiting the museum as a child are hazy (I have shadowy recollections of an old-time kitchen infused with an apple pie aroma, and an even murkier perception of a native longhouse), the one crystal-clear image is of the woolly mammoth that guards the entrance to this gallery. I suspect it's the same for most people; the huge, shaggy beast leaves an indelible impression on young minds.

"I don't want to go there," Adam tells me as we listen to an audio loop of a frosty wind, the heckling chatter of a willow ptarmigan and the gutteral rumblings and trumpeting of the mammoth. "I don't want you to go there."

He hangs from my hand, alternately hiding behind my leg or pulling me back toward the hallway.

"It's not real," I assure him. "The sounds aren't real either. It's a recording."

After lengthy negotiations I convince Adam to let me carry him past the replica, his head buried in my shoulder but turned just enough to let him keep one suspicious eye on the beast.

The mammoth stands through it all -- unblinking eyes peering from a heavy coat of hair, massive tusks an arched fender ahead of him -- a fixed testament to the Pleistocene Epoch.

- - -

In recent history I have been back to the museum a few times: for temporary exhibitions on Leonardo Da Vinci and Eternal Egypt, and my favourite, Free Spirit: Stories of You, Me and BC, about the human history of our province.

But I haven't spent a lot of time revisiting the permanent exhibits: that Natural History Gallery, the First Nations Gallery (home to the longhouse of my memories) and the Modern History Gallery, where the streets of turn-of-the-20th-century Victoria live on.

The exhibits do a beautiful job of telling B.C.'s story in vivid detail, but it took coming back with my children to be reminded of their impact -- of the movie-set sights, sounds and smells. My husband and I marveled at our memories and at the boys' enthusiasm as we examined artifacts from recent decades, explored George Vancouver's HMS Discovery, and laughed through the silent Charlie Chaplin movie, The Gold Rush.

In fact, traveling as a family to Victoria changed the way I look at our capital city. It's a different town with kids aged four and seven along: charming, quirky, and utterly irresistible to the younger set.

Our suite at Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub and Guesthouses (www.spinnakers.com), not an obvious choice for travel with kids, turned out to be ideal. An easy wander down the path, the brewpub has a restaurant license on the main floor, which means children are welcome, and we grownups could sample the ales made onsite without worrying about finding our way back to a different location. We had our own kitchen (though not much call to use it since a breakfast of fresh-baked treats and juice is delivered each morning with the paper) and a bathroom equipped with a jetted soaker tub that the boys got a kick out of. And after they went to bed each night we could share a bottle of wine on our private deck and take in the ocean view through the trees.

During the day we explored the city.

The Moss Street Market is a revelation (www.mossstreetmarket.com). The Saturday market is the longest running farmers' market in a city renowned for its support of local producers. We wandered the booths, taking in live music, sampling coffee, mini doughnuts and homemade popsicles, picking up some bread and cheese and admiring locally made clothing, pottery, jewelry and crafts.

Then it was on to Beacon Hill Park (www.beaconhillpark.ca), where we laughed at the alpacas and noisy goats at the Children's Farm, and the sturdy lower branches of the giant sequoia across the drive was a magnet for a tree climbing seven-year-old.

On hot days, the waterpark, complete with an enormous watering can fountain, is the perfect spot to cool off. We didn't have our bathing suits, so we headed across Douglas Street to the historic Beacon Hill Drive-In, built in 1958 and still serving soft-serve ice cream and dipped cones.

Even more delicious was our stop at Pizzeria Prima Strada (www.pizzeriaprimastrada.com) in Cook Street Village. Among the best pizza I've ever tasted, the eatery makes traditional Neapolitan pizza with Caputo 00 flour, Italian plum tomatoes and, of course, local ingredients.

It was a lot to fit in. In three days, we didn't make much of a dent in our list of must-dos, and never crossed the threshold of the wax museum, Miniature World or the Bug Zoo, and never left Victoria proper to visit The Butchart Gardens. We'll have to do those next time.

The reason for our time shortage looms large on Belleville Street, an incredible aggregation of our province's treasures: the museum. That, at least, we covered thoroughly, spending the better part of a day there.

The current feature exhibit is Behind the Scenes, a look at many of the hidden gems that have been hidden away in the museum's collections for decades.

RBCM plans to run the behind-the-scenes exhibits over parts of the next two years. Part 1 includes artifacts from its natural history collection: everything from fossils and plants to fish, birds, mammals and more. The exhibit even includes a diversity lounge, which lets visitors explore collections in detail. What did my kids like best in this exhibit? A display of faux poop that offers a comparison of waste matter from different animals. Sigh. There are moments when I wonder what it would have been like to have girls.

And then of course, there was the mammoth.

Hours after we sidled past it the first time, Adam asked to go back. We stood out in the hall watching closely for movement, and observing other museum visitors smiling in front of it for photos before inching our way into the gallery.

I asked Adam if he wanted me to take his picture. His answer, when it came, was a lightning-fast bolt and stop in front of the display, a quick, uncertain grin for the camera, and an even quicker hightail straight out of the gallery.

The photo is blurry, of course. Oh well.

We'll be back.