Celebrating The National Birthday

Happy Fourth of July to my American readers! 

Today I am showing some of the sights from Canada Day here in Ottawa and Gatineau. I took a lot of shots, but will be saving the bulk of them for down the line, particularly since many of them are museum shots.

This was the first shot of the day. I was heading over to the War Museum and passed this old water treatment building along a channel of the Ottawa River separated from the main body of the river. It is still in use, and looks to date back perhaps to the 19th century.

Leaving the War Museum, I stopped at Victoria Island, in the middle of the river, for views east towards Parliament Hill

Crossing the bridge at the Rideau Centre later in the day gave a view of changing weather and the crowds along the streets. This spot below was the same spot where that sinkhole happened in June. They fixed things up nicely- the area at the left is the construction zone, which of course was affected by the sinkhole, but the pit was there before all this started.

A stop in at the National Gallery gave me a chance to photograph out towards Major's Hill Park. Since this is Independence Day, I'm including the American embassy in the shot. I imagine many embassies, especially downtown, gave their staff the day off on Canada Day. American officials spend today at the ambassador's barbecue at his official residence.

Across the river over in Gatineau, I took this shot of the Ottawa skyline from inside the Museum of History.

Coming back, I wanted a shot from the Alexandra Bridge. Mea culpa: it was not until last week reading the paper that I realized I've been spelling the bridge name wrong for years on end, writing it as Alexandria. Oops.

I missed the fireworks- it was looking iffy, what with the rain and lightning we were getting in the evening- but did take in an outdoor concert at Confederation Park. The National Arts Centre Orchestra always does an evening concert on Canada Day, but with renovations going on with the building at present, did it outside in the park, where the Ottawa Jazz Festival has been going on since the latter part of June. The concert started off with the national anthem and Rossini's William Tell Overture, went into other classical works, got interrupted by a downpour and lightning, and the NAC music director, Alexander Shelley, pulled off a wonderful encore with Offenbach's Orpheus In The Underworld, complete with encouraging his audience to dance appropriately to that music. Incidentally... I can't do the can-can.