Sun rising on the Ottawa

I'm cheating. This photo wasn't taken by me; it was linked from one of the websites I most frequently visit, the Ottawa page at The Weather Network, which incidentally is predicting a "feels like" temperature of -7º for tonight.

Posted by Gabrielle McCann, this photo was apparently taken this morning on the Hurtubise Boulevard in Gatineau, looking south across the Ottawa River. Note the leafless tree in the foreground!

The playground by the water's edge

End of October, 2011

A winding path leads from the corner of Rose Street and Cathcart Street towards through Bordeleau Park to the wall of the Chinese Embassy grounds, the playground at the end temptingly colourful beyond the trees. Children at the Bordeleau Park playground don't usually venture towards the river, although there's not much to prevent them from doing so, because their protectors are there and in any case because the playground has too many attractions for them to want to wander far.

At this time of year I feel nostalgic, remembering the visit of our then two-year-old grandson a couple of years ago. He enjoyed this corner of the park very much.

End of October, 2009

Late autumn

Another restful walk home from the other side of the Minto Bridges and along the river banks this afternoon. Next week the clocks are put back for the start of winter time, although there is still plenty of colour and life around us, crows cawing from the unity tower, seagulls squawking from the fence posts on Green Island (where we've also twice seen a rabbit sitting in the grass after dark this month––the same one?), ducks on the water.

Some of the small trees growing on the banks are covered with black berries: I think they are either chokeberries (Aronia Melanocarpa, or some kind of buckthorn.

Water levels look very low in both the Ottawa River and the Rideau at the moment with stony beaches emerging; no doubt they'll disappear again soon. The Rideau Canal was already drained of most of its water a couple of weeks ago and won't take boats through the city again for another 5 or 6 months now.

A little red tree

The autumn leaves haven't yet completely gone in spite of some heavy rain and winds this week. Newly planted trees can be found growing by the Rideau River these days and being small are sheltered by the larger ones, so don't lose their colour so quickly. This young maple catches my eye near our house. You can see why.

A walk for the dogs

Sunday afternoon, as we left Cathcart Street, we saw a long line of people, far more than normal, taking their dogs for a walk by the river. There must be some reason for that, I assumed, and sure enough I discover that the Cumberland Lions Club organised this event to raise money for guide dogs, or dog guides, as they prefer to call them: a stroll from the De La Salle school opposite the Chinese Embassy following the river banks back to the Rockcliffe Retirement Residence on Porter Island—more or less our usual evening walk, in fact.

Here is a map showing the route of the dog walk.

I noticed that all the dogs were on leashes on this occasion; that's not always the case, but near our house it ought to be. Undisciplined, off-leash dogs can be a hazard to people and to themselves. An over-excited dog could veer off into the traffic on King Edward Island if it's not kept under control, or in early / late winter could run onto the thin ice of the (deep, cold, rushing) river and fall through, closely followed by its owner (trying to rescue it) in some cases. Such tragedies have been known to happen.

According to this map dogs are allowed to run free in Bordeleau Park and in New Edinburgh Park across the river. The Ottawa Bylaw 2003 - 77 has a good deal to say on the subject of dogs and parks: see sections 42-48 of that document.

Two tributaries of the Ottawa

We flew to Lachute and back last weekend, following the Ottawa River below us, and passing the mouth of the Rivière Rouge on the Quebec side, where a bridge has very recently been constructed to take the new Gatineau-Montreal highway across. This was one of the major obstacles for the engineers and construction crews on this project.

On the way home from Lachute (east of Hawkesbury) we overflew the mouth of the South Nation River on the Ontario side, in a landscape that's less wild and more cultivated. There's been a bridge there for some years, taking Highway 17 across, and remnants of an older bridge.

Aboard the Paula D.

CFUW-Ottawa's Diplomatic Hospitality Group invited diplomat families and friends to a cruise on the Ottawa River last week, on the Paula D., a river boat chartered from Paul's Boat Lines. About 130 people came along.

A Rockcliffe headland seen from on board

View from the Paula D.

The water was calm and smooth on a cold but very bright October morning, the passengers feeling the chill on the top deck, although it was cosy enough on the enclosed deck below where soup and sandwiches were being served. We sailed from the Hull Marina to beyond the confluence with the Gatineau River at Pointe Gatineau before turning back, but were too busy socialising to pay very much attention to the scenery, except for the Rideau Falls on the way out, which the boat approached closely enough for us to feel the spray.

With a D.J. on board the dancing soon began to dance and that and the sunshine warmed people up. Then, introduced by the Indian High Commissioner's wife Rina Gavai who was participating in the cruise, a special entertainment was provided by Indian dancers, demonstrating a classical dance in costumes meant for a warmer climate, and bare feet, with anklets of little bells.

Indian classical dancers entertain the cruise passengers

On an autumn evening

A calm, fine evening this evening, with the poplar trees making perfect reflections in the Rideau, the surface of the water tinged pink by the sunset. To the delight of my visitors from overseas, a beaver swam in circles, slapping its tail on the water and diving when it noticed we were there. A flock of geese took off from the lawn beside the newly named John G. Diefenbaker building. We looked for groundhogs on Maple Island but only found their holes.

Frost is forecast for tonight with the temperature probably dropping to 0º.

25 years of protest

Pulling out into Cathcart Street yesterday, I drove past a group of people standing at a trestle table that had been erected in the Bordeleau Park. On the table was a large cake decorated with a 25. That's an odd place for a birthday party, I thought, but it wasn't that exactly. It was a gathering to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the King Edward Avenue Task Force, a pressure group that for the last quarter century (!) has been trying in vain to do something about the heavy volume of traffic rolling down this large road through our residential neighbourhood. A report of their get-together on Saturday morning made the front page of the City section of the Ottawa Citizen today.

The MacDonald-Cartier Bridge, from the Gatineau side

The local politicians and councillors all claim to support the Task Force and agree that something has to be done, but very little headway is made, the sticking point being the need for an alternative to the MacDonald-Cartier interprovincial bridge, towards which King Edward Avenue leads, straight as a die, drawing heavy vehicles right through Ottawa's downtown core. And, as the article in the citizen says, drivers on their way home to Quebec race along the avenue towards the bridge at 75kph, even though the posted speed limit is 40kph. There are not enough bridges across the Ottawa, but where should the new one be built? that is the perennial question.

...any discussion of building another bridge to link Ottawa with Gatineau - across Kettle Island or the Upper and Lower Duck islands have been well-discussed options - are generally met with strong opposition from those neighbourhoods ...

The old rail bridge (at the bottom of my photo),
with Lemieux Island behind it

So far, the only candidate who has come round to our house before the provincial elections next week has been the Green Party candidate, Dave Bagler. He told me he favoured "the Canotek option" for the siting of the next bridge across the Ottawa, and also thought that the disused rail bridge (the Prince of Wales Bridge) upstream of the Chaudière Falls should be repaired and brought back into service.

I agree. All it takes is the political will to make these things happen.

Red and green

Wikipedia photo of Staghorn Sumac

Along the banks of the Ottawa the sumac (rhus typhina) leaves are gradually turning red; some of them are still green. I pointed out the bi-coloured sumac bushes to my husband today as we were driving above the river, but because he is red / green colourblind, he said, "I don't see anything different from the usual." It's a pity he misses such a beautiful juxtaposition of colour.

The sumacs' conical fruit (aka drupes) have been red since mid-summer. As First Nations people know, or used to know, apart from their medicinal properties, these plants have numerous other potential uses:

... The leaves are rich in tannin, up to 48% has been obtained in a controlled plantation. They can be collected as they fall in the autumn and used as a brown dye or as a mordant. The bark, especially the root bark, and the fruits are also very rich in tannin. A yellow dye can be obtained from the roots. An orange dye can be obtained from the inner bark and central pith of the stem, mixed with bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). A black ink can be made by boiling the leaves and the fruit. An oil is extracted from the seeds. It attains a tallow-like consistency on standing and is used to make candles. These burn brilliantly, though they emit a pungent smoke. Pipes are made from the young shoots and are used for drawing the sap of sugar maples. They are also used as flutes. The plant has an extensive root system and is planted as a windbreak screen and to prevent soil erosion.

(from Plants for a Future)