Columbus Ship at Canada's Largest Shopping Mall
Edmonton, Alberta
The largest shopping mall in Canada -- over 5 million square feet with more than 800 stores -- contains a full-size indoor replica of Columbus's flagship. With colorful sails and carvings, the Santa Maria is beached on a raft of stones in the middle of a 2.5-acre artificial pond beneath the mall's vast vaulted glass dome.
Some Canadians refer to it as a pirate ship, either mistakenly or metaphorically. One local Cree artist wanted to unleash hungry beavers on the boat to sink it.
The replica ship was was hand-carved in Vancouver, British Columbia, and then transported in flatbed trucks to Edmonton. The original Santa Maria hit a rock off of Haiti in 1492 and was lost.