World Ocean Day 2025
Celebrated around the globe by thousands of organizations annually, World Ocean Day inspires action for a healthy ocean and a stable climate. Organized by our friends at Eagle Wing Whale Watching Tours and supported by GVHA, this special event has been celebrated at Fisherman’s Wharf for more than 10 years.
World Ocean Day 2025 took place at Fisherman’s Wharf at the end of Ocean Week Victoria, on Sunday, June 8 from 11 AM to 4 PM. The event is fun, free, and family-friendly, and features a variety of conservation organizations from around the Salish Sea. It features interactive activities, marine exhibits, a touch tank, live diving presentations, ocean conservation displays, a colouring station for children, and much more. The schedule of activities is as follows:
- 11:00 Traditional welcome and performance by the lək̓ʷəŋən Traditional Dancers
- 11:25 Opening remarks by GVHA CEO Robert Lewis-Manning
- 11:00–4:00 Ocean-themed family fun
- 11:30 Seaquaria Divers
- 12:30 Royal Canadian Marine Search & Rescue Station 35 Man Overboard Drills
- 1:30 Seaquaria divers
World Ocean Day 2025 begins with a performance by the lək̓ʷəŋən Traditional Dancers.
This year, GVHA is hosting a colouring station where kids can explore important marine wildlife through colouring pages of artwork adapted from the Unity Wall at the Breakwater. The designs were originally created by Butch Dick (Yux’wey’lupton) of the Songhees Nation and Darlene Gait of xʷsepsəm (Esquimalt) Nation. We also had a face painter at the GVHA booth.
Discover Eagle Wing Tours’ award-winning “Exploring the Salish Sea” education program and learn all about the amazing animals who call the Salish Sea their home.
The list of participants in this year’s World Ocean Day event is as follows:
- Canadian Orca Rescue Society
- Capital Regional District
- Cetus Research & Conservation Society
- CPAWS · SNAP Canada
- Dakini Tidal Wilds
- Eagle Wing Tours
- Galiano Conservancy
- Geological Survey of Canada
- Georgia Strait Alliance
- Gorge Waterway Initiative
- Gorge Waterway Nature House
- Greater Victoria Harbour Authority
- lək̓ʷəŋən Traditional Dancers
- Ocean Week Victoria
- Ocean Wise
- Ocean Networks Canada
- Pacific Wild
- Parks Canada, Vancouver
- Peninsula Streams Society
- Plant-Based Cities Movement
- Raincoast Conservation Foundation
- Royal BC Museum
- Royal Canadian Marine Search & Rescue – Station 35 Victoria
- Royal Canadian Navy — Navy Reserves
- SeaChange Marine Conservation Society
- Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea
- Stream to Sea (DFO)
- UVic Faculty of Science
- West Coast Environmental Law
- World Fisheries Trust
