Corktown Bridge

I'm taking a couple of days away from Confederation Park for another side of Winterlude, the Rideau Canal. We're looking north on the final stretch of the Canal. You can see the Chateau Laurier there in the distance. This shot is taken from the Corktown Bridge.

Looking south, we see more skaters. The Canal is much busier on the weekends right now than when I took this, on a weekday, but even so, a fair number of people get onto it during the day. The bridge itself is relatively new, a pedestrian crossing between the University of Ottawa, there on the left, and Centretown to the right. It gets a good deal of use during the day, and is a rather graceful bridge as it spans across the Canal.

And it does attract that odd tendency people have to fasten locks to the railings that we see on other bridges in other cities.

There are staircases leading down to the Canal from each side of the bridge, and temporary stairs down below onto the ice itself. From here, you're getting a better look at the bridge itself, with the mix of the campus buildings beyond it.

I like the shape of the supports, and thought they'd frame skaters rather nicely for this shot.

And here's what the bridge looks like from the surface of the ice. It bears the name Corktown as a nod to the many Irish workers who came over to work on the construction of the Canal in the 1820s and 1830s. Many settled in the Ottawa Valley afterwards, and to this day, there is still a strong Irish presence in the valley, so the name suits the bridge. And the bridge itself, I've always thought, enhances the Canal itself.