A Winter Playground Along The Ottawa River

Do we say Happy Leap Year Day? It sounds a bit of a jumble. Anyway, I'm marking the occasion over at my writer's blog with an image post.

This view in Jacques Cartier Park takes in the Ottawa River and Ottawa itself on the far side, with Parliament Hill standing out. The park featured more snow sculptures this year, as well as snow slides, and a stage area for performers. It is always busy here during Winterlude.

Costumed Characters Within The Park

While I was passing through the busy park, a trio of costumed people were attracting the attention of kids. They had the general look of porcupines- albeit with walking sticks or pouches. It was fun to watch them, and a bit of a challenge to photograph them.

Inuktitut Names And Traditional Music

Music could be found in Jacques Cartier Park. There were a trio gathered around the fire, playing and singing traditional French Canadian music.

Elsewhere it was possible to get your name written down in the Inuktitut language, spoken by First Nations people of the North.

This is my name in Inuktitut, resting on my leather jacket. Yes, for the record, I don't go by my actual name online.

There were also snow sculptures in the park, such as this one.

Jacques Cartier Park And Winterlude

Before getting started today, some of you already know this, but for others, many of you know Tina, aka East Gwillimbury Camera Girl. She's been a photoblogger and regular visitor to many blogs. I'm sad to say that earlier this week she and her husband died in a car accident in southern Ontario. It's a shock to all of us who knew her through her blog, and all the more so to their family and close friends. Here is the link for her final post, and if you're at Facebook, stop by her page.

Across the Ottawa River in Gatineau, Jacques Cartier Park is turned into a winter playground for Winterlude, as I'll be showing through to the end of the month. This included a zipline.

It also included dog sleds. One could hear their barks from a good way off- the barks were coming from the team that were off leash having a break, while these dogs were raring to go.

Snow Sculptures And Evening Light

This is the finished sculpture I showed you as a work in progress yesterday. The building that was asked about behind most of these shots is the Aberdeen Pavilion, which I've shown on previous occasions.

The sculptures have a different mood when they're photographed in the evening, with coloured light shining on them.

Carving Shapes Out Of The Snow

Most of the snow sculptures at Lansdowne Park were completed when I stopped by to take photographs, but one was being worked on by this fellow, using a chainsaw. I thought it was an interesting idea to photograph some of the process.

I'll show you the finished sculpture in tomorrow's post. Here are two of the other sculptures.

Snow Sculptures At Lansdowne

Large snow sculptures were erected at Lansdowne Park during Winterlude, in Aberdeen Square. I have more from here over the next two days.

Sculptures And Stilt Walkers

Some more of the outdoor ice sculptures erected in Confederation Park. These were quite suitably sized for posing beside or behind. The mushroom in the fourth shot was one of several- these are used for interactive activities with kids, who can stick coloured blocks of ice onto the surfaces. That I didn't photograph.

This bench was erected in the shelter where the pairs sculptures were. It's possible that one of the sculptures came apart after the first weekend- this worker was putting some finishing touches on this replacement.

Two stilt walkers were crossing Laurier Avenue out of the park on their way to City Hall. I'll have these two again before I'm done with the Winterlude series (which is going to take me more than a month from my start date, by the way). I don't know if these might have been the same stilt walkers I featured some days ago.