A Meeting Of Two Rivers

Green Island is the spot where the Rideau River splits into two branches and meets the Ottawa River. Part of the island, as well as land on either shore, is given over to parkland. There's a bed of tulips here, but first I passed by this formidable citizen of the country resting. There was no sign of a nest.

Here we have the tulips, which weren't quite out yet when I was here. The building in the background is the headquarters for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

As you can see, only a few tulips were out and about. A week later would have made a substantial difference.

Here we have the view looking out across the Ottawa River to the Gatineau shore. I was headed that way, which I'll show starting tomorrow.

And another reason to come. The Rideau River meets the Ottawa River in two splendid waterfalls called the Rideau Falls.  This is the east branch.

I crossed the walkway over the dam. The Macdonald-Cartier Bridge is seen in the background, which is the route I took to cross over to Gatineau.

Here we have a view of the east branch from the Green Island observation area.

The park is the setting for a number of military monuments. One of them is this sculpture of the Canadian soldier, doctor, and poet John McCrae, who wrote the poem In Flanders Fields during the First World War and was fated not to survive the war. It is a recent addition to the island, created by Ruth Abernethy, the artist who did the Oscar Peterson sculpture outside the National Arts Centre.

I finish with this view of the west branch of the Rideau Falls, taken from a platform on the grounds of the National Research Council.