Langley Whale Center Celebrates an Impactful Decade and Counting
By Kate Poss • Photos by Nia Martin
Devotion to bringing home a captured resident orca named Tokitae led to the creation of the Orca Network in 2001, and the subsequent opening of the Langley Whale Center—which celebrated its tenth anniversary in March 2024.
The Langley Whale Center is a marine-themed experiential center with a gift shop supporting the Orca Network, a whale sighting and marine education network. The Center features exhibits on humpbacks, gray whales, orcas, and other marine life.
Tokitae was a young orca in 1970 when her pod was driven into Penn Cove in an orca capture designed to supply marine mammal venues with entertainment. She was sold to the Miami Seaquarium where she spent 53 years performing and living in a small tank. After years of public demand that Tokitae be released, new owners of the Seaquarium finally agreed. However, she died on August 18, 2023, before she could return home. Her memory was honored a year later at an Orca Network-sponsored event and her legacy lives on with the Lummi Nation—whose name for her is Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut.