C.A.N.A.P.

"Carrefour National de l'Aquaculture et des Pêches".

I am rewriting this again because I took too long the first time and I lost everything when I clicked OK. Arrrgh!

After attending an unrelated meeting there today, we were treated to a guided tour of the place.

The building, designed by an architect from Gaspé, is designed to make visitors believe they are on a boat, from water reflections on the inside walls to looking outside through round windows at fences simulating fishing nets to walls simulating the outside of a wharf to outside balconies as if you were on the bridge looking at the sea. It's fascinating. The slanted wall (on the picture) is not white, it's the sun shining on its metal shingles and it simulates a big sail.

It was built during the last 3 years at a cost of 6.5M$. Phase 2 is supposed to add a research facility. For now, it is aimed at tourists who want to know everything about aquaculture.

The tour normally lasts almost 2 hours but since we didn't have much time for it, they offered an abbreviated version of 30 minutes. The young woman handling the tour was speaking as fast as she could and it was so interesting that we all stayed for over an hour.

A section of the laboratory part was on sea urchins. I told them we had our own sea urchin culture at Blipfoto.