I have a familiar perspective from atop the Bank Street Bridge today. This photo from last winter looks west. The Rideau Canal finally opened this weekend for skaters, at least in part. The skateway starts from below here- the fence is right about where the staircases are- up to the Corktown Bridge downtown. The rest of the Canal, west from this spot and all the way to the end from the Corktown Bridge, should be open soon. On the gray day I shot this, there were relatively few skaters on this stretch of the Canal, but that can change very quickly. Particularly with rush hour when many civil servants decide to commute home by skating.
I have skated on that canal, but it has been decades. I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteCommute by skating! Imagine that! [ I guess you don't have to]
ReplyDeleteALOHA from Honolulu
ComfortSpiral
<3
I think Cloudia`s idea sounds great. Is that possible?
ReplyDeleteHere there are people jogging to and from work!
Wow , I'd be worried, how this is the ice?
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun way to get home. Though I don't want to go to work that way, somehow, going home, I'd be okay with.
ReplyDeleteA paradise for skaters !
ReplyDeleteI would like to skate there.
Imagine skating home from work... no I just can't William :)
ReplyDeleteNow that would be one cool commute. :-)
ReplyDeleteThat has to be one of the great assets of Ottawa! What a fine place to skate or "commute." Looks so gray, though. Winter in the north.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, William, for your thoughtful comments! They are appreciated a great deal!
This is so wonderful!
ReplyDeleteOh that looks like an old dutch picture when we have an icy winter. This year however we only have more water then we already have here.
ReplyDeleteIn that country who can not skate is lost , right? ...
ReplyDeleteTomás.
How lovely to have such wide canals, and being able to skate on them is even better!
ReplyDeleteI really love the idea of civil servants commuting by skating! I would really like to see this somewhere here...
ReplyDeleteSkating outside near a bonfire at night... the best.
ReplyDeleteSkating to commute, that's a new one to me.
ReplyDelete@Linda: many people do.
ReplyDelete@Cloudia: I guess it makes sense, particularly if you live near the Canal.
@Gunn: I've seen people skating at the end of the day who clearly look like they're just getting off the job.
@Bill: the ice is pretty good skating surface. They do flood it every few days to smooth things out.
@Whisk: it might be faster than commuting by car or bus!
@Karl: it draws a lot of skaters over the season.
@Grace: not likely in Australia!
@Lowell: we tend to get many gray days in winter.
@Luis: thanks!
@Marianne: I know many Dutch skaters come here just for the skating in February, to be out on a Canal.
@Tomas: well, I can't skate!
@Chrissy: it's quite a big skating surface.
@VP: it takes the right kind of climate.
@Birdman: give me the bonfire!
@Sharon: it happens here!
@Revrunner: definitely!
@
True.
DeleteThis looks awesome, I love the idea of seeing a bunch of people in suits skating around on the way home from work...
ReplyDeleteso very cool! now that might actually get me to try ice skating!
ReplyDeleteOnce I took my skates to Ottawa and skated most of the canal. It was fabulous!
ReplyDeleteThese canals are well known for skating. My daughter went to Ottawa in the winter. She took her skates but the canals weren't frozen. She was disappointed.
ReplyDeleteWish I had learned to ice skate. I'm afraid I'm too old to try it now. Might break something.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been skating there for so long! Have you?
ReplyDeletehow neat, i think i'd rather use skating as my form of transportation too!
ReplyDelete@Aimee: it certainly is different.
ReplyDelete@Tex: it certainly brings out a lot of skaters.
@Gnome: a lot of people have been impatient for the ice to open.
@Red: it happens sometimes that the ice is late opening or early in closing up for the season.
@Judy: I've had the occasional fall on the ice.
@Jennifer: I never learned how to skate, but I do walk good stretches of the skateway during the season.
@Tanya: many do!
Wow, people commute by skating? What a great idea! It must keep them in good shape physically and also mentally as I imagine they don't need to deal with traffic :-)
ReplyDeleteIt must be so much fun to skate in such a huge link. We have skate link appearing in the mall during winter, and it's teeny tiny!
not cold enough here what ice we have is too thin.
ReplyDeleteThat is so neat. I haven't skated in years, but it looks like it would be a fun commute! :)
ReplyDeleteIf this were here the ice would be crowded :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful way to commute, beats the traffic on the roads any day. Love the picture. Discussed your blog with hubs the other day and will show him this photo. He remembers people skating on the river from his business trips up there many years ago. He had a colleague with two dogs. When he was invited to dinner one night he could not get the one dog to go near him, though the other was eager for a lot of fussing. When he mentioned this his colleague told him that the other dog was a wolf raised from a puppy. He had been abandoned. I always liked this story of the wolf whose leash pulled his owner around on skis in the winter time.
ReplyDeleteOlá William
ReplyDeleteDeve ser uma sensação maravilhosa patinar numa paisagem soberba como esta. Foto lindíssima
Um abraço
I wish I could commute skating!
ReplyDeleteIt has been a strange year for ice formation with all the ups and downs in temperature.
ReplyDeleteThat looks like such fun! What a smart way to get to work!
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a skating highway. A grand way to get around. And no petrol needed. Just energy.
ReplyDeleteThe canal seems good and nice place to skate. It's so long way to skate.
ReplyDeleteOn the sea there can skate only if there is no snow, but of course ice :), but it is very unusual. This winter has been very strange, some day -20 °C and some day +3 °C.
Commuting home by skating! I love it!
ReplyDeleteThat's something that can certainly help traffic congestion - ice skating! Not likely to be seen along the more temperate west coast.
ReplyDeleteNow that sounds like a fun way to commute!
ReplyDeleteSomething I've wanted to do for years is skate on the Rideau Canal. Do you skate on it?
ReplyDelete@Tamago: it's great exercise, and if you live close enough and work downtown or study at one of the universities, it's ideal for getting there.
ReplyDelete@Kreig: here the ice has to be thirty centimetres thick.
@Jen: I've never learned how to skate!
@Marleen: on the weekends in particular it really gets crowded.
@Denise: it's something that tends to draw out the entire city, it seems, even from the far edges.
@Gracita: thank you.
@Ciel: it would come in handy some days. I imagine some people beat their neighbours to work doing it this way.
@RedPat: we've had our ups and downs in temps.
@Tamera: or to school!
@Gemma: the plows that keep it clear do tend to make it a very wide path.
@Orvokki: we've had some of the same.
@Cheryl: to be followed by hot chocolate.
@Kay: not likely at all, no.
@Lois: though in minus thirty with a stiff wind, that Canal can feel pretty cold!
@Pamela: I walk it. I've never learned how to skate, but the sides are very easily walkable, and even crossing the ice is no problem as long as you take care.
Hi William...re your comment on Ocala: being quiet isn't the optical illusion...if you look closely, you will see it. The illusion was accidental and surprised the heck out of me.
ReplyDeleteSkating home on a commute might be faster than bicycling.
ReplyDeleteSkating home sounds like so much fun!
ReplyDeleteWow, that would be fun.
ReplyDeleteI admire those hardy Canucks who skate to work!
ReplyDeleteSkating home! That's wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI was hoping to see some skating scenes from the Rideau Canal before long. You showed some last year and I remember them as wonderful. Ottawa is lucky to have such a fine amenity in the middle of the city.
ReplyDelete@Lowell: thanks!
ReplyDelete@Mari: on some days, definitely!
@Janis: I know many people do it.
@Randy: for those who know how to do it.
@EG: it's a skill I never acquired.
@Linda: indeed!
@Jack: and I've already photographed skaters on the Canal for the first time this year.