Visitors to the Vancouver Aquarium over the coming weeks will see a tower of canned salmon and tuna to rival any grocery-aisle display. The massive Ocean Wise Canstruction Inukshuk, on display through the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, was devised to show Olympic spirit while highlighting Canada’s Ocean Wise sustainable seafood program.
Photo: Meighan Makarchuk/Vancouver AquariumTwenty aquarium staff members and 25 volunteers put in more than 400 person hours to construct the sculpture. It’s roughly three metres tall and about half that wide, made entirely of Ocean Wise-recommended tinned fish donated by Vancouver-based Raincoast Trading. The inukshuk symbol, a traditional marker for the Inuit people of Canada’s Arctic, inspired the official logo of the 2010 Winter Games.
How many cans did it take to make the inukshuk? Stay tuned. The Vancouver Aquarium’s CAN You Guess Contest runs until February 13. Guess the correct number of cans and you could win two tickets to an Olympic speed-skating event at the Richmond Olympic Oval, courtesy of BC Hydro.
When the installation is dismantled, the cans of fish will be donated to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society for distribution in the community. The sculpture was created in cooperation with Canstruction Vancouver, the local chapter of a design/build competition that encourages creation of giant canned-food sculptures to help fight world hunger.
