A Stroll Along The Canal

Another pleasant fall day for a stroll brought me along the Rideau Canal.

The Hartwell Locks are the second set of locks in the city, part of the work of Colonel By and his work crew in the building of the Canal. Alongside the locks are several buildings, once the home of the lockmaster and his family, now used by Parks Canada for office space and a check-in for boaters coming up the Canal.

Beyond Hartwell, the Canal continues on, and the fall colours were shining in this location, a contrast to the trees on the other side.

This stretch of the Canal comes to the Hog's Back Locks, the third set of locks in the city. This is the spot where the Canal separates from the Rideau River itself for the last stretch through the city.

Mooney's Bay is a large stretch of the Rideau River beyond the Hog's Back locks. Tomorrow I'll show you the reason why the river and the canal must go their own ways here. 

Misty Morning

A few days ago, I was walking up towards Dow's Lake, on my way to Little Italy. It was a foggy, grey morning as I came up on the Bronson bridge, but it wasn't going to stay that way for much longer...

Taken with the zoom, this misty shot also features the H.M.C.S. Carleton's building at the right. I posted about it in my post on the nine pounder cannons back in September.

Within five minutes, however, I was off the bridge and on the bike path by the lake, and took this shot below. The mist was already lifting as the ducks swam past. I wondered what the lake might have been like an hour earlier.

These two were taken in the same area, but not the same day. At the top of Dow's Lake, in Commissioner's Park, this statue stands, one of two. The other is in the Netherlands, and the pair marks the close bonds between Canada and the Netherlands, going back to the liberation by Canadian troops in the Second World War. 

Off to the left, the tree is in full fall colours mode; it's often one of the first to do so in the fall. This particular park  is well travelled in the spring; our Tulip Festival has many of the most vibrant beds right here.

An Iceberg And A Basilica

Downtown, beyond the Chateau Laurier, is Major's Hill Park. It's a sprawling property popular this time of year, particularly for wedding photographers; in fact, there were a couple of wedding parties having that done in the park while I was there. I passed through on a pleasant late afternoon in the early fall, to take shots of the National Gallery, which this summer has had something of a different look to it...

The tower is a glass structure that looks out onto the park, and to Parliament Hill. This year, the glass panels in the tower are being replaced, which required scaffolding and sheltering. And for a building dedicated to art, someone decided that the sheltering ought to look like art. So the canvas sheeting is painted to mimic an iceberg, looming over the park. Work is proceeding well now; for most of the summer, the entire tower was hidden under the sheet, but the top is visible these days, and the whole thing ought to be finished next month. There's a lot of glass to be removed and replaced. 

Close by I took this shot of Notre Dame Basilica, which stands across from the National Gallery. Fall is slowly settling in on the area; some of the trees in these shots are showing their autumn colours, particularly that golden one in the above shot. The Basilica itself is a popular setting for weddings on Saturdays; it's been said by volunteers there that brides sometimes reserve the place three years in advance.... before they have a fiance.

Season's Ending

Fall is upon us; the days are slowly getting shorter, and the leaves are turning. I've been taking pictures of the changing season lately, and over the next few days I'll be showing some of the places I've been wandering about. It does seem that the brightness of the fall colours is less vibrant here than in previous years. And lots of trees are still green. Maybe we need a good frost.

This weekend, however, we had a holdover of summer. Sparks Street is a pedestrian mall one block south of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, a busy place in the summer when government workers wander through the shops and cafes. At night or in the winter, it's a lot quieter. Earlier in the summer, a number of travelling barbecue outfits came through on their annual circuit through the province for a Ribfest weekend. They're both Canadian and American groups, competing for the best ribs and barbecued chicken all over the place. They set up along the street, and considering that these people spend all summer travelling from city to city, they must bring in enough cash to pay their expenses and staff. Fortunately the crowds really come out, and the food is tasty. Oh, and it's a vegetarian's nightmare. This weekend, the whole lot of them were back again, barbecuing pork and chicken, and you could smell the smoke from blocks away...

And the season on the Canal is ending too. Below we have the view from Plaza Bridge (you'd think I'm fond of the vantage point). The bulk of private boats on the Rideau Canal are already heading for drydock. The tour boats you see below will soon be in winter quarters, and in a few weeks, work will begin to lower levels for the winter.

This shot was taken on a sunny day a few days ago. You can see the Conference Centre there on the far left. On the right, hidden by the trees, is the National Arts Centre.

Over the next few days, we'll be wandering about, taking in some of the signs of fall in the national capital...

Champlain In Shadow And Light

Closing out our series on Nuit Blanche, it makes sense to return to where we started. After wandering through art galleries and places open much later than usual, we returned to Nepean Point, where the Champlain Monument was lit up. Music played over loud speakers, and in fact the lighting itself was programmed with the music itself in mind. Shades of white, red, blue, and more flashed and scrolled over the monument, the lights atop the scaffolding and around the hill focusing both on the statue of the explorer and the immediate vicinity.

I took multiple shots, hoping for the best, from several locations around the hill. There were others around at the time, and the volunteers on the scene mentioned to us that the place had been busy throughout the evening.

Down below, there was in fact a microphone set up. While the music played, anyone could step up and sing whatever they liked. The lights particularly were at their strongest when anyone would sing.

We ended up singing a few bars of a drinking song. The Newfoundland band Great Big Sea is particularly good in that department (shameless plug: go check out their music on Youtube. You'll love it).

No, I did not record my voice singing. I do not have a good singing voice.

Nuit Blanche Beneath The Bridge

An area of somewhat more quiet on Nuit Blanche (at least when we were there, I can't say anything about before or after) was beneath Plaza Bridge. I've shown you pictures from on top- including that staircase a few blogs back with the artistic streak to it- but not below. Plaza Bridge is over the Rideau Canal, and on the west side, a lot of work has been done some years ago to open up the space, creating a dramatic area (with great acoustics), well lit at night, a path between the Ottawa Locks on one side and the National Arts Centre on the other. I had considered using the place as a backdrop in a future book for a murder, but it might be a little too public.

On Nuit Blanche, the place was being used to project images onto the large walls, a multimedia exhibit taking advantage of the space.

I'll show you this area again in daylight hours. It's a favourite place to stroll through, and wedding photographers love using this area for pics of a bride, groom, and their party.

For the moment, I'll leave off with this staircase that leads up to the street and bridge above. At night, with the shutter speed on the mobile, people take on something of a ghostly image when in motion, but then again, it was the staircase I was more interested in...

Night Lights

Two shots taken from Plaza Bridge on the evening of Nuit Blanche. The lockmaster station is the focus in the first, reflected in the waters of one of the Rideau Canal locks. Up on the hill behind, Parliament Hill looms. I have to come back here again in the evening to take this shot. I've always liked how the area along the Ottawa Locks is lit up at night. 

And directly opposite from the lockmaster station, here we have the fully lit Chateau Laurier, looming so very dramatically...

Artists At Work

The Ottawa School of Art is a four story building in the Byward Market, and for Nuit Blanche, the place was open. It's a sprawling, large place set in an old building, very much an artist's space and a place of education. Many rooms and studios were open, and when we were inside, many people were moving through the place, going from exhibit to exhibit. We stopped in a dark room, pitch black, until you let your eyes get used to the dark... and you could see the fluorescent paint on key locations throughout the room, realizing that the whole room was filled with steel wires strung up at all sorts of angles. Once you saw it, you could navigate through the room with ease.

Another room was very busy, often used for comic strip sessions, a volunteer told me. Some of the work was on the walls. And tables were laid out with paper and pencils for visitors to try their hands at the craft. 

My artistic skills are lacking, so I didn't try it, more interested in capturing the mood of the crowd, not to mention some of the work on the walls. 

Stillness And Motion

Taking our leave of the Rectory Art House with this post. I loved the main staircase, and wanted a shot of it. With a lot of people in and out, of course, that meant having people in the shot. I imagine it was the shutter speed that led to this, but I like it. With some people clearly in motion, my eye is drawn to the woman pausing at the heart of the picture, a moment of stillness as she looks to her left. 

The Rectory on the outside, brightly lit up for the evening. At the upper left, you see the blue studio from a couple of posts back. I'll come back here sometime, and photograph the Rectory in daylight. 

The Writing Is On The Wall

Another room within the Rectory Art House. The artist, Lori Victor, was on hand in the room, where one wall was covered in these framed words, a mass of frames all organized and grouped together. I'm glad I picked up her artist statement. There were a hundred of these frames assembled on the wall. The words themselves were done in embroidery, and all of them were words that can be taken in more than one way. She deliberately chose the contrast of lighting the room like a cozy living room and the delicacy of embroidery as a technique, juxtaposed against the harsh words. 

  They are all terms used in reference to women, some very modern (Yummy Mummy was one such example), and others that have fallen out of use, dating back centuries. Her embroidery of the words was stylized, as you can see, in a font that goes back to the 1700s, and she asks the question: with these words still being emphasized in one way or another, does that mean women are marginalized, and if so, why?