by Meghan Borland
It is hard to believe that another Touch Tank Hut season is around corner! Well, maybe it’s still a couple snow melts and freezes away, so to tide us over, I thought I would share some highlights from our 2019 Touch Tank Hut guest book.
As you read on, you will notice that I have sprinkled this blog with some quotes from the guest book that are guaranteed to turn any day from crabby to fin-tastic! I mean, just look at the letter below from one of our many sweet, ocean-loving visitors, Solomon!
Before we dive in, let me just say that we had an amazing 2019 season. We loved seeing familiar faces from the previous season and many new ones too! The guest book is a great way for us to gain an understanding of where our visitors call home and what the highlight of their visit was. Keep in mind, the fun facts that I have included in this blog are based on the information we collected in our guest book and do not reflect all 2019 visitors.
“Staff is exemplary, great volunteer work, patient, informative and kind.”
This season we had visitors from not only across Nova Scotia, but across Canada and the globe! After going through our guest book, I learned that in 2019 Touch Tank Visitors came from 35 communities across Nova Scotia.
Map showing the communities across Nova Scotia that 2019 Touch Tank Hut visitors who wrote in our guest book came from.
Outside of Nova Scotia, we had visitors from 57 communities across 9 Canadian provinces. If you visit us from Manitoba or a territory, make sure you sign the book so your province is represented next summer!
We even had visitors from 10 countries outside of Canada (yes, you read that right)! We like to think that these individuals travelled such a long distance just to visit us… 😉
We had visitors from the United States, Bermuda, New Zealand, France, Spain, Australia, Japan, India, Germany, and Lebanon.
“The wonderful thing about the hut was knowing about the biodiversity under the sea. Now, I can imagine why we value diversity…”
Thank you to everyone, near and far, who visited the Touch Tank Hut last season. We are humbled by the support we receive. Your positive feedback confirms why we are working so hard to open a community aquarium!
Psst! If you haven’t already heard, a couple weeks ago we announced a call for feasibility vendors. This is a fancy way of saying that Halifax is one step closer to getting a community aquarium! You can read our press release here.
““It was so awesome. Definitely need an aquarium in HRM.”
Meghan serves on Back to the Sea's Communications Committee and is also an animal interpreter at the Touch Tank Hut. She graduated with a Master of Marine Management degree and is passionate about making a positive impact on the environment and her community.