The Past Caught Within The Ice

 Continuing where I left off yesterday, here was another one of the large sculptures in Confederation Park for Winterlude 2018.

A couple of days back I showed you the harness racing ice sculpture. Accompanying it was a wall with photos embedded into it. One of them featured harness racing on the Rideau Canal, an event of Winterlude in the early years.

Another photo featured harness racers meeting with the Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, who had brought his three sons along. Our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was but a boy at the time.

Some of the standalone ice sculptures in the park.

One of the big sculptures was made for the Winter Olympics that year, held in South Korea, with the mascots incorporated into the ice.

A CBC banner for the Olympics was encased into ice here, with the Lord Elgin Hotel and the Aboriginal Veterans Monument in the background.

I close off today with this set of sculptures.

Skating History

Carrying on with this look at the photographs of Winterlude over fifty years, here we have a timeless shot.

This banner gives an overview of the photographs beneath the Bank Street Bridge. The south section of the stadium at Lansdowne Park is in the background at left.

The ice is maintained by workers each year, with vehicles and on foot. Snowplows keep the skateway clear. When the surface gets rough, workers use drills and pumps to flood the ice with water from beneath, smoothing things out as the fresh surface freezes up. This work is generally done at night.

The Ice Hogs, the mascots of Winterlude, have changed over the years.

Our prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was seven when this photograph of him was taken on the Canal during an event called Trotting On The Ice. 

Here we have a photograph of an attempt at the world's longest human chain record, back in the 1980s. It would have been taken from the Bronson Avenue Bridge, looking east.

Who do we have to thank for the skateway? NCC chairman Douglas Fullerton, who came up with the idea, seen here skating on the Canal.

I finish today with a shot of the Bank Street Bridge at night. We'll be closing out the month over the next two days with a walk on the Canal.

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.

The Brotherhood

The second Sunday in September has been designated a national memorial day for fallen firefighters in Canada. A ceremony is held on that day at the national memorial near the War Museum. I attended this past Sunday, coming across a long line of firefighters at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories beforehand, to be led to the scene by pipers and drummers from a mix of Canadian fire department marching bands. This has been the third year I attended. I first came for the service in 2016, which is how I met fellow blogger Stewart (aka Furry Gnome). His son William Hilts was being commemorated that year after losing his life as a forest fire bomber pilot in the Cold Lake area in 2015.

The Canadian Firefighters Memorial was unveiled in 2012. It is overseen by the Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation in association with the government, and located in the Lebreton Flats area, a place of significance for firefighters. The Great Fire of 1900 was blocked from spreading downtown near this exact spot, and an Ottawa fire captain died in the line of duty nearby in 1896. Artist Douglas Coupland and landscape architect Mary Tremain designed the monument, which has three focal points. An 18 metre fire pole and 6 metre statue of a firefighter stand across from a long granite wall inscribed with the names of all Canadian firefighters who have died in the line of duty. The landscaping features shrubs, flowers, and trees that turn red in fall, a nod to the fire retardants used in forest fire fighting. Brass hose couplings from fire departments across the country were given to the foundries and incorporated into the bronze elements of the memorial.

Two Ottawa fire trucks were parked on the road beyond the memorial, with the Canadian flag suspended between them. The pipers and drummers led the way in, while the marching firefighters took a second path closer to the wall.

The ceremony is done with certain traditions- remarks alternating in English and French by the leadership of the foundation, a host department chosen from across the country (this year it was the department of national defence, which includes firefighting in its duties), and the government. In the past it's been the minister of public safety, under whose jurisdiction the work is done, but this year Prime Minister Trudeau took part. You can see him on the podium in the first shot, as he's the tallest person there, and he was speaking in the second shot.

The ceremony features prayers by fire department chaplains, the ringing of the bell to signify fallen firefighters, the presentation of helmets to family members of firefighters, and the reading of names of those who have died, either doing the job or of workplace related illnesses, since the last occasion. Those names have been added to the wall, which is organized by province and territory.

The Last Post is played, followed by a moment of silence, and then the lament and reveille. Amazing Grace is performed by the pipers and drummers. Click on those links if you'd like to see my videos. 

Then the ceremony concludes with a formal march past by the firefighters. After that things are less formal, people talking at the site, looking for particular names on the wall. I took a couple of chances to go up the bleachers that had been set up to take photographs.

Here we have views of some of the names. The second shot at the lower left features William Hilts.

I paused to photograph the bell and final helmet at the secondary section of the monument. A lone pine has been planted on its top, a deliberate choice, as that type of tree is fire resistant and tends to grow well in the aftermath of fires.

Taking my leave, I stopped by a plaque where the Firefighters Prayer is inscribed in English and French.