I visited Ripley’s Aquarium in
downtown Toronto on a Wednesday in early November—one that was particularly
cold—in the afternoon. As would be expected of this time on a weekday, the
aquarium was not particularly crowded, though there were still quite a few
people there, including parents with their young children, as well as people of
all other ages. It becomes apparent that the aquarium holds an appeal for
people of all ages, and is interesting enough that people will go there any day
of the week. I have been told that on weekends and holidays—in other words,
days when tourism is more popular—there can be huge lines of people trying to
get into the aquarium, though this may have been a more likely occurrence while
the aquarium was still new.
You
have to pay to enter the aquarium, and the price is fairly steep—students can
get discounts to only pay around twenty-three dollars, but for regular adults
it costs around thirty dollars to enter the aquarium. Once inside and past this
paywall, however, Ripley’s Aquarium is a sight to behold. There are many huge
tanks filled with fish from all over the world. Structurally, the aquarium
begins by taking the visitor through tanks filled with fish and sea creatures
native to Canada and its waters, and then through more tropical waters, where
larger attractions such as sharks and sting rays are visible. There are tunnels
in which the tank glass goes above you, creating the impression that you the
viewer are in fact underwater with these sea creatures. It is quite impressive
visually.
Along
the way are several small refreshment stands where visitors can buy coffee,
soft drinks, and snacks. The aquarium also ends with the exit being located
through the gift shop, forcing visitors to go through it and be tempted by the
merchandise created for the aquarium. It is through things like these that it
becomes apparent that while the aquarium is trying to immerse the visitor
inside of it and make him or her feel like he or she is seeing these aquatic
animals in their natural habitat, it is also trying to make money off of the
visitor, and as a result frequently pulls him or her out of the illusion to try
to sell something.
Ripley’s
Aquarium opened on October 16th 2014, making it one of Toronto’s
newest major tourist attractions in the downtown core (Ripley’s Aquarium Quick
Fact Sheet). Its statistics are rather impressive—there are over sixteen
thousand marine animals in the aquarium, living in five and a half million
litres of water, and structurally there are fifty live exhibits. There are over
one hundred interactive displays, which are designed to be educational in
nature, with most describing interesting details about the aquatic animals the
displays are situated next to.
A
media release for the aquarium claims that there are over twenty marine biologists
and aquarists employed there, as the safety and well-being of their aquatic
animals is of the highest importance (Ripley’s Aquarium Media Release). The
release states that the aquarium makes sure to adhere to strict standards of
animal welfare and is regulated by a major zoo and aquarium governing body: the
Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Economically
speaking, the aquarium cost one hundred and thirty million to build, funded by
all three levels of Canadian government and by private investors (The Canadian
Press and City.tv News Staff 2013). It is estimated to generate more than two
hundred and twenty million dollars-worth in tax revenues over the next twenty
years for the government, and it is in fact the largest aquarium in Canada and
one of the largest in North America (Urban Toronto). From all of this, it is
quite apparent that a lot of effort and money has gone into the development and
construction of the aquarium as well as in maintaining it and meeting standards
of operation for the well-being of the aquatic life held within. It is also
quite clear that the aquarium is an investment—the city, and indeed the whole
country expects to make a lot of money off of the aquarium.
Visiting
Ripley’s Aquarium brings to mind some of the concepts and ideas discussed in
Vernon Kisling Jr.’s piece on the origin of American zoological parks in the
nineteenth century, despite the time distance existing between the establishment
of those parks and the modern day. On the one hand, Kisling Jr. notes that
initially, menageries in the early to mid-1800s were established because of an
emerging scientific knowledge and research base due to the creation of
scientific societies and colleges (Kisling Jr. 1996:111). Thus, due to the
emergence of various scientific disciplines, menageries displaying different
animals were established in cultural centres—cities (Kisling Jr. 1996:112). These
menageries, and later zoos, were also in turn representative of ‘America’s
greatness’ in terms of educational advancement and academia (Kisling Jr.
1996:120).
This
is directly similar to part of the mentality of establishing Ripley’s Aquarium
in Toronto. Throughout the aquarium, visitors are constantly met with signs
giving information about the various fish on display, along with more
interactive displays that allow for a more tactile, visceral learning about the
animals in order to engage interest (I imagine these are mostly oriented
towards children). The aquarium is not just a place meant for people to go and
be entertained—it is also meant to be an educational experience, somewhat like
these menageries of old. When one takes into account the number of marine
biologists and aquarists that are also involved in the care and maintenance of the
aquatic life in the aquarium, this becomes even more apparent. A desire to
study the mysterious and then display this study publically for anyone to see
is a mentality that began over a hundred years ago but clearly seems to persist
to this day, embodied in zoos and aquariums rather than menageries. As well,
Toronto seems to herald the aquarium as a triumph—with media releases focusing
on how many animals and how much human effort, both scientific and
technological, goes into running the aquarium, which seems in line with the
nineteenth century thinking of zoos as symbols of greatness.
However,
Kisling Jr. also notes that education is not the only goal of the menageries
and later zoological parks, but that their development and popularity came out
of a post-colonial curiosity about exotic animals. People looked forward to
being able to see and experience strange creatures that did not naturally exist
in the cities that they were increasingly living in (Kisling Jr. 1996:112). It
seems as though this mentality has also not dissipated since the nineteenth
century, and Ripley’s Aquarium is almost certainly representative of it. Many,
indeed if not most, of the aquatic animals on display on the aquarium are not
naturally found around Toronto or even Canada as a whole, making them quite
exotic. As well, underwater environments are the hardest for humans to explore
on Earth, due to the fact that humans cannot naturally survive there. These two
factors combine to make most of the aquatic life at the aquarium things that
most average people living in Toronto would never get the opportunity to see in
a natural environment, making them incredibly ‘exotic’ to a Torontonian.
Thus,
Ripley’s Aquarium is an interesting example of a marrying of two cultural
values that seem to be significant to cities: scientific knowledge and displays
of greatness or power. People got to the aquarium to see natural life that they
would never otherwise be able to see, living in the city where these creatures
are not meant to exist naturally, which provides an entertaining spectacle. At
the same time, a lot of effort is put into making sure that the aquarium serves
an educational purpose as well as an entertaining one, linking ideas of
advancement, modernity, and education to cities.
Works Cited:
“Ripley’s Aquarium Quick Fact Sheet,” accessed from https://www.ripleyaquariums.com/canada/files/2014/07/Quick-Fact-Sheet-Ripleys-Aquarium-of-Canada-June.pdf.
“Ripley’s Aquarium Media Release,” accessed from https://www.ripleyaquariums.com/canada/files/2013/04/Press-Release-Ripleys-Aquarium-of-Canada-Opens-Feb.pdf.
“Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada,” Urban Toronto, accessed from http://urbantoronto.ca/database/projects/ripleys-aquarium-canada.
The Canadian Press and City.tv News Staff. “Ripley’s
Aquarium of Canada opens its doors,” 680 News (2013), accessed from http://www.680news.com/2013/10/16/ripleys-aquarium-of-canada-set-to-open-wednesday/.
Vernon N. Kisling, Jr., 1996. “The Origin and Development of
American Zoological Parks to 1899,” in New
Worlds, New Animals: From Menagerie to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century.
R.J. Honage and William Deiss, eds. The Smithsonian Institution
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