General

Renowned B.C. whale museum looking to rebuild after devastating New Year’s Eve fire

Whale Interpretive Centre Photo Courtesy of the Whale Interpretive Centre

On New Year’s Eve, the sky above Telegraph Cove, B.C., burned a feverish orange. The community’s boardwalk had caught fire, quickly consuming the wooden buildings of businesses along the pier: the Telegraph Cove resort, the local pub, the Tide Rip Tours office, the Prince of Whales office, and finally the Whale Interpretive Centre (WIC).

Mary Borrowman, a director of the WIC, lives with her husband, Jim, the centre’s chair, five minutes from the boardwalk. A neighbour alerted her to the fire. She and Jim walked down to the site watching their work char, choking back tears.

“Everything was gone,” she says. “It burned right down. There really is nothing left.”

Port McNeill Fire Rescue, the Alert Bay Fire Department, the Hyde Creek Volunteer Fire Department, Port Hardy Fire, and the Sointula Volunteer Fire Department worked throughout the night and into the next day to subdue the flames.

The fire department has yet to release its report on the fire, but Mary says it doesn’t sound like it was foul play. More likely it was an electrical fire. But this doesn’t make the loss any easier.

The WIC was opened in 2002 by the Johnstone Strait Killer Whale Interpretive Centre Society. It chose Telegraph Cove, a town of 20 people on the north end of Vancouver Island, about two hours north of Campbell River, because it wanted to complement nearby Robson Bight Ecological Reserve, a sanctuary for killer whales.

Gordon and Marilyn Graham, who own the Telegraph Cove Resort, loaned a storage building on the boardwalk to the society, rent free. After clearing out the space, the society hung two whale skeletons from the ceiling. That was their start.

Telegraph Cove, B.C.
Photo Courtesy of the Whale Interpretive Centre

Mary and Jim, both members of the Johnstone Strait Society, devoted themselves to the WIC, in part because of their passion for marine mammals, but also because they lived close by. Jim has an eye for marine mammal skeletons and has been collecting them for the last 40 years. He used this skill to acquire more specimens for the WIC. By 2024, the museum had 25 articulated skeletons, the largest collection of hanging marine mammal skeletons in Western Canada. Tourists from across the world came to visit the WIC.

“Our showpiece, of course, was the fin whale. And then we had a big killer whale, who was absolutely incredible,” says Mary. “Then we had a gray whale, a humpback, and we had a very rare specimen, the Cuvier’s beaked whale.” But the fire took everything, burning the skeletons to ash.

Whale Interpretive Centre
Photo Courtesy of the Whale Interpretive Centre

Mary got up on New Year’s Day feeling defeated. A life’s work vanishing in an instant. But then that night, from her home, she saw the most beautiful northern lights dancing in the sky. It convinced her that it was a new year and a new dawn. “You have to just pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and carry on,” she says.

That’s why on January 2 the WIC announced that it was setting a fundraising goal of $1 million to rebuild and restore everything that was lost. Mary’s main motivation is that she wants this information on marine mammals to be available to the next generation. Mary recalls a young girl, eight or nine years old, coming into the WIC a few months before the fire. Seeing the skeletons, the girl got so excited she started spinning and dancing. “That is why we are going to carry on,” says Mary.

The WIC has set up a fundraising page on Canada Helps that’s already received $86,000. And they do still have two skeletons: a Risso’s dolphin and a pygmy sperm whale. Both are on Saltspring Island—they were being cleaned and assembled at the time of the fire. Two specimens. That’s the same number of skeletons the WIC started with.

Whale Interpretive Centre
Photo Courtesy of the Whale Interpretive Centre

They’ve also had offers of other skeletons that need a home. In fact, Mary says it’s the outpouring of public support that’s keeping them going.

“We’re almost at two weeks since the fire, and every day the encouragement keeps coming,” she says. “Everybody wants to see the cove carry on and survive, and everybody wants to see the Whale Interpretive Centre stay here in Telegraph Cove where it belongs.”

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