The entrance to the Biodôme is an architectural dream of swooping creams and whites, arcing between the cement, buttress-like skeleton of the former Vélodrome. It envelops and forms curated views of the sky, concealing any trace of the habitats within.

Area 1: Laurentian Maple Forest

The environment is a carefully curated sunny Spring morning, with a constant breeze. Follow a downwards spiral and peek into the otter’s den. The glass separations, about 5 feet high, keep hands out of the way. Above then below. The seen and the secret. The enclosure ends in the depths of the beaver lodge where we are the all-seeing knowers, witnesses of duck feet and infrared nests.

It begins with the feeling of heavy metal beads rolling over the front of my body, the sound of them ringing out like chimes as the beads swing and clink together.

Warm bright sunlight, half natural, half artificial hits my skin. The feeling of wind. The sound of trees in the breeze, a mechanical whirring. The quality of light is oddly similar to what I remember of eclipse sunlight, in the hour leading up to the main event, when the shadows have an unsettling quality. These two different sources of light separate and come together in waves I can’t see, but I can feel. I try to take a photo and my phone struggles to auto adjust between natural and artificial light, between the harsh direct shadows from the spotlights mixed with the soft diffused natural light from a cloudy day at 10am.

I run my hands over the huge rocks by the entrance, feeling for history, for dirt. I rub my fingertips together and they feel as clean as they were before, no dust or residue. How is it that nothing is there? There is a constant, strong wind in the enclosure. Perhaps that keeps the dust from settling, or perhaps these rocks are surfaces that get disinfected due to their use as leaning posts.

The beaded curtains are still clinking softly in the background like windchimes.

In certain areas, the rocks gleam from layers of oils from human hands and forearms, as we all collectively look out and survey “the land.” Viewers begin from a small elevated height, and gradually descend in a spiral.

The beaded curtains make a prolonged series of abrasive sounds as an aluminum baby stroller is forced through.

Somewhere there is an otter. My heart rate builds like a child, hoping to see it, scared I'll miss it if I look away for too long. I press against the glass on my tip-toes, trying to peer over it to get a better view. I think the otter must have just turned seven. There’s an out of place brightly coloured gelatin slab in the enclosure, embedded with a large blue 7. There are pieces of it scattered everywhere. A party I missed. Back on flat feet, the glass partition reflects what I don’t want to see, my own body, and obscures any sighting of the potential otter.

I move on to the beaver habitat, winding down the spiral path. The ducks on the surface of the water sleep, or pretend to, with heads tucked into wings. Ripples kicking up as they keep themselves moving, trying to avoid being the proverbial “sitting ducks.” The otherwise still water has algae building up. I can smell it if I get very close, but the constant breeze keeps the odor from rising and building.

Horsetail fern. Pine. Maple. Duckweed. Chewed logs, placed outside the habitat, are the only signs of beavers from, and appear to be manufactured.

Over the hum of the crowd I listen to the sound of a robin chirping. Tuk - tuk - yeep. It takes small hops between the lettuce snacks, propped up using the holes in driftwood logs. They remind me of skunk cabbages, rising out of the spring swamps.

Loud shrieks of glee let me know that the otter has appeared. Shouts in French and English, from young and old voices. The rest of the enclosure empties as everyone flocks to the otter wall. Through arms and legs, I see the otter slipping down its manufactured rock slide.

The light is warm, but it makes my eyes hurt, like being on a stage. The same sort of heat as well, the heat of performance, hot under the collar, trying to remember my lines, my role, my part in the larger play.

I wind down and into the darkness beneath the beaver lodge, which is made of painted concrete and not sticks. A large wall of glass shows the underview of the beaver pond. The feet of the duck are in constant motion. From this view, the water becomes a mirror that reflects the feet up again, creating rorschach-like images.

Beside the glass wall, the beavers are under constant surveillance, with a camera embedded within their actual lodge and a monitor showing them in their nest.

Another metal beaded curtain marks the change between one biome into the next.

In between the St. Lawrence Basin + Laurentian Maple Forest

In this liminal transition area, vents like portholes run into walls that seem impossibly deep, twisting and disappearing into darkness. A gentle room temperature breeze comes out. Filtered air. It feels like how filtered water tastes. Suspiciously empty. Marked by its absence more than its presence. This air is marked by absence. Purity. The ideal is absence. Diffused light comes from large round LED light fixtures that aren’t present anywhere else, resembling an IKEA showroom.

In this area a few of us get out some snacks. There are trash bins that imply we may have trash to dispose of at this point.

As I eat my snack, the harshness of the constant clash of the metal beads is wearing on my nervous system. High pitched children. High pitched beads.

Area 2: St. Lawrence Basin

We are meant to feel underwater, as if in the belly of a large ship. Children can climb up the walls and peer out small portfolio windows. In the larger room, there is a huge observation wall designed to wrap around and make us feel a part of the underwater scene. In the open air room, there are 3 different water environments: shore, tidal pools, and brackish water. We ascend from the depths to a nautical observation deck surrounded by cliffs and water. It is designed to make you feel like you are looking out at a great expanse.

An amphitheater of screams. Children smashing against glass. Wails and thuds and camera flashes. We are under a warm light, pot lit. The wall of fish glows a cool blue. Somewhere I hear more beaded curtains.

Each time a sturgeon goes by, children scream in delight and horror. I long for an atmosphere of reverence. For the strictness of a mass. This space is not designed to absorb noise, but to amplify it without purpose. Hard floors. Low metal ceiling. Concrete supports. It is a constant commotion with tinny, short reverberation. Without warmth, every scream becomes a knife. I feel anger building in my body. My ears ache. I want to stay and observe the sturgeons, but I can’t handle the noise. In order to go into the next area I have to pass through another beaded curtain. As the beads grow louder, my ears ring and I wince as I pass through into the larger habitat.

The acoustics open up into a large open area. I feel relief move through my body. I hear water lapping on the shore. Then the desperate call of a human mother looking for her child. Screaming their name again and again. She is at the very top of the room, maybe 40 feet up. Her voice carries over the whole enclosure with a shrillness. A black bellied plover makes a mournful plooo-eeee eee-eee.

I see Labrador tea growing. It brings back memories of the sweet scent of the swaths of bushes in the wild. However, this bush isn’t doing well and it's too far away to smell. There is a wild rose bush a bit closer, but there are only a few blooms, so the scent doesn’t carry. Instead of sweet floral, I smell faint salinity and pine trees.

I grow angry again hearing the constant clamour of the beaded curtains and the loudness of my fellow humans. It overpowers the rhythmic sound of the water lapping.

I find out that all the rocks are indeed fake, carefully painted concrete.

Some mechanism from within the false rock wall keeps the shallow water constantly ebbing and flowing, lapping at the shore.

In this room, you spiral upwards. I move towards the simulated tidal pools where I spot a lazy break in the carefully curated simulation. A series of cables running into the water are haphazardly wrapped in plastic seaweed, barely obscured. They are bright blue. Seeing them makes me aware of how many other cords must be running through everything.

More breaks in the simulation. There is a square section of peat moss half-stuck to the rock, like newly placed sod. In this particular section, there is also a revealed facade - where the concrete rock is deliberately textured in order to be less detailed and more conducive to the mosses adhering.

The rocks in the water are intricately painted to show false tides and watermarks, iron stains and moss. Having spent two months this past year living along the brackish area of the St. Lawrence, I noticed that there are quite a few things missing. One of the main things I missed seeing was lichen growing on the rocks. In the true saline air, the rocks foster huge bursts of crustaceous lichen.

In this large, spacious room, there is no breeze. The water in this section is still. I wonder why not here when there’s the constant wind in the other enclosures. Is it because there are fewer trees, or trees that don’t specifically need wind to grow? Coniferous as opposed to deciduous?  But wouldn’t the gulls want to feel the wind? Shouldn’t it be strong so they can glide and get some exercise? The stillness undermines the created seascape.

I lean against the “rocks” at the top of the enclosure. There are a few small ants that crawl along, eventually ending up on my hand. They are the kind of ants that are so small you can’t even feel them. As small as poppyseeds. A gull swoops low over my head, perhaps just a foot above. I feel the displaced air woosh. Another one goes over me shortly after. I must be interrupting a routine, an afternoon flightpath to the other side of the enclosure. A third one goes over. This time a group of people laugh and smile at me. The established distance is breaking.

I move to overlook the body of water that shifts with the slow weight of the sturgeons swimming the perimeter. I shift my gaze to look straight down, where I can see exposed wires sticking out of the rocks - they look like electrical wires this time. It seems unsafe to have them so close to the water, but they are properly capped and insulated. Somewhere nearby must be a build up of feces, something akin to a hamster cage - ammonia perhaps? I keep sniffing and try to place the scent. It’s familiar, but in a different, non-wildlife context. I finally identify it: the NYC subway on a humid day, when the underground concrete sweats and mixes with the dragged in silt and scent of old urine. Certainly a version of a hamster cage.

As I near the transitional area, I laugh because the beaded curtains have reached a new low. The glass and metal doors are closed, so there is a double layer to go through, causing the metal beads to hit against the metal for several minutes after each viewer leaves. The sound is loud and painful.

Area 3: Subpolar

A small area designed to both look and feel cold. It is fully enclosed with glass. Dark and blue. The sensory part of the room is the ice walls and the temperature. There is not much noise from the animals that cross over. The penguins are on flat rock sheets and the Labrador birds are on built up cliff faces.

Immediate chill, like entering a walk-in freezer at a commercial kitchen. Except instead of the sterile bright lights of the fridge, the only light is from the unconventional walls. The walls form a tunnel like structure and are made entirely of ice. Their glow comes from embedded lights that emit an icy blue. The dewy layer on my skin that had built up from the warmth of the other environments cools and creates an uncomfortable feeling between my skin and my clothing.

The ice tunnel wraps and leads to a small observatory style room. This area is unlike the others in both size and feeling. There is no natural light whatsoever. The birds are lit with harsh lights coming from a singular angle, coming from above the area where the observation room is. There is a three tiered seating area that faces two glass walls, one fully sealed with penguins behind and one with a foot gap at the top with puffins and other Labrador-area birds.

I’ve heard that before the penguins were fully sealed in, the smell of their feces was both unmistakable and unforgettable. Now that they are fully sealed in, I feel like I am looking very specifically at an exhibit, opposed to entering into an environment. The only feeling the viewer is able to participate in is the cold. A few penguins dive into the small reservoir of water and appear to play, but the majority stand on the rocks, standing as still as taxidermied displays.

People move much faster through this area, perhaps due to the cold, or perhaps due to this room feeling much more contained and unnatural. There is a sinister quality to the room and the lights, making it feel like a panopticon-like bird jail.

There are circles of foam padding on the ceiling, likely installed in order to help absorb the noise. Despite being a small room and the penguins being so exciting to the children, this area is much quieter than the sturgeon room. I could stay longer, but my body is uncomfortable and the animals seem unstimulated and uninterested in their surroundings.

There are no beaded curtains for entry or exit.

Area 4: Rainforest

A large warm room, filled with foliage that towers up to the top of the enclosure. This room is the most “convincing” despite being the most foreign to a Canadian context. Perhaps because of how unfamiliar it is, this gives it an advantage. There are slight ups and downs along the winding path, eventually leading up to the very top of the room. Some of the trees are real, while others are cement and hiding water and electrical systems. The sound does not carry. It is warmed by the breathing plant matter.

After the final beaded curtain, I’m immediately hit with thick air, a sweet warmth. Humid decay. It reminds me of ambergris, the strange and wonderful fragrance made from bile secretions of sperm whales. Ambergris smells like tooth decay, rot, sweat, but when warmed by the sun it begins to smell floral and complex, bringing out pleasant notes of whatever it mixes with. The thick air in the enclosure causes the scent of perfumes on others to hang heavy in the air, lingering. Although I can smell those who have moved on to other areas, I feel further away from everyone. The heavy air and the dense vegetation creates a barrier between myself and others.

The light in here is a mix of natural light and large amber coloured lights similar to the sodium vapor lights that were popularly used in street lights. They cast a glow like golden hour in the summer. It makes me feel as if it’s later in the day than it is.

I sniff the surface of one of the large rocks. Despite knowing it’s only concrete, I try to intake what odors there are. I smell the built up moss, dried bird poop, and jasmine that has fallen off of a tree nearby.

I move on to a bridge that overlooks a creek that flows into a caiman habitat. Two caimans lie completely motionless. I watch for any movement, however slight. One moves its back leg with a quick twitch. A small stream flows out. The thick scent of dark urine rises up, filling my nostrils, displacing any other scent. The caiman remains entirely still as the puddle slowly absorbs around it into the already wet sand.

There is some rain happening over by the silver dollar fish. It provides a cool breeze, lowering the temperature in the area by at least a few degrees. It smells somewhat sweet. I try to decipher if there is a hint of petrichor. But the scent of petrichor only occurs when it is raining after a period of dryness, when there is certain bacteria in dried grasses or other plant matter. I doubt in this highly regulated environment that there is ever any dryness.

There is peat moss everywhere, stuck to almost every available surface, sustaining the growth of orchids and ferns. It is moist and cool to the touch. I break some off and bring it up to my nose - the scent is unmistakable, but it’s mixed with something else. There’s a mineral quality to the scent. I push it further apart between my fingers and see traces of perlite and potting soil.

I walk into the darkness of the reptile filled walls, which are plastered with the faces and sweaty palms of children, leaving smears behind. I don’t attempt to break through for a better look. At the end of the dark tunnel is the Bat Cave. It is dark, silent, without anyone looking inside. It is dimly lit by a purple UV light. I see the bat wings but hear no flapping. I see the mice scurrying along the ground, but hear no squeaking.

It was a quick, cool repreve before emerging back out into the bright light of the tropics. There is the sound of a waterfall. Some spraying mist. People navigate around others who are trying to get the perfect photo, creating a current of diverted flow.

The southern screecher lives up to its name and calls everyone to attention. Like a call to prayer or to dinner. Another screecher responds.

A scarlet ibis flies directly overhead, causing screams of fear and delight. A sign tells me to look closely, there is a sloth, somewhere. I look closely but don’t see anything. I’m told it lives very high up and they have to deliver food to it using a pulley system. Out of curiosity, trying to get closer to the sloth, I walk up the tall wrapping staircase to reach the treetop level for a better view.

The air gets thicker and hotter with each increase in altitude. The wooden steps shake underfoot. No sloth in sight, but there is a door leading to the mezzanine.

Mezzanine

A sort of upper balcony with a top-down view into all the enclosures. It reveals the Biodôme’s orange-like structure, with each segment meeting in the middle. It is white and open, with bright yellow tubes for the informational area.

Everything is seen. I observe my past self being observed. I see the working behind the scenes. People call out obnoxiously over the rafters, trying to get the attention of those below, but their voices seem not to carry.

I see the infrastructure of everything: the construction workers re-doing the Lynx enclosure, someone at a desk in behind the beaver lodge facade. I can see every biotope at once.

There is a sadness to this perspective. The perspective of a stagehand, but a stagehand without purpose. Playing witness to the system. A god without powers.

In this area, there is also an informational section on how the animals are cared for and sustained. It is mediated by various forms of technology and requires different methods of interaction, from ducking into a tube to simply pushing a button.

A small blue and brown bird from the St. Lawrence Basin enclosure flies all the way up to where I am and grips to the black fencing right in front of me. I see its chest expanding and contracting. I feel my own chest beat as well. We are both at the limits of our experience, pressed against the boundaries.