The Mighty Chaudiere

To close out the month, I have posts from a visit to the Chaudiere Falls, taken on the same day as my last two posts. I carried on past the Holocaust Monument, and to the Falls, where the Ottawa River finds its course among several islands and channels, with the main channel a waterfall. When Champlain came up this way in 1613, he first sighted the falls for himself, but First Nations people have lived here for thousands of years.

For the better part of a century, this area was largely closed off and industrial, but the industrial side of things is being removed, aside from a hydro dam that rings around the falls and regulates its flow. This first view is from a platform downstream.

I carried on to the main viewing platform, stopping on a bridge where some of the river is channeled through. The far shore we see here is Tunney's Pasture on the Ottawa side of the river.

Here we're on the main platform, with Gatineau on the far shore. The falls drop fifteen metres in total, spilling over rocks in a swirl of raging waters. Gulls seem to have no problem down on the rocks below. 

Summer is high time for growth around the viewing platform.

But it's those falls that are the most captivating.