The surviving remnants of Sea Lion House stand only a few feet apart in the Great Hall at the Museum of Anthropology. A big arch carved with stylized sea lions still faces an ancestral-figure house post and a ceremonial bench held up by grimacing slaves, but the confines of the glassed-in space have made it impossible for curators to keep the correct distance between them. What's been lost is context, the way these impressive pieces of structural art once fit into a giant Kwakwaka'wakw longhouse that stood on the shore of Quatsino Sound on northern Vancouver Island.

That's where a hand-held gizmo called the VUEguide comes in. As you stand before the artifacts, you can use a stylus to tap an option on the touch-sensitive screen, and in seconds a 3-D animation "rebuilds" the longhouse, showing the exhibit pieces in their original interior positions at opposite ends of a massive wooden structure. More taps rotate the image for 360-degree views. Another tap, and the device (an earpiece is attached) delivers a narrated two-minute clip featuring archival images of the remains in their original locations, plus a map of the West Coast to pinpoint the place of origin.

This mobile, multimedia museum guide was developed by Ubiquity Interactive, a Granville Island-based company. Available to the public starting May 17, the VUEguide will be the first permanent installation of such cutting-edge technology in a Canadian museum, and one of the pioneering projects of its kind in the world. With a grant from Telefilm Canada's New Media Fund, Ubiquity principals Leora Kornfeld and Lars Meyer created software and portable units that allow visitors to get individualized, in-depth information about more than 100 of the MOA's major artifacts. Through 39 strategically placed infrared sensors, the wireless device constantly locates its users and their sightlines, and offers relevant content choices.

"It's an ideal mechanism for the kind of information we have wanted to get across for a long time, but haven't been able to," explains Jennifer Webb, the museum's communications manager, who shepherded the project. Visitors, Webb adds during an interview in the Great Hall, have long clamoured for more background about the totem poles, bentwood boxes, and other permanent displays. "Architecturally it's very difficult to put up a sign wherever you want, because the building is so aesthetically pure. This device brings all the contextual information to the visitor on the spot, providing all the stuff you could never get on a label."

Volunteers give daily guided tours at the MOA, but the 20 VUEguides (they rent for $5) will let visitors silently pursue their personal interests at any time, at their own pace, and in their own order. Webb hopes to increase the number soon, to accommodate schools and other groups. Users can also message each other, bookmark content to call up later on the museum's Web site, and type questions for staff on a pop-up on-screen keyboard. Although the video-game generation should be in its element, Meyer emphasizes that the gadget is easy to use: "People do not have to exercise super-nimble Nintendo thumbs."

Besides explaining and contextualizing each artifact, the VUEguide offers mini-documentaries on related topics ranging from oral culture to traditional totem pole-raising technique. The content includes rare footage unearthed from the CBC Television archives, of potlatches and of interviews with the late Haida artist Bill Reid dating from 1956 and 1961. The research team, which included MOA curators Bill McLennan and Karen Duffek, also sourced hundreds of historic photos for the visuals.

The multimedia format allows incredibly quick insights, such as the 30-second virtual reconstruction of Sea Lion House. Another good example is an explanation of figures on a carved argillite platter displayed in the museum's rotunda. Because the multilayered animal shapes are hard for uninitiated viewers to distinguish, an animated sequence highlights and enlarges portions of the design-such as the killer whale's blowhole, tail flukes, and dorsal fin-along with a narration. It's a shortcut into the complicated vocabulary of Haida art that dispenses with diagrams and explanatory tomes.

If there's any drawback, it's that the technology may be too effective. Last month at the museum, Kornfeld gave a demo to hundreds of international industry professionals. She recalls that a rep from San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art commented: "You're giving me PBS-quality documentaries when I'm standing in front of this 100-year-old totem pole, and it's making me look at the screen, not the totem pole."

The team accepts this challenge to build in reasons for viewers to look back and forth between the technology and the objects. "We want to break the mould here," says Webb, arguing that the VUEguide gives people more choice about how to experience the collection. "As a museum, we run up against stereotypes, such as being a dusty place filled with the past. This is a good physical manifestation of how we want to present ourselves. We have to keep up, but we prefer to keep ahead."