City Daily Photo Theme Day: Best Of The Year

Continuing on with my favourite shots of 2018, today I'm concentrating on Gatineau and the larger area called the Outaouais- a French translation for the Ottawa River and this area along its shore in the province of Quebec. Winterlude has activities in Gatineau as well as in Ottawa in February, with Jacques Cartier Park on the shore of the Ottawa River being turned into a massive snowy playground. Snow sculptures are part of that.

In May, Tom and his wife came up to Ottawa to see the tulips, and I escorted them on tours of the area. That included an excursion into Gatineau Park, a large swath of nature beyond the city of Gatineau in the regional municipality of Les Collines-des-l'Outaouais. We stopped at this countryside church, St. Stephen's Catholic Church, in the village of Chelsea. The parish has roots that go back to 1840, with the current building dated to the 1880s.

Up in Gatineau Park itself, the Mackenzie King Estate is to be found. William Lyon Mackenzie King, one of our finest prime ministers, left this weekend retreat that had been his real home to the people of Canada in his will. This is a view of one of the houses, Moorside, taken in May.

The Gatineau River flows along the east edges of Gatineau Park towards its terminus with the Ottawa River, and here at the village of Wakefield, we find the Wakefield Covered Bridge crossing it. This view from the north gives a good view of the bridge, which was rebuilt in the 1990s after the first bridge was destroyed by fire. Today it is a pedestrian and bikes only bridge, and it is a beauty, spanning a length of 87.8 metres.

The Canadian Museum of History stands along the shore of the Ottawa River in Gatineau, another of our national museums, and I've visited several times over the year. Each visit always includes a look at the monumental abstract mural Morning Star, by the First Nations artist Alex Janvier, high over the Grand Hall. This photo includes people in the upper level, reinforcing how big the mural is. If I had to pick a favourite work of art in the National Capital Region, this would be it.

On another visit, I took in one of the temporary exhibits. Medieval Europe is soon to finish up its time here, and examines life in Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. At the heart of the space are a series of screens that rotate between images of European architecture and period statues. This particular one, with visitors amid the architecture, stuck with me.

Jacques Cartier Park hosted the topiary event MosaiCanada for the second and final year, a fabulous collection of living, sculpted art. They included a mother and cub pair of foxes, much larger than life.

This one featured a shepherd, sheep dog, and sheep- the dog's expression was priceless.

One of the show stoppers was this massive tree containing a variety of birds.

And of course my favourite of all the topiaries, a First Nations inspired take on Mother Earth, surrounded by animals and looking quite peaceful.

An October visit back to the Gatineau Hills brought me back to the Mackenzie King Estate for the fall colours. King was something of an eccentric, taking bits and pieces of buildings that were demolished and incorporating them into his estate as follies. They included various pieces that make up what is today called the Abbey, which looks splendid among fall colours.

And I finish with this grand view. There are several lookout spots not far from the Estate. This one is the Champlain Lookout. Here the visitor can look out over the steep drop to the valley floor. The Ottawa River is there in the distance, winding its way upstream.

A Parish In The Country

Coming out of Gatineau Park and heading to our next destination, our route led through the village of Chelsea, which is the local seat for the region of Les Collines-des-l'Outaouais. St. Stephen's Catholic Church is a landmark one sees coming, and we stopped here. The parish was founded first as a mission in 1840, then formally established as a parish in 1845. It offers mass in French and English, reflecting the bilingual nature of the area and its parish history. The present stone church dates to the 1880s, in a Roman Baroque style.

The bilingual history of the parish reflects itself in the adjoining cemetery, where French names are mingled with Irish names. Irish immigrants were coming into the Ottawa Valley throughout the 19th century, settling on both sides of the river, and their legacy continues today.

Here we have an example of new life- a young tree is springing up from the stump of an old tree in this cemetery.

I leave off with this view of the church's main entrance. The doors were locked, otherwise we'd have taken a look inside.

Locales

Today I wanted to show tulips in other settings. I'm starting off with a morning shot taken in Dundonald Park, where tulips lurk among the flower beds.

They can also be found in the gardens of homes nearby, such as these two.

As I noted a couple of days ago, not all gardeners are human. These tulips are in the treeline in Central Park in the Glebe, no doubt transplanted by a squirrel from a nearby garden.

Painted tulip sculptures are found at various sites throughout the city during the festival. These are in the Glebe. The first one has St. Giles Presbyterian Church as a backdrop.

There were some white ones set up in the Glebe before the festival started, waiting for artists to start painting new designs on them. This one was being painted when I first stopped by and chatted briefly with the artist. Passing by the next day, it was done, and quite bright and colourful.

This one is outside a clothing shop some blocks down the street.

And here we have one of the tulip beds outside the Sunnyside branch of the Ottawa Public Library.

These are taken on an afternoon drive taken during the festival, and we're going to look at other spots from that time in posts after I'm done with the tulips. I had visitors- Tom and his wife- here last week to see the tulips, and we went up into the Gatineau Hills. Les Collines-des-l'Outaouais (literally translated as the Hills of the Outaouais, and that term is a French version for the name of the Ottawa River and this particular area of Quebec as a whole) is a regional municipality north of the city of Gatineau on the Quebec side of the river, home to most of Gatineau Park. It is a largely rural area, with its seat in the village of Chelsea. It was here in Chelsea that we stopped at a church, St. Stephens, to photograph the church and its accompanying cemetery. There were tulips here. I'll show you St. Stephens after I'm done with this series.

The village of Wakefield also lies in this regional municipality, north along the Gatineau River from Chelsea. This lone tulip was found near the entrance of a bridge, which I shall also show down the line.