Setting The Winterlude Stage

Winterlude preparations started in January for our annual celebration of the best season of all. It started up this past Friday, and goes until the 19th of the month, so I shall start having posts on it in a few days, but for today I wanted to show some of the preparation work. This is the view from the Mackenzie King Bridge looking south into Confederation Park. Work was being done down there, with shelters set up for the bulk of the ice sculptures.

Here we have a view from down below. The trees are Christmas trees, collected and given a second use to line Winterlude areas. 

Confederation Park has a number of military monuments, and these two stand side by side. On the right is the oldest monument in the park, the South African War Memorial. On the left is the newest, the Animals In War Memorial, which commemorates animals that have served in combat. Three plaques (presently beneath snow) are accompanied by a life sized German Shepherd.

This was in another location, down at Lansdowne Park in the Glebe. A number of these were set up in advance at various points in the city, and filled with snow to await the presence of snow carvers. Several of them could be found in the Glebe, and snow sculptures end up being found in other parts of both Ottawa and Gatineau as Winterlude carries on.

This is another one, from two different perspectives, also in the Glebe, with the crate removed, just waiting for the carver to come. The tarp, I presume, was there because this particular day was a mild one, and the carver wanted the top sheltered from the effects of the sun. I'll show you this one in progress at the start of the Winterlude series coming up.