Ottawa Viewpoints On A Cold Winter Day

I went out for a walk on Christmas Day. The walk did me some good, as I was in a fairly dark mood over the holidays. It was a bright, cold day, and I came up to Nepean Point, a high spot overlooking the Ottawa River. This view towards Parliament Hill shows the ice on the river at the entrance into the Rideau Canal.

A shift to the left looks towards Major's Hill Park, the Connaught Building, and the Chateau Laurier in the background, with the National Gallery over at the left. Nepean Point is based on the grounds of the National Gallery.

Looking back to the west gives us this view of the Ottawa River in the midst of freeze-up. There's more ice on the river now, though upstream the water will remain open all winter as a result of the influence of the Chaudiere Falls. If you look closely, you might make out a viewing platform below with people on it. That is near the beginning of the Alexandra Bridge.

This view looks north as the Alexandra crosses the river into Gatineau.

And this view looks east, taking in the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge.

The shadow above is the statue that stands up here. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain first came up the Ottawa River in 1613. A tribute to him has been here for decades.

I left the Point and came down around to the front of the National Gallery. One of the outdoor sculptures on the grounds is this bronze one. Maman is by Louise Bourgeois, who seems to have a thing for spiders on a big scale. This is one of seven versions of Maman, the others being in London, Bilbao, Tokyo, Qatar, South Korea, and Arkansas. In the first two shots, Notre Dame across the street provides a backdrop (with a woman in the first shot to show scale). In the last shot, the Gallery is the backdrop. I'll be taking you inside the Gallery in a few days, as last evening, a few hours before this post went live, I spent time inside taking in the art.