Those fears were misplaced.

The museum’s new Canadian History Hall opened last Saturday, Canada Day, to large crowds who lined up for well over an hour to have a look at the refashioned museum. Its new signature exhibit is comprehensive and commemorates the country’s low points as well as its triumphs while including minority perspectives on events large and small. Throughout, it recognizes that history is often as much a matter of debate as absolutes.

The new exhibit differs noticeably from the unloved Canada Hall, which opened when the museum moved to its current location in 1989 and closed in 2014 as part of the reconception. The designers of that exhibit attempted to tell the country’s history through recreations of things like streetscapes and a Chinese laundry. The museum’s deep holdings of artifacts were largely left hidden in warehouses.

Now, the abundance of artifacts is the most striking feature in its successor. There are about 1,500 on display, from “The First Face,” a delicate carving about 3,900 years old from Devon Island in the Arctic, to the pianist Glenn Gould’s cap and gloves. In general, the artifacts tell broader stories rather than serve simply as national relics. A much-darned hockey sweater worn by the Montreal Canadiens hockey great Maurice Richard during the 1959 Stanley Cup playoffs is within a section dealing with Quebec nationalism rather than as part of a sports exhibit. (A 1955 riot sparked by the suspension of Richard is now seen as an early manifestation of Quebec nationalism.)

The curators also did not shy away from debates over the past. One section covers Sir John A. Macdonald’s role in brokering the deal that led to the formation of Canada’s federal system 150 years ago and which made him the first prime minister. But the exhibit also addresses his view of indigenous Canadians, which many native people find racist and, they say, suggest he wanted to eradicate their culture. A quote from Macdonald stands in large type above a section about Canada’s program to remove indigenous children from their families and take them to boarding schools, where many were abused: “Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence.”