A Scout

Here at the top of the Point, we have a new platform, which one can go onto. And one can sit at its base, and take in the views of the mighty river.

Eastward, the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge spans the river.

The next symbol is the bear, another integral part of the lives of the Anishinaabe.

The path continued.

The moose is known to live in this area, and well known to the indigenous peoples of the region.

When the Point was redeveloped, the presence of two statues and their return was meant to be part of that. This is one of them, an Anishinaabe scout, now looking to the northeast. We'll get a look at his counterpart tomorrow; the two statues once stood together, but having them apart works better, as now the scout stands out on his own, and is not in a subservient position.

These two boulders stand nearby- I suspect the markings are recent, and by an artist, given their proximity to the Gallery.

A Meeting Place Of Two Rivers

 Picking up where we left off yesterday at the east channel of the Rideau Falls. This place was named by Champlain- the French word for curtain is rideau, hence the name. He first came up the river in 1613.  On the far shore, which is part of the New Edinburgh neighbourhood, the pavilion houses the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

I looked back at the air force monument.

And then I headed over the bridge.

Here on the east side, I took more photographs of the waterfalls, which are a delight to see. Check out my video right here.

And Who Have No Known Grave

 Turning from where we left off yesterday shows us the biggest of the memorials around Green Island. 

This is in commemoration of Allied dead of the air forces in the Second World War. Many pilots did their training in Canada. This is in memory of over eight hundred who lost their lives serving and training around North America but who have no known grave.

I headed over to the nearby overlook.

Leamy Lake Park across the Ottawa River beckoned me. I remember walking through there one blistering hot day several years ago, to the main channel of the Gatineau River, which is off to the east of here, without taking water with me.

Here we come to the east channel of the Rideau River, where like its western counterpart, it plunges eleven meters to meet the Ottawa River.

Military Monuments On The Island

 In June, I headed up to the Rideau Falls for a visit. Here, the Rideau River splits into two channels around Green Island, and spills over to meet the Ottawa River. This is the west channel. Both channels are regulated by dam works, and this one tends to have less flow.

Over on the far shore of the Ottawa River is Gatineau, and the wooded stretch we see is Leamy Lake Park.

There are a number of monuments, most of them military in nature, on Green Island, and on the east shore of the Rideau River. The first we encounter is the National Artillery Memorial, which commemorates the service of the Royal Regiment of Artillery in particular.

Beside it is another monument to the Canadian doctor, poet, and soldier John McCrae, who fought in the South African War and World War One, and whose poem In Flanders Fields lives on, transcending national boundaries.

The statue is by Ruth Abernethy, one of a pair of the man, and larger than life. Its twin is in McCrae's home town of Guelph, at the city's civic museum.

A look across to the far side of the space. More monuments are over there.

One of them is this one. This commemorates the veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, a group of Canadian volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists.