Aquarium of Quebec

This guide to the Aquarium of Quebec traces a mistake baked into its own site: engineers in the 1950s chose a limestone cliff over the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec City, assuming the water below was salty enough for marine animals. It follows ichthyologist Vadim Vladykov, who secured the land in 1954, and the tanker trucks hauling saltwater in from Pointe-au-Pere near Rimouski and freshwater from Lake Saint-Charles to keep the doors that opened in 1959 running. Stand at the cliff's edge and picture those trucks lining up where visitors now park.