Fall Beauty

These first shots date from the final day in October that MosaiCanada was on. I went over to Jacques Cartier Park in Gatineau that day to take in the event on what was an overcast day, and took a good many shots, some of which featured fall colours among the topiary sculptures. This first one features the giant version of Glenn Gould's piano.

These three shots, from the First Nations section of the exhibition, had fall colours shining too.

Heading back for Ottawa, I paused at the Museum of History for these fall colours.

Heading onto the Alexandra Bridge, I looked back at the fall colours on the lawn before the museum. It's the curatorial wing of the museum that features in the background here.

Back on the Ottawa side of the river, fall colours were even clinging to the cliff at Nepean Point.

As was the case looking out at the river, with these plants turning into shades of red and orange.

I then headed up into Major's Hill Park.

This view looks below to where the Bytown Museum stands by the Rideau Canal. These plants in the foreground were shifting into autumn colours.

As was the case in this view of Parliament Hill.

This red tree really stood out against the Chateau Laurier.

I finish with a view of the Canal, the museum, and Parliament Hill. 

A Garden

I went up to the Canadian Museum of Nature one afternoon in October to photograph the Landscapes Of Canada Garden in autumn. This approach had fall colours still in the trees and on the ground.

The Garden is organized to include trees, shrubs, and plants from four distinct ecosystems. The first is Boreal Forest, with evergreens mixed with other plants that were showing fall colours at this point.

Prairie Grassland is another ecosystem, with its mix of grasses and wildflowers. The Museum itself looms in the background, looking quite like a castle.

Arctic Tundra is the third ecosystem; the plants that grow here among rocks are doing quite well.

A large sculpture of an iceberg is found here as well.

Nearby are a series of tiles with the names of donors inscribed on them. Most of them are families as opposed to companies; ...but mostly dinosaurs particularly stands out to me.

These are two more views of the Prairie Grasslands.

The last section is the Mammoth Steppe, with three mammoth statues among plants that would have been growing in North America in their day. The fall colours were looking quite bright.

Puzzles

Since I'm pretty much fully set for a month at this blog, have a look at the Ottawa Daily Photo Facebook page where over the next few days I'm posting some shots about the run up to the Grey Cup, which is being played here on Sunday. I posted the first shots last evening. 

These first two autumn shots are taken at Dundonald Park in Centretown on the same October day.

A few days later in the park, I took this shot of the ground covered with leaves very close to where I took the second shot. Want to drive someone insane? Turn this shot into a two thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, and give it to them to complete. 

These were elsewhere in Centretown.

And here we have more views over the Rideau Canal at the Bank Street Bridge, first to the west, then to the east, with the water levels having had been lowered for the winter.

These two views were taken on another day, at different times of the day.

While here we are a few minutes walk to the south, looking east from another bridge over the Rideau River.

I found this back in October during our Thanksgiving and held it back for today for my American readers. Happy Thanksgiving!

Colours

I am returning today for a few posts on fall colours, taken back in October. This first view looks east from the Bank Street Bridge over the Rideau Canal one day, while the second shot looks west on another day. There has been ice already on the Canal in more recent days.

These three shots are all at different spots in the downtown core.

This statue of Mary stands outside St. Patrick's Basilica downtown, and stood out nicely against the fall colours in the background as I walked by early one morning.

This tree was in mid-colour changing in the Glebe when I passed through one gloomy day.

Further south in the Glebe, I came across this grand fellow, who I've featured once before. Harry is a very friendly kitty, with fur matching the fall colours in his neighbourhood. I would also refer to him as King Harry, Lord Over All He Surveys, Vanquisher Of The Red Dot, And Possessor Of The Almighty Purr.

This tree was across the street from King Harry, with its colours at full peak.

This I took outside the Sunnyside branch of the Ottawa Public Library, where ivy was changing colour on the wall.

And this view was in Old Ottawa South.

Mad Bear

Carrying on with the Aislin retrospective at City Hall from October, our relationship with Americans can be seen in the top left cartoon featuring Paul Martin, a former Prime Minister, while the bottom left cartoon with President Obama is one of my personal favourites. Those at the right feature another former prime minister, Brian Mulroney, who was a frequent target for many editorial cartoonists here during his time in office. That chin alone could keep you occupied.

Two Canadian giants closely tied to Montreal feature in the top pair- Mordecai Richler and Leonard Cohen. On the bottom, the left cartoon was a favourite for Pierre Trudeau, while the right one features the great Oscar Peterson, who often could play the piano in a way that sounded like he had to have more than ten fingers.

Here's Pierre himself in a Time cover Aislin did early in Trudeau's time as Prime Minister.

Another personal favourite of mine plays off an incident that actually happened: Prime Minister Jean Chretien strangling a protester. In this case, it's Joe Clark, one of the opposition party leaders (and a former PM himself) getting strangled. I've seen both men on occasion here in Ottawa; Chretien could still strangle someone even all these years later.

This dates back to around the time of Peter Jackson's King Kong film, and pretty much sums up how we Canadians sometimes feel about our neighbours. Pierre Trudeau noted that being next door to America was like trying to sleep next to an elephant. A giant ape will do just as well. 

This is one of Aislin's iconic works, featuring Rene Levesque and Robert Bourassa, done after Levesque's separatist Parti Quebecois won a majority provincial election over Bourassa's Liberals.

A close up of two of his hockey toons. Occasionally Montreal has a bad year, but not with anywhere near as much regularity as the Toronto Maple Leafs- a fact that fans of every other Canadian team relish. The success of Canadian women on the ice is an inspiration.

This is another of his collage works, done for the Montreal Olympics in 1976.

This shot features a cartoon Aislin did of Pope John Paul II after he assumed the papacy. The photograph below it features the pope being presented with the toon itself during a visit.

I like this pair. The top features the eternal struggle of Quebec society, while the bottom one is downright universal to anyone who's ever dealt with traffic delays.

The weather, particularly in winter, is a wonderful subject for the cartoonist, such as with these two. The top one came out of the aftermath of the notorious 1998 Ice Storm, while the second one went unpublished in the papers, but has proven popular online.

Arguably the most loathsome, unfit for office politician (which made him priceless material for editorial cartoonists) ever to appear in Canada was the late crack smoking drunken thug Rob Ford, a former mayor of Toronto (is it obvious I didn't like him?). This is an Aislin take on him.

I finish with this one, which was featured for an article on the Canadian Rockies. The bear's expression is just perfect.