About Back to the Sea Centre
A miniature marine interpretive centre on the Dartmouth waterfront at Martin's Park, where visitors meet local intertidal animals at eye level in the touch tanks; every animal is collected, held, and released back to the ocean at season's end.
Features & Highlights
Detailed Information
The Back to the Sea Centre is a small marine interpretive centre on the Dartmouth waterfront at Martin's Park, 140 Alderney Drive, where the Gulf of Maine's intertidal life is presented at a child's eye level: touch tanks holding local marine animals you can reach in and touch. The philosophy is printed in its full name, collect, hold, and release: every animal in the tanks is gathered locally, cared for through the season, and returned to the ocean when the season ends. It is the most tactile stop in our Halifax attractions listings and a natural anchor for families, as our family travel guide attests.
Touch Tanks at Eye Level
The centre's tanks hold the intertidal animals of the Nova Scotia coast: crabs, sea stars, snails, and the small wriggling residents of tide pools, presented so visitors meet them at close range rather than through glass. Handling is the point; staff and volunteers supervise the touching and pair it with interpretation about each animal and the shore it came from. For children who have only met sea life in books, the difference between watching a hermit crab and holding one is the whole visit.
The collect-hold-release ethic is what gives the place its integrity. Nothing in the tanks is permanent livestock; the animals are borrowed from the ocean for the season and returned to it, which turns the centre into a demonstration of how to love a shoreline without stripping it.
Season and Group Visits
The daily season runs mid-May to September 1, when the centre is open every day; fall Saturdays extend the season into mid-December; and group bookings run year-round, which makes the centre a recurring destination for schools, Guides and Scouts, and birthday parties. Admission is $5 to $6, with a group of four at $20, pricing that positions a family visit below the cost of a movie. A gift shop, parking, and picnic tables round out the site at Martin's Park.
Planning a Visit
Address & Location — 140 Alderney Drive (Martin's Park), Dartmouth, NS B2Y 2W1, on the waterfront walk between the Alderney ferry terminal and the garden at Ferry Terminal Park.
Contact — Call 902-817-2007 or visit backtothesea.ca for hours, bookings, and the season calendar.
Admission — $5 to $6; family of four $20; group bookings year-round.
Rating — 4.7 on Google, with the touch tanks and the staff's patience with children drawing the praise.
The surrounding shoreline makes an easy circuit: the Daffodil Garden sits at the eastern end of the adjacent park, and downtown Dartmouth's cafés and the ferry to Halifax are minutes away. See our Dartmouth guide for the full walk.
