Contained within 16 pallets of shrink-wrapped wooden boxes was a cornucopia of objects used by prisoners and staff. The collection, which took museum staff several months to sort, is a mirror of daily life within our corrections system. There are, for example, metal food trays, keys, handcuffs and sewing machines. There's a strait-jacket. There's even contraband, such as syringes and shivs.

A shiv is a homemade knife. One shiv is a nasty-looking number fashioned from a nail, shoe laces and electrical tape. Somebody really meant business.

"That's not good," agreed Lorne Hammond, the curator who showed me the collection, which the museum has no immediate plans to exhibit.

There are also artworks and crafts made by the prisoners. There are three dozen paintings. There's a giant metal spider web with spiders and a dragonfly welded on. There's a religious scene on embossed leather. There are totem poles, wooden crosses, and a replica tear-gas gun made from sheet metal and wood. And, of course, there are licence plates.

Many of the prisoner-made items are models -- meticulously machined and carved from metal and/or wood. There are miniature versions of a lathe, a vise, a moving cart, fish boats, church pews, stage coaches and cannon. There's what looks like a doll house. But on closer investigation, the "doll house" contains a tiny bar and stereo.

"This is not a doll house for little girls," Hammond said.

The artifact Hammond was most enthusiastic about was a boat, about a foot long, hand-crafted from paper. It looks as if it might be centrepiece for a kid's birthday party, or maybe a wedding. The bits of paper from which it's made are pink, green, yellow. Strings of jolly banners lead to a mast topped by a communist flag.

The boat wasn't made by a prisoner, at least, not in the conventional sense. It was fashioned by one of 600 Chinese migrants smuggled in rusting ships who landed on the West Coast -- including Victoria -- in 1999. This was the so-called Summer of the Migrants.

Many refugees ended up at a Prince George prison that had been closed by the B.C. Corrections Branch. And that's where the paper boat comes from.

The detainees spent months in that Prince George jail. The boat was made by one who simply got bored. He presented it to a warden. It's supposed to represent one of the migrant ships, said Hammond, who says this style of paper craft is typical of China.

But those ships were filthy rust buckets. This paper model is delicate and curiously festive -- somehow reminiscent of cakes and punch.

The paper boat is a testament to how the human spirit endures, even in desperate circumstances. I wondered what the Chinese detainee thought about as he carefully folded each bit of paper. Perhaps he fretted about the future; he certainly must have pondered his terrible overseas voyage.

My own favourites from the collection are paintings made by regular prisoners. They aren't great artworks, but they're oddly evocative, even poignant.

A prolific fellow who simply signed his works "Magee" painted six. Magee's greatest achievement may be a painting of a curvaceous woman -- possibly a burlesque entertainer -- in a dark nightclub setting. Strange things (they look like Christmas ornaments) hanging from the ceiling are decorated with 1950s-style starburst patterns.

The most striking thing is that the woman has a black eye.

"I'm very curious about this artist, Magee," Hammond said.

Magee covered the waterfront. He painted an abstract (it reminds me of paintings in budget motels) in brilliant reds and yellows. He painted a clown face. He painted a topless woman whose G-string is shaped like Valentine's heart.

Some Magees -- daubed on pieces of wood -- have holes punched through the top so one can hang them on a nail. I imagine other prisoners saying things like, "Hey Magee, make me a clown face!" or "Hey Magee, paint me a sexy lady, with a G-string and all!" And Magee would say, "Hey, no problem." Because he had all that time on his hands.

Hammond is intrigued by the Magees, too. As we clicked through images of the prison collection, he'd say "That's Magee again!" every time one of his artworks popped up.

There's virtually no information on any of the prison artists. The B.C. Corrections Branch apparently wants to protect the inmates' privacy. It's unusual, though. Museum curators ordinarily have a free hand to investigate provenance. And after all, the story behind the artifacts is as important as the objects themselves.

Several times, Hammond wondered out loud about Magee's life and motives. But because he's a professional who approaches his work in a scientific manner, he'd stop himself short.

"It invites you to guess about the lives of the people," he said. "But that's not something a curator should be doing."