If you’d walked in downtown Ottawa this past summer, you could have seen four men hoisting a 600-kilogram safe through a basement window and then attaching it to a crane, which in turn deposited the safe on a flatbed truck. But this was no heist: it was the Museum of Civilization picking up a donation.

The tooth was from a great white shark. It was found next to a human bone. Why were they buried together some 1,500 years ago? For the archaeologists who made the discovery along the southeast coast of Nova Scotia, it was an intriguing mystery that has led to a fascinating theory.

The Museum of Civilization has begun a five-year process of transformation that includes an ambitious renovation of the museum’s interior, a new name and a sharpened focus on Canadian history. The new Canadian Museum of History will be fully realized in 2017, in time for Canada’s 150th birthday.