Last week Forest Whales traveled over 1,100 miles across Wisconsin, bringing Clara the whale to four libraries and over 2,500 people. One third of Rio showed up. A little girl in Shullsburg came back three times. And inside the whale, sperm whales named their babies and a 200-year-old bowhead stopped everyone cold.

Wisconsin has no ocean. And yet, when a 56-foot gray whale named Clara shows up in a school gymnasium, kids hug her nose. Unprompted. Instinctively. With the kind of affection children reserve for things that feel alive. This is what ocean conservation education looks like in a landlocked state.

Over 830 people showed up in Burlington, Wisconsin, on a Saturday. The line stretched long enough that the wait exceeded an hour. What made it possible wasn't just a 56-foot whale. It was what happens when libraries decide to work together.

As a 40-something-year-old father of two, I’m constantly on the lookout for family-friendly travel destinations that strike the perfect...