After a five-year absence, the beloved West Edmonton Mall whale is returning.
The shopping centre's Facebook page announced the sculpture's re-unveiling on April Fool's Day: "It may be April Fool’s Day, but this is no joke! Look who is returning!"
The whale sculpture, called Open Sea, was a mall-visitor favourite, and was present at West Edmonton Mall from 1983 until the summer of 2010.
Shoppers were famously able to enter the mouth into a small cave, and could sit on the above-water tail.
Removed to create space outside a Victoria’s Secret outlet, the whale will soon be installed in a new place, on the main level just outside the Sears entrance, with a Reitman's and a Baskin Robbins kiosk as its closest neighbours.
"The whale is back," mall spokeswoman Sheri Clegg said Wednesday to the Edmonton Journal. "If social media is an indication, I think we made people’s day. They are excited about this. The sculpture is well-loved. A lot of people have a whale story and whale photograph."
Clegg said the mall plans to create an interactive display with the bronze-barnacled whale as a centrepiece.
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