First Baptist Church

I departed from the Heritage Building at City Hall, but paused on the grounds to photograph this.

Just up the street is First Baptist Church, with the current building dating to 1877, but the roots of the congregation go back further in time. Among those who worshipped here was Alexander Mackenzie, the second prime minister of Canada.

The church is a regular participant in Doors Open.

Here we have the stained glass inside the main entrance.

The sanctuary is open, with a lightness about it.

Most of the sanctuary's stained glass is like this- imagery inlaid in coloured glass.

A look back at the organ loft, with a dramatic stained glass window there.

The cornerstone of the preceding home of the church is displayed here; that building was relatively close by to its current home.

Plaques honouring those members of the church who have fought and died in the wars are seen here.

A ceremonial silver trowel is in a display case at the back of the sanctuary. This was presented to Prime Minister Mackenzie, who had laid the cornerstone of the present church. He had a background as a stonemason; his family willed it back to the church.

A look at the church from the outside. In a city with no shortage of Gothic Revival architecture, this one is a jewel.

A Foggy Visit To Parliament Hill

On the last Sunday in November, a week ago yesterday, I went up to Parliament Hill. There was a thick fog over the city that morning, as you can see in this view of Centre Block. This building is in the Gothic Revival style, which fits in with the other Parliamentary Blocks.

Parliament is in its last weeks of sessions before the Christmas break. After the break, Centre Block will be shut down for several years as part of the ongoing rehabiliation project going on here on the Hill. I wanted to take one of the tours of Centre Block before the closing, and will be coming back here sometime this month as I want to get some shots from the observation deck of the Peace Tower on a clear day (later in this series I'll show you the view, or lack of view, I got on this visit). 

Tours are offered in English or French with a guide escorting a group through each space. Ideally it's best to do this when Parliament is not in session. After going through security screening, one waits in a lounge area for their guide. Panels about the Parliamentary procedures are in this area. Included is this ballot box. Members of the House of Commons elect their Speaker at the beginning of a new Parliament by secret ballot, inserted into this.

A party whip is a member of the party who ensures discipline among members of their party. Occasionally they're presented ceremonial whips by their colleagues. This one belonged to James Gladstone, and resembles dance whips used by the Kainai people of the Blackfoot in Alberta- entirely appropriate as Gladstone was First Nations, the first Indigenous Senator.

A panel shows the two Houses of Parliament- the Commons and the Senate. The Commons will be meeting for the next few years in a temporary quarters placed into the West Block. The Senate is going to be meeting in the Government Conference Centre.

This pair of panels is nearby. The current Speaker of the Senate, George Furey (who I've seen in the Senate during a tour I made last December) is with the current Speaker of the Commons, Geoff Regan. Both men flank the poet laureate of Parliament, George Elliot Clarke. The second panel has Prime Minister Trudeau looking on as Speaker Furey presides over the speech from the throne, a tradition done by the Governor General in the Senate as each session begins.

Starting in the lounge area, then moving into a corridor, panels adorn the walls. When each term of Parliament ends, the members of the Commons and the Senate in turn are inscribed on these panels, placed in alphabetical order. The last panels are in a corridor beyond this one, where the tour led next.

The guide took us to our next destination, with portraits of Prime Ministers along the way. The House of Commons foyer is a large space outside the Commons. Canadians will know this area quite well, even if they've never been here, because it's here that politicians come out and face questions from the media. This portrait of Alexander Mackenzie, our second Prime Minister, is on one of the walls.

A Christmas tree is placed here at the moment. Centre Block is the second such building erected in this spot, as the original was destroyed by fire in 1916. The architects deliberately left blank areas in the interior for future sculptures and stained glass to be installed as time went on. The sculpting you see on the walls in this area, for instance, are more recent, and the guide noted that in the years this was done, the sculptor worked at night so as to not disturb Parliamentarians, or for that matter to be disturbed by them.

The staircase you see here will be quite familiar for Canadians- cabinet ministers are often seen in news footage descending here to go into the Commons.

This gives us a glimpse of a new addition. The stained glass window you see here was installed several years ago. It is the Reconciliation window called Giniigaaniimenaaning (Looking Ahead), part of the ongoing efforts to make amends for the treatment of First Nations peoples. The Canadian Museum of History has a copy of it, which you can see at this post.

I took more shots of the surroundings. We continue from here tomorrow.

Crazy Unicorns And Glowing Cubes

Today I have an odds and ends post. I was in the Sandy Hill area late one afternoon in September when I came across this house. It was the historical plaque out front that first caught my eye. Allan House was built in 1893 for businessman James Allan and has been designated a heritage property. It appears to continue to be a residence. Among those who have lived here is Cairine Wilson, the subject of the plaque. She was the first woman appointed to the Canadian Senate.

This sign was outside a pub in early October.

Later in the month it had a different remark.

This is the Thomas Flanagan Building, the central headquarters for the Ottawa Police Services, downtown on Elgin Street. It is named for a former police chief who served in that role from 1989-93. Policing runs in the family, though not all of them measure up to him. One son in particular, a former cop who I've heard works in customs down at the airport, seems to spend his free time writing letters to the editor for a local right wing rag of a newspaper four or five times a week, spouting his usual self righteous, sanctimonious, blowhard opinions. In the past, I've referred to that Flanagan as His Infernal Pompousness.

This cube stands outside the Rideau branch of the Ottawa Library. It is one of four such cubes, a collective art installation, along Rideau Street.

This storefront window is at the Rideau Centre mall, for a shop called Dream Weaver. It was the sign that caught my attention.

Here I have a view that won't possible for awhile before too long- the Peace Tower framed from within the main entrance at the East Block of Parliament Hill. Centre Block is due to be closed up for ongoing restoration work for some years when the fall session of Parliament comes to an end. The House of Commons will be moving into a space prepared in the West Block, while the Senate will occupy the Government Conference Centre. You can see scaffolding around part of the tower in this shot.

Two murals in the Glebe stand across the street from each other. This first one is a new one, painted on the wall of a jewel shop to replace one that had been there before.

The other one is on the side wall of a building that houses a small grocery shop and apartments upstairs, and is also new. Wild Read is the work of a collective group of street artists called Vertigo Graffiti. The group is from Columbia, having had already done large scale murals around the world, and the Columbian embassy arranged for them do this. It blends together the idea of biodiversity and the world of fantasy in reading, and is the first work of the group in Canada.

I finish with these three shots taken on an evening in October. I came up to Parliament Hill for a twilight view of the Ottawa River for my final post of 2018, and took some extras. I had a similar twilight shot of this statue earlier in the year. The grounds of Parliament Hill include a number of statues of political leaders. This one features Alexander Mackenzie, our second prime minister, dramatically backlit by the sky.

A nearby view of the river shows the Alexandra Bridge linking Ottawa to Gatineau on the other shore.

And this view across to Major's Hill Park includes the familiar landmarks of the National Gallery, Notre Dame, and the American embassy.

The Hour Of Twilight In The Capital

A reminder to those readers in the area that Buskerfest starts today down at the Sparks Street pedestrian mall, and will be running through until Monday, which is also Colonel By Day here, so there will be things going on around the Bytown Museum.

Today I have some sunset shots; another one will follow likely around month's end with more recent takes. I took this first shot in late April, from the Bank Street Bridge looking west after the sun had gone down. Twilight is still reflected in the Rideau Canal and a nearby pond that is linked to it.

A few days later I came up onto Parliament Hill to catch the last light of day. This first shot looks north towards Gatineau and the Gatineau Hills across the Ottawa River.

This shot is taken a few minutes later, over at the Summer Pavilion, looking west along the river towards the Portage Bridge and the islands around it.

And this one, the final of my shots of that evening, features the statue of Alexander Mackenzie, our second Prime Minister, silhouetted against the sky.

My last shots are all from the same evening in early May. I was visiting the Canadian Museum of History over on the Gatineau side of the river. Late in my visit, the sun had broken through the cloud deck on what had been a rainy day, illuminating the landmarks over on the Ottawa side of the river.

Coming back from the river pathway, the museum's architecture stood out well against the last light of day.

I headed back to Ottawa via the Alexandra Bridge. There was still light off in the north, through the breaks in the clouds.

I took this shot from Major's Hill Park on the Ottawa shore, focusing on Nepean Point, which I had passed by as the bridge met the shore. I decided there was still enough light left to go on over.

The statue of Champlain tops Nepean Point, and I wasn't the only one who was up here taking in the last light of day over Ottawa and Gatineau.