NUNAVUT - Divers from the Vancouver Aquarium submerged in the frigid waters of Resolute and Pond Inlet earlier this month collecting species for an improved Arctic exhibit scheduled to open in October.

Tak Oyama, a diver with the Vancouver Aquarium prepares for a dive in the waters near Repulse the week of Aug. 10. - photo courtesy of John Nightingale

President of the Vancouver Aquarium John Nightingale said the existing Arctic Canada exhibit opened 20 years ago and contained beluga whales, one fish tank and pictures and graphics to illustrate the Arctic environment. Nightingale said the renovated display will give a more accurate and detailed portrayal of the Arctic.

“Today it’s all about storytelling,” Nightingale said. “It’s all about what’s happening.”

Jason McLean, an associate of Nightingale and a photographer on the trip, agreed.

“It’s going to try to bring alive not just underwater life, but the life of the people here and the history and the geography,” McLean said. “Part of the reason we didn’t have a fixed agenda in every place we visited was just so we could go exploring and go talk to people and get their stories. We learned a lot and hopefully that will colour some of the exhibit contents.”

Even the name of the exhibit is being revamped from Arctic Canada to Canada’s Arctic, Nightingale said.

The exhibit is slated to open on October 9, before the 2010 Olympic Games begin, he said. The four-person dive team has been collecting various species of fish and invertebrates, including Arctic cod.

“One of the main targets was Arctic cod, which is the animal that drives the ecosystem in the Arctic,” he said.

Nightingale said collecting and shipping specimens for the display has its challenges.

He said divers must first don two fleece “bunny suits”, a polypropylene suit and finally a dry suit to be able to stay submerged for a maximum of 40 minutes before getting too cold.

Divers emerge from the frigid ocean with plastic bags full of specimens that are put into coolers and transported to a hut containing a holding tank. Placing the creatures in the holding tank allows them to empty their stomach contents before being put back into bags and shipped by airplane to Vancouver, which can take days.

“Once a day they got individually bagged with cold seawater, charged with cold oxygen double banded, and put into coolers with cold packs,” Nightingale said. “That’s good for 48 to 60 hours. The problem isn’t the temperature going up, the problem is keeping the water quality.”

Resolute once had a small aquarium of its own, Nightingale also said. Now closed, he said it was operated by the department of fisheries and oceans until the 1990s.

Nightingale said the aquarium will perform diving operations near Resolute every summer for the next few years and may also use the waters near Pond Inlet.