Welcome to our Once Upon a Time in Edmonton feature series. In our first story, we take a deep dive into the history of West Edmonton Mall, one of our city’s biggest landmarks with world-wide recognition.
Our feature includes information from our reporting, including as early as the 1980s, as well as decades-old video and images.
When West Edmonton Mall opened in 1981 it claimed the title of largest shopping mall in the world.
Phase 2 opened in 1983 and Phase 3, an expansion that doubled the mall’s size, opened in 1985 – 40 years ago.
In 1986, the World Waterpark opened to the public and the Fantasyland Hotel welcomed its first guests.
Phase 4 was completed in 1999.
Second largest mall in North America
West Edmonton Mall held its title of largest shopping mall in the Guinness Book of World Records until 2004 when the Golden Resources Mall opened in Beijing.
Today, West Edmonton Mall is the second largest indoor mall in North America, right behind the Mall of America.
Although the Mall of America was slightly bigger when it was built in 1992 (about .3 million square feet makes the difference), West Edmonton Mall’s higher number of stores and attractions kept it in the record books.
Both malls were built by the same company, the Triple Five Group, founded by Jacob Ghermezian and his four sons Nader, Raphael, Eskandar and Bahman.
The Ghermezians emigrated to Canada from Iran in 1959. Their family’s original business was importing Persian rugs before they moved onto real estate.
The family moved to Edmonton from Ottawa in the late 60s where they continued to buy and sell property. This is where the brothers dreamed up the idea for West Edmonton Mall.
Does size matter?
Or is it what’s on the inside that counts? For West Edmonton Mall, maybe it’s both. Yes, the mall is huge; in fact, it is bigger than Vatican City (the world’s smallest country according to Britannica.com.)
And it has some cool attractions, if you like waterparks and amusement parks, indoor ice rinks and giant movie theatres. If you can think of it, you can probably do it at “The Mall.” Oh yeah, and you can shop there too.
When it opened, Edmontonians were enthralled.
Shoppers who were asked what they thought of the mall said, “It’s unbelievable at first sight” and “it’s hard to believe it’s so big.” Many had “never seen anything quite like it.”
Its magnitude and energy was so impressive that author Eric Wilson used it as the scene of his children’s novel, Code Red at the Supermall, written in 1989.
West Edmonton Mall has become everything the Ghermezians hoped it would be.
“We brought all of these attractions from around the world and put them together under one glass dome,” Nader Ghermazian said in an interview to CTV News Edmonton in the late 80s.
Remembering the past
But this isn’t a story about how big West Edmonton Mall is. It’s about the nostalgia of the place and the memories of going there. It’s about how this mammoth mall, with all its quirks, has earned its place in Edmonton folklore.
Warning: This video contains images that some viewers may find disturbing.
There was the strange: In the late 80s, tucked into a corner of Europa Boulevard was The Medieval Dungeons or Medieval Museum. Besides the video evidence of its existence and a reddit post with a map of its location, there is little else to tell. Yet this spooky corner of the mall deserves a mention. No one I asked could tell me why it was there, just that they remembered it once was.
There was the unconventional: In the early 90s a Storefront Classroom opened inside the mall. Jasper Place High School was granted access to some empty space. It used this space to help students who had dropped out of high school transition back to school.
For a time there was even a police station right in the mall.
There were also attractions that shut down as they aged.
The Deep Sea Adventure Submarine Ride opened as part of Phase 3. There were four submarines – some joked West Edmonton Mall had more submarines than the Royal Canadian Navy.
According to the Government of Canada, the Navy only had three until 1998 when four submarines were purchased from the United Kingdom.
West Edmonton Mall’s submarines took visitors into the Deep Sea Adventure lake, one of the largest indoor lakes in the world, to observe the underwater animals.
This attraction ran until 2005. The subs are no longer there but the Sea Life Caverns are, so visitors can still walk through the underground aquarium.
A replica of Christopher Columbus’s ship The Santa Maria still marks the spot where these submarines docked.
The Ship, also an original Phase 3 addition, is an attraction in itself.
For a small price one can walk onto this ship, a popular place to take pictures. In the shadow of the boat is the former Dolphin Lagoon where dolphins put on daily shows until 2004.
West Edmonton Mall has a zoo accreditation. Alongside the aquariums and sea life it has housed numerous other animal displays.
In 1997, the mall quietly asked the City of Edmonton about the possibility of buying animals from the Valley Zoo and there were musings of adding a zoo to the roof above Europa Boulevard, but no official discussions or proposals ever came.
The province’s first 3D IMAX screen arrived via helicopter, in 1999 and a fire-breathing dragon was installed at the new Silver City movie theatre (now called Scotiabank Theatre). The dragon’s fire went out in 2010.
Still growing
And some attractions remain but continue to grow. Now 39 years old, the World Waterpark has also seen its share of change.
In 1991, Wild Gravity Bungee debuted in the water park. It changed names twice before closing in 2023.
In 2016, the water park introduced a surf club, offering surf lessons to land-locked Albertans.
More recent additions include the Skyflyer Zipline and a poolside pickle ball court.
Today it’s known as Galaxyland, but when it opened in the Phase 2 opening it was called Fantasyland. The name was changed to Galaxyland in 1995, after being sued over naming rights by The Walt Disney Company.
The big draw to this indoor amusement park was, of course, the indoor rollercoaster. In 1986, three people died when the Mindbender malfunctioned. Despite this, it continued to be an attraction until 2023.
With over 800 places to buy stuff, West Edmonton Mall has always been the place to shop.
It has been the home to some big name stores. Sears, The Bay and Eatons were there in the very beginning. Chapters, HMV and Ikea made appearances.
More recently the Lego store and Simons joined the list. High end shops including Louis Vuitton and Coach have also moved in.
And it has attracted all types of restaurants to feed hungry shoppers. In 1996, both Hooters and Planet Hollywood joined the menu. Planet Hollywood closed three years later. Hooters lasted until 2020. Bubba Gump Shrimp Co arrived in 2018.
They made it happen
Nader Ghermezian said their success came from “making things happen,” not “waiting for them to happen”. And things did happen at the mall. The Beach Boys played a concert in the World Waterpark in 1988.
America’s Funniest People held auditions there and Britney Spears came to sign autographs. The pop band B*Witched performed outside HMV.
The Brick Invitational Hockey Tournament has been held at the Ice Palace since 1990, where several NHL stars have skated by, including Auston Matthews, P.K. Subban and Jordan Eberle.
Peter Charney broke a world record for the most bungee jumps in 24 hours, indoors in 2007 (225 jumps). His record still stands.
Looking toward the future
It took four phases opening over 20 years for West Edmonton Mall to realize its impressive collection of stores and attractions.
Forty-four years after it first opened it’s still upgrading and changing.
Galaxyland is now called Galaxyland powered by Hasbro, making it the first Hasbro-themed amusement park in Canada.
Swan shaped paddle boats glide over the lake that submarines once dove under.
Pot shops have replaced tattoo parlours. The dragon fire has cooled and a Sea Lion show has taken over where the dolphins swam.
Red’s has become Ed’s and arcades have been replaced by The Rec Room.
The brass whale left and then returned and car dealerships have moved in.
Alongside Booster Juice and Cinnabon one can sample a Vietnamese hot dog. And now with the imminent closure of Hudson’s Bay, a staple store since the beginning, mall goers are left waiting to learn what “The Mall” will offer in its next phase.
