Canada 150: The Celebration For The Country

In the lead up to our anniversary year, the government at large had various Canada 150 projects in mind. So too did the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau. And so too did the community; library branches hosted Canada 150 groups with their own ideas for the event in the year or two beforehand. For myself, I decided that my Canada 150 project would be to document the year in the national capital region as much as possible. That included a number of events that were added onto the usual course of the year, and which kept me busy- I was glad to be able to make use of my writer's blog as an additional publishing spot when things were exceedingly busy. 

Today I have a reflection on the year past with more shots of the anniversary year, beginning with this shot taken on Parliament Hill on New Year's Day, 2017. A concert had been held the night before.

One early Canada 150 event the city put on was called Crashed Ice. A speed skating track had been placed along the Ottawa Locks of the Rideau Canal in the weeks leading up to the early March event, and a group of slightly insane speed skaters rocketed down the course on a couple of exceedingly cold nights, much to the delight of onlookers.

Yesterday I made mention of La Machine, the urban theatre event with giant machines facing off against each other among various landmarks in the city. This was from the finale, with the dragon horse proving triumphant over the spider. Both machines are visible here. The event was put on by the city, and proved to be quite a success in how it drew people in.

Populace was the title of an exhibit held outside the Museum of Nature during the summer to mark the anniversary. A pottery guild here in Ottawa placed ceramic feathers, English roses, and fleur-de-lys sculptures in the grass on the east side of the property.

Canada's Table was an event that I covered in the writer's blog, taking place in August on what turned out to be a lovely day. Restaurant owners collaborated with chefs from the region and the country as a whole in a thousand place setting, four course meal on Wellington Street in the shadow of Parliament Hill, an event benefiting charities, yet another celebration of Canada 150. I photographed it as preparations were underway in the afternoon.

On a late June day near this same spot, I happened to be in the downtown core one day when I came across an official function taking place on the street. This was on a national day for our indigenous peoples. Prime Minister Trudeau was speaking, and can be seen in this shot in the center of the shot, above the heads of onlookers. The former location of the American embassy, across from the Parliamentary district, has been turned over to the First Nations of Canada for their use as a cultural center in the heart of Canada's political power, one more step in the ongoing process of reconciliation. I put this photo up at my Facebook page that day, after listening to the Prime Minister speak. It's the first time I've seen him in person, and he is a good speaker. It's nice to have a government leader in the job that you don't have to be ashamed of.

Canada 150 saw the renewal of the permanent gallery at the Museum of History in Gatineau. It reopened for Canada Day, with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall attending the ceremony. The spaces here have been extensively reorganized with an emphasis on telling the story of Canada from its very beginnings, interweaving the story of indigenous and settlers throughout. I found the end result very well done. This is a wide view taken from my visit. 

Kontinuum was a multimedia exhibit that ran through the summer in what will be an underground LRT station beneath the city core in 2018. Lights and music made for a fascinating walk through what will eventually be typical infrastructure when the east-west system comes online. It felt like a sci-fi movie, and I visited it numerous occasions, especially towards the end of the run as I'd moved into a new place a couple of blocks away.

Ottawa Welcomes The World was an event that ran through the year at Lansdowne Park, allowing embassies from various countries to present themselves to visitors. I found it enlightening and entertaining, visiting many of these events during the year. I posted some of the series at my writer's blog, and others here after the packed schedule of summer had ended. Below are some of the events: musicians on stage during the Ireland event, an artist at work during the Columbia event, and candombe dancers who were part of Uruguay's presentation.

MosaiCanada was another major event, held in Gatineau at Jacques Cartier Park. I attended the topiary exhibition several times, enjoying the sculptures. Two of them are here: puffins and musk oxen, representing two very different parts of Canada.

And I conclude, as I did with yesterday's post, with two images from Miwate, the light show that illuminated the Chaudiere Falls. Canada 150 was an event that will certainly live on in many memories; the anniversary year was quite a milestone, and I enjoyed documenting things as I went along.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Motion

This is the first of two posts I have today; the second one will go live at 6 AM my time, and is a celebration of Canada Day and our 150th anniversary of Confederation. I also have a post for the occasion over at my writer's blog.

The first day of each month is a theme day for those members of City Daily Photo, and for July, that theme is Motion. You can see how others are interpreting the theme here. 

I am going with a decidedly cold take on the theme, having had taken these shots during the winter (I can just imagine some winter hating people are going to have something to say about that). There is a skating rink outside City Hall that is open from December into March, thus providing an alternative to the skating surface of the Rideau Canal. These shots were taken at night during the Christmas holidays of 2016, while those that follow were taken in the daytime during the same period. Aside from City Hall itself, the provincial courthouse and the Cartier Square Drill Hall feature into the background of some of these shots.

Back in early March, there was an event here that I covered in detail called Crashed Ice (click the tag at the end of this post if you'd like to see more). A large skating track was erected down along the Rideau Canal at the base of Parliament Hill, and speed skaters went down the route in competition. I thought a couple of shots of skaters in a pure blur certainly fit this theme.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Wet

The first day of the month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo, and for April, that theme is Wet. You can see how others are taking on this theme here.

Winterlude is a major festival in February here in Ottawa and Gatineau. It includes the carving of ice sculptures, such as in Confederation Park. This small one was carved on the last day of the festival, on February 20th, which happened to have temperatures above the freezing mark. The sculpture, freshly carved, was melting, as you can see on the concrete beneath it.

A few days ago I featured a shot of the Bytown Museum from the side as part of another series. There was an ice sculpture standing before it, and this is it.

I thought snow melting in general fit this theme well. This is Central Park in the Glebe, with views west and east. When I took these shots, the snow was starting to give way, and pools of water can be glimpsed amid the snow.

The series I featured some days ago was on Crashed Ice, an event held here at the Ottawa Locks of the Rideau Canal involving fast paced downhill ice cross skating. A course had been erected on temporary scaffolding along the locks, and on the evening I attended the event, I passed beneath the course, via a staircase that descended into one of the locks. I took several pics, liking the sci-fi mood of the light and scaffolding over the water passing at the base of the lock.

Melting snow coming off of the National War Memorial made for a good wet photo.

I was up on Nepean Point in the middle of March. This shot looks down to the Ottawa River below the heights, part of it clear of ice.

Still, winter does have a way of sticking around here. This dates to March 24th, when fresh snow was falling.

I finish with this shot from three days ago. Crossing the Rideau Canal at the Bronson Avenue Bridge, I saw a mix of open water and ice to the east.

Crashing A Capital

I have one more post from the Crashed Ice event. The area around the Ottawa Locks were brightly lit and well attended that night.

I did shoot a couple of short videos that evening, here and here. You'll want to turn the volume down though.

I can't recall ever seeing the Bytown Museum lit up like this. The place is reputed to be haunted; I wonder what the ghosts thought of Crashed Ice.

Leaving the event, I came up past Plaza Bridge and took another shot of the Chateau Laurier from a different perspective. Taking in this event was a whole lot of fun, and a lot of people came out for it. I hope we see it again here.

Just Slightly Crazy

This is a view from Plaza Bridge of the Crashed Ice course on the 3rd of March, a few hours before the first evening's events were due to start. The course was ready at this point.

A few hours later, I approached to attend the event on what turned out to be a bitterly cold night. Today and tomorrow we have a look at it, including some video tomorrow. The Chateau Laurier was well lit up as I came along from Parliament Hill. Below, there was already a large crowd on site- more than twenty thousand people attended the event on each of the two nights. Large video screens were strategically placed to give one a view of the races, with cameras rigged to overhead lines that followed the action. While the crowds were there, things seemed fluid with people moving about; I had no problem finding spots for photography while I was there.

It helped that I was able to actually pass under the course- a staircase walkway was added into the scaffolding in at least one spot, granting access to both sides of the course. I paused to photographed the underside. The water you see is the water running naturally at the base of the Canal locks this time of year. If I was in this precise spot in the summer, I'd be over my head in water.

The skaters themselves were engaged in two different runs- group runs of four skaters in heats to mark their speeds down the course, as well as solo runs down the course with marks from judges for technique. They ended up appearing as blurs with the camera setting I was using, reaching speeds of seventy kilometres an hour at times. I say this as a rock climber: you have to be bonkers to do this.