Montreal Aquarium
The Montreal Aquarium, also known as the Alcan Aquarium, was a public aquarium on St. Helen's Island, located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Built for Expo 67, the 1967 World Fair, it operated for nearly a quarter of a century in La Ronde before shutting down in 1991. Apart from a brief re-purposing as a video game center, it has been vacant ever since.
History
Montreal Aquadome (1967–1991)
The Expo pavilion was originally sponsored by Alcan Aluminum Ltd., who built the site as a joint venture with the City of Montreal and the Zoological Society of Montreal. The two buildings that made up the site were known as the Alcan Pavilion. The main aquarium building featured penguin pools, exhibits space and a gift shop. The separate dolphin pool building, the Alcan Marine Circus, had a 900-seat auditorium, show pool and holding tanks.
In February 1980, blue-collar workers enacted a 41-day workers' strike, refusing to enter the aquarium to feed or care for its dolphins. Abandoned by their trainers, and left to starve in isolation, 3 dolphins died as a result of the neglect.[1] The surviving dolphins were sold to Flipper's Sea School, a roadside dolphin attraction in Florida. The already failing aquarium received even more negative publicity.
The city planned in 1988 to move the aquarium to a more popular location at the Old Port, but the plan did not come through when the city was mired in recession in the early 1990s.
On September 15, 1991, the aquarium officially closed. Most of its exhibits were transferred to the Biodome. The main aquarium building was demolished, leaving just the former dolphin pool building.
Nintendo Mégadôme (1995–2006)
The Nintendo Mégadôme opened inside the former aquarium space in 1995.[2] Operating for over a decade, it was a Nintendo-sponsored video game center with the then-latest Nintendo video games and attractions. It closed in 2006. The former dolphin pool building it occupied now belongs to La Ronde, which on occasion has incorporated the space into their October-based Fright Night during Halloween. Today the building remains vacant and closed off from the public.
References
- ^ Dr François Lubrina. "La fin pitoyable et tragique des dauphins de Montréal" (in French). Vetérinet. Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2009-12-27.
- ^ spacemtfan (June 10, 2016). "The Vampire of Montreal: Part 18 of the Inverted Coaster Serie". ParkVault. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
External links
- Nintendo Mégadôme (in English)
- Photo and floor plan (linked)
