They offered mall goers an opportunity to see what life was like under the sea and now a piece of history at West Edmonton Mall is being removed.
After sitting at the bottom of the Deep Sea Adventure Lake for seven years, four submarines are being cut up, taken out and recycled.
"They started operating when phase 3 of the mall opened which was in 1985," says Sheri Clegg, spokesperson for West Edmonton Mall adding, "They made their last run in June of 2005."
Clegg says the reason they stopped the 20 minute submarine rides was because they weren't happy with the quality of the attraction anymore.
"We're all about providing unique and memorable experiences and, truly, after you'd been on the submarine probably once, there really wasn't anything different for another ride."
Mall patron Elwood Strand was watching as the removal began Wednesday and doesn't think the submarines will be missed.
"We had more submarines here than the Canadian government had at one point in time. I think we still do," he laughs.
Crews from All-Sea Enterprises have been brought in from Vancouver to remove the submarines, which weigh 38 tonnes each.
"What we're going to do is, we're going to be cutting them up into manageable pieces so that we can get them out of the mall," says service engineer Matt Bone.
A crane is being installed to then lift the pieces out of the water and out of the mall.
Each sub will take about a week to dismantle and remove, with the entire job taking just over a month to complete.
"Just for the main body of the sub, about 5 days. To strip the inside it takes us a day and then if we're going to cut up the lead then it'll take us another 8 days," Bone explains.
Four divers rotate shifts of about 3 hours under water at a time. Bone says this job is a bit different to what the crew is used to.
"It's not freezing cold, you don't have the wind, you don't have the ocean, you don't have the tides, you don't have the current, you don't have any of those issues to deal with," He explains adding, "You can't get any better conditions! You can have coffee, you can go buy underwear, you can do whatever you want, so that part of it is really nice."
Bone says there are a few challenges however, because they don't have a lot of information about how the submarines were designed.
"Some of it's a guessing game so you have to do exploratory cutting to see what you're up against, so the first sub is going to take about 50 percent longer than the others will."
Crews are using hydraulic saws to cut up the submarines which are made up of mostly lead and aluminum.
Clegg says it's now time to look at what else can be done with the lake to make the mall even better.
She says they are exploring a number of options but won't give away any hints as to what may be replacing the attraction.
With files from Shane Jones.
© Global News. A division of Shaw Media Inc., 2012.