City Daily Photo Theme Day: Best Of The Year

Gatineau is on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, and part of the National Capital Region. I don't get over there nearly enough (unless you count twice a month when I'm standing on the provincial border at the Portage Bridge, for a post I'll be showing in the coming days). The city takes part in Winterlude in February, where Jacques Cartier Park, which lies along the river, is turned into a big playground with snow slides.

This wood carving caught my eye.

Steel drum musicians were here.

Snow carvings are expected to be here, and this year, beavers were carved into the back of the giant mound where snow sliding takes place. For scale, note the people in this shot.

Alcoves are built with ice benches put in for photo ops.

Leaving, I photographed this house that caught my eye. It houses offices for a social service agency these days, and looks like it has been there a long time, and added onto over time.

Spring changes things, and I took this photo of the Canadian Museum of History for the Shadow theme day. The curatorial wing is at left, while the exhibition wing is in the background.

The city also takes part in the Tulip Festival. There's a bed of tulips where the Portage Bridge comes into Gatineau that I always photograph.

This is along the river, with Parliament Hill across the water, near the Museum of History. The flowerbed is in honour of the photographer Malak Karsh, who was the man who proposed the idea of a festival of tulips. He took a famous photograph of the river from here decades ago- a photograph that spent many years on the Canadian one dollar bill, while his brother Yousuf Karsh's photograph of the Queen was on the other side of that bill.

The Museum of History is a wonder inside, particularly its Grand Hall, with its collection of totem poles.

More tulips- these are in Jacques Cartier Park.