A Passage Of Time On The River

The Portage Bridge crosses the Ottawa River west of Parliament Hill and the Supreme Court. It is the next bridge upstream from the Alexandra Bridge. I've featured it at a distance in shots from those spots looking west, and I've mentioned it in passing. Linking Ottawa and Gatineau, it is a busy bridge each day as civil servants travel from home to their workplaces on either side of the river. This first view, from late October, shows the bridge as it goes into Gatineau. The series of buildings you see in the background are collectively the Promenade du Portage, a government complex that is a maze inside.

Having had moved into the downtown core back in September, not far from here, I decided to do comparison shots from the bridge looking east towards the Hill over time. I took this shot in early September, from midway between the Gatineau shore on the left and Victoria Island on the right. Unlike on the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge downstream, there are no markings on the provincial boundary between Ontario and Quebec on this bridge.

This view was at the end of September.

This night shot was from mid-October, when I was coming home one evening from seeing the Miwate light show.

I took this view in late October.

I returned here the day after Remembrance Day for another view.

What a difference a few days makes- this was one week later. It had snowed the night before.

And this was last Sunday. The snow we'd had was mostly gone by then, but it was a cool day. That evening, the snow would return again.

Heading back, I decided to walk to the east point on Victoria Island, where an inukshuk stands along the river's edge.