Mont-Tremblant – Day 9 – Ottawa

Apologies dear readers for leaving yesterday’s blog on a cliffhanger and taking a few days to write today’s.

We decided to take a walk before breakfast, to retrace last night’s walk, to try to find Cindy‘s key card. The first place we stopped was the bridge on Laurier Avenue over the canal where I saw this devilish face, which I had missed the night before. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the key card.

We continued on in front of the armory, the Fire Service Memorial, and City Hall, keeping our eyes on the ground, to no avail.

As we walked around the fountain on the far side of City Hall, Cindy gave a shout of success. The card was lying there on the ground where it had fallen. I realized that I had a picture at that exact spot from the night before probably taken just a Cindy dropped her card. She is in between the two fountains at the centre of the picture.

We went to SecondCup for a celebratory coffee before heading back to the residence for breakfast.

We coordinated our clothing with our brand new jerseys today.

Today we are riding the Big Loop, a route I found on the Ottawa Rural Routes Ride with GPS account. There is a new edit feature on Ride with GPS that allows you to easily change the starting point of a ride, which allowed me to quickly have the ride start on campus, rather than in the southwest corner of Ottawa. The route took us to the south end of the campus, where there is an LRT stop and the design is well done for bikes, as well, with a nice wide ramp, that goes under the road, leading to an Active Transportation bridge that crosses the canal.

The bridge was covered in love locks.

We deviated slightly from the route to see the Canadian Fire Services memorial with a much larger than life fireman.

Next we visited the Holocaust Memorial. The architect is Daniel Libeskind’s firm. He was also the architect for the Crystal addition at the Royal Ontario Museum. Edward Burtynsky is the artist who created the large murals on the concrete slabs.

It is very well done with many information panels that explain the holocaust and admit to Canada‘s failure to save Jewish people from the holocaust due to very restrictive immigration policies.

“Immigration to Canada was extremely difficult for those seen as undesirable, including Jews, Chinese, people of African descent and those considered disabled or physically and mentally compromised. Antisemitism contributed to the problems facing Jewish refugees. During an off-the-record discussion with journalists, a high-ranking immigration official was asked how many Jews Canada was prepared to admit; he responded, “None is too many.” These barriers dashed any hopes European Jews had that Canada might be a place of refuge, and Jewish Canadians lacked the political power needed to change government policies.”

At this point, only 5 km into our 30 km ride, it was already midday, and we were close to the Mill Street brewpub, which is in a very pleasant location on the Ottawa river, accessible by the Trans Canada Trail, so we stopped there for lunch.

Shortly after lunch, we came upon the Remic Rapids Balanced Rock Sculpture Project.

“In 1986 John Felice Coprano began creating balanced natural rock sculptures at this site. The sculptures are made entirely by hand, using rock found exclusively at this location. The rocks are heavily fosolized, and have a rich variety of colours, textures and forms that are unique to the region. Every day, the sculptor returns to work, creating sculptures until the fall when the project is dismantled for the winter. The National Capital Commission has provided support for the project since 2000.”

The path along the river was exceptionally busy with cyclists, and had great connections to routes branching to the south.

When we headed south, we continued on a multi-use path. We passed an LRT station. There were a few deviations from the route because of the construction of the extension of the LRT, however, the detours were well marked.

We rode through Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm, an agricultural facility, working farm, and research centre of the Science and Technology Branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

From there, we rode the Hartwells locks, of the Rideau canal, near Carleton University. The Rideau Canal is considered a cultural site of “outstanding universal value,” and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007. It is the only continuously operated canal system of its kind in North America.

Only the tulip stems were left from Ottawa’s Tulip Festival, which has beautiful gardens around Dows lake.

When I was here in 2017 with a group of seven from BikeBrampton we were given a bike tour of the city by Heather from BikeOttawa, who told us about a new Active Transportation bridge that was planned across the Rideau Canal. We were able to ride across it today.

In search of ice cream, we had the serendipitous experience of discovering Lansdowne Park. It was originally a venue for agricultural affairs, and during the winter months had one of Ottawa’s earliest skating and hockey ranks. The 1904 Stanley Cup final was played at Lansdowne. It is now a combination of a stadium, playing fields, exhibition buildings, retail, and some residential.

There was an event on today that featured outdoor spin classes and indoor and outdoor yoga sessions, and a market.

The bike racks all over the property were jammed full.

We headed back out to the canal, and then rather than staying on the canal path rode along the parkway, which was closed for active transportation. Ottawa does this every Saturday and Sunday during the warm weather.

Next we went back to the Ottawa Art Gallery to see an exhibition by Norman Takeuchi. As a child, he and his family were forcibly sent to Westwold, British Columbia due to their Japanese heritage. This happened when Canada declared war on Japan in December 1941 and they were not permitted to return to the West Coast until 1949.

Japanese Canadians had their property seized and forcibly sold. This piece represents the 1200 Japanese Canadian fishing boats that were seized.

We returned to the hotel and made ourselves grilled cheese sandwiches and ate the last of our groceries for dinner.

After dinner we went for a walk around campus.

I loved this building – the School of Information Technology, and Engineering. As I walked around, it felt very familiar to me, and reminded me of the William Davis Computer Research Centre at the University of Waterloo, and when I looked up the architect, Ron Keenberg, I discovered that he designed both buildings.