Pacific Canada – This is the main foyer/central hub of the aquarium and up until a few months ago served as the entrance zone of the establishment. There is a 70,000 gallon Strait of Georgia tank (opened in 1999) that is very eye-catching and creates a buzz in the room due to its two-storey presence. There are 36 species in this large tank, with the highlights being: white sturgeon, spiny dogfish, wolf eel, red rock crab, lingcod, Pacific herring, Chinook salmon, coho salmon, Pacific cod, big skate, buffalo sculpin, tubesnout, and severalspecies of greenling and rockfish. There is also a Clayoquot Sound (an area on Vancouver Island) exhibit that features 3 tanks for sea stars, anemones, barnacles and tubeworms.
I just visited the aquarium twice in the span of 3 days (with my wife and kids on the weekend and with my students at school) and the true highlight of each visit was seeing a full-grown Pacific giant octopus swimming around this 70,000 gallon tank. The exhibit is extremely large and packed with a variety of fish, and the male octopus was shooting around the tank with shocking speed, then blending into the background via his colour changes, and finally settling into a tiny cave-like structure near the window. Seeing a giant octopus of immense size actually swimming in an exhibit longer than 10 feet in width was a delight.
