Back to the Sea Centre in Dartmouth, N.S., educates and inspires ocean conservation

Crystal Garrett visits the Back to the Sea Centre in Dartmouth, N.S., for a hands-on learning experience.

The touch tank at the Back to the Sea Centre in downtown Dartmouth, N.S., is open for the season, allowing visitors to learn about ocean animals and handle them.

Magali Grégoire is the founder and executive director of the Back to the Sea Society. She said this year sees the return of classic creatures like sea stars.

“I’d say they’re always a crowd favourite,” Grégoire said. “Then we have what we like to say is a cousin of the sea star, the sea urchin.”

Grégoire said urchins surprise kids because they move every spine on their body independently to propel themselves.

A scientific diver at Dalhousie collected the touch tank residents as part of a catch-and-release educational program.

“We display them for the summer and then in September with our permit from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans we get permission to release them all back to the sea,” Grégoire said. The public can also participate in the catch-and-release program, she said.

The centre has a tank filled with rare lobsters for the first time in 2025.

“It’s actually something that people have requested,” Grégoire said. “We were never able to do that because you can’t stick your hand in a tank that has lobsters in it.”

Grégoire said this year the centre was contacted by the Fisherman’s Market who donated two rare lobsters, prompting them to dedicate an entire display tank to the new, temporary residents and held a naming contest online. The rare, one-in-100,000,000 cotton candy lobster, which is white and blue spots was named Moon Mist. Then second lobster is a one-in-50,000,000 split lobster named Bingo with a shell that’s half red and half black.

The mission of the centre is to inspire curiosity and the desire to protect the ocean, Grégoire said. They are open for private bookings including birthday parties and Grégoire said they host a lot of daycare, school and community groups in the summer.

Donors to the centre can symbolically adopt a sea creature by taking home a locally made plush toy of one of the species in the touch tank, a certificate and a tax receipt.

The Back to the Sea Centre is open inside Martins Park along the King’s Wharf in Dartmouth from Wednesday to Sunday.

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