It’s hard to pin a sturgeon
down, especially one that’s busy with preparations to open a major new
center for education and entertainment on Lake Superior. But Lake Superior
Magazine managed to net the Sturgeon General (and a number of his two-legged
colleagues) long enough to talk about the Great Lakes Aquarium at Lake
Superior Center, for which the “SG” serves as spokesfish.
Lake Superior Magazine: It won’t be long now before Great Lakes
Aquarium beside the harbor waterway opens its doors to visitors in Duluth,
Minnesota. What’s the anticipation for this grand opening?
Sturgeon General: This will be the most exciting thing that’s ever
happened to me … except for spawning. We’re getting ready for more than
400,000 guests this year! This aquarium and the Lake Superior Center have
been more than 10 years in the making, so it’s a good thing that they picked
a sturgeon as spokesfish. We can live for up to 100 years, and I’ve got
plenty of good years left to promote the more than 30 interactive exhibits
at the aquarium.
DEATON MUSEUM SERVICES/DAVID GREDZENS
Isle Royale waters dominate the main hall of the Great Lakes Aquarium in
a three-tank exhibit that rises 24 feet above the floor. Top: Education
Department Coordinator Gina Temple helps Sophia Amborn to fish for prizes
during an aquarium preview event.
LSM: From a sturgeon’s point of view, what makes this center special?
SG: Fresh water … lots and lots of fresh water. Just one of the
exhibits - the re-creation of Isle Royale’s offshore waters - will hold
more than 120,000 gallons of water. To us fish, that’s important. Plus
the staffs at the aquarium and at Deaton Museum Services in Minneapolis
have done a great job re-creating our underwater lakescapes. They’ve even
matched the colors of rocks and dirt to the real thing. There will be a
small waterfall and river rapids in other exhibits. There’s a life-sized
moose and wolf for touching, a beaver lodge to explore and realistic murals
everywhere. We fish have our own kitchen downstairs, where food for us
- and for the otters and birds and amphibians and reptiles - will be prepared.
Fresh water and food about covers it for us lake fish. For humans, that’s
another thing.
LSM: How so?
SG: Well, for years, up until the recent hiring of a school of herring
shipped in from Milwaukee, I was the only fish on staff. Now we’ve got
all sorts of species ready to go to work. But for eight years already,
the Lake Superior Center education staff has been busy with human small
fry. More than 50,000 students from 110 schools in Minnesota, Wisconsin,
Michigan and Ontario have enjoyed center materials and staff time. Inside
the new aquarium, there are plenty of organized education programs, plus
you can just wander around conversing with computers, moving lakers in
the mini Great Lakes locks or exploring the live exhibits. I’ll be on duty,
so I can shake a few fins with visitors. And there will be a restaurant
… ahh, sturgeon tastes awful, by the way.
LSM: That’s not what I’ve heard … but tell me a little about the
staff and building at the aquarium.
SG: You couldn’t work with a better bunch of two-legged air breathers.
It takes a lot of them to get a center going. Besides the volunteer board
of directors and other organizers, the center’s human staff will reach
about 50 by the time we open. We’ll have up to 200 volunteers including
60 divers who plan to swim with the fishes. (The fish staff will reach
thousands.) And I’ll bet the staff (those above and below the water) will
be glad to move into their newer quarters. The human staff has been crammed
like sardines into a historic, but far from luxurious, building at the
eastern edge of Duluth.
DEATON MUSEUM SERVICES/DAVID GREDZENS
Visitors get a feel for life and wildlife through hands-on displays.
LSM: What were the tough choices and challenges for the aquarium?
SG: That depends. Director David Lonsdale (we hooked him from the
Shedd Aquarium in Chicago) says it was tough to cull the number of major
exhibits down to five - Isle Royale, Chequamegon Bay/Pictured Rocks, Otter
Cove, Baptism River and St. Louis River. And getting the $33 million to
build the 62,000-square-foot building necessitated great care. Chuck Amborn,
who oversees everything in the building except the live exhibits, says
putting up the building’s steel skeleton, which goes every which way, was
a challenge. And it took three tries to haul in and set in place the eight
massive acrylic panels for the tanks. One panel is 17 feet tall and weighs
almost 12,000 pounds. That’s more than 700 of the biggest lake sturgeons!
(We’ve been weighed at 168 pounds in Michigan.) The panel setters had to
wait until the weather was right and the sealant was just so. By April,
we’ll fill the tanks up with water and, if all goes well, the tanks will
be set for us fish. That will be a change from those swimming pools that
some of us are living in right now in a former retail car showroom. Let
me tell you …
LSM: Hold that thought! Let’s talk about where all those fishes
came from in our next issue.
Want more information right now? Contact Great Lakes Aquarium at Lake Superior
Center, www.glaquarium.org/
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The
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