Shimmering And Vibrant

Here we have more of the pairs ice sculptures under the lights, which create a different mood than when you see these in daytime.

Ice Sculptures In The Evening

I am finishing my Winterlude series with three days of posts, featuring the ice sculptures all lit up in the evening. These were taken on the final Saturday of the festival. This first one was the sculpture erected on behalf of the European Commission at Ottawa City Hall, with the 2017 torch behind it. This sculpture celebrated the anniversaries of Canadian Confederation and the establishment of what would become the EU.

This was the ice sculpture at one of the entrances into Confederation Park.

Nearby was the 150 sculpture, all lit up.

I also photographed this ice sculpture that I hadn't caught before.

Here we have the Vimy Memorial sculpture, commemorating the centennial of that battle, and weaving Walter Allward's designs into a Maple Leaf.

The polar bear was well lit up.

And here we start with the pairs ice sculptures. It was quite a line to get in here, but I wanted to see these sculptures under the lights. The colours changed gradually. I have more from here over the next couple of days.

Inuit Leisure And A Long Winter

These shots date to the final day of Winterlude- February 20th. In Confederation Park, a stage was set up through the festival for various uses, with the Lord Elgin Hotel and the Aboriginal Veterans Monument as a backdrop. On this day, a number of Inuit teens were doing a demonstration of games the Inuit use to get through the long winters of the far north of Canada. I found each in turn to be fascinating. Here in this first shot, two are engaged in the game of musk ox- pushing against each other's heads as a show of strength, in the same way the animals do. The object in the game is to push your opponent back across a given line.

Another game was leg wrestling- two girls went on their backs, one arranged in one direction, the other  facing the other. The idea is to hook one leg, and try to pull your opponent off their back, using just that leg.

The third game was fun to watch- a high kick. One person held a pouch, suspended from a stick, while two others would take turns trying to kick the pouch. The stick was raised after each player threw a kick. You try leaping that high.

And they finished up with singing- both the girls and the boys.

Inukshuks And The Final Carvings

These were at Lansdowne Park; a couple of inukshuks in snow. The concept started in the far north, where rocks would be piled by Inuit people as markers. They can often be found today in southern stretches of Canada as a garden feature.

To give you an idea of the effect sun has on ice sculptures, this is taken on the last weekend of the festival- this was the large scale map of Canada ice sculpture in Confederation Park that I showed early on in the series. The map has faded away as the ice has gone completely opaque.

The polar bear sculpture had stood up pretty well, but had also gone opaque.

And yet on that last weekend, ice carvers were working on fresh small scale sculptures around the fountain in the park. I also noticed the group that have often been at Winterlude- old fashioned toys and woodworking are their forte.

The Dragons, Ice Hogs, And Skaters

During the last weekend of Winterlude, I happened to catch a couple of costumed buskers making their way from Confederation Park over to City Hall, outfitted as dragons.

The Ice Hogs were also over here at the time, leaving City Hall as I passed by.

The Ottawa Public Library has a bookmobile program. Two buses serve in this capacity, sometimes showing up at events like Winterlude, but regularly through the week in various locations as an additional service beyond the thirty or so branches of the OPL. The bus is packed with books and other borrowing material.

Skaters were out on the ice rink before City Hall and Cartier Square.

And there were street musicians out at the entrance to City Hall. The enthusiasm of the dancer, moving to the sound of the drums, caught my attention.

The Bridge And The City In The Twilight

Taken during Winterlude one day, this view is of the Bank Street Bridge from the west side. I turned around and photographed the view looking west from the same spot.

This view looks east from on top of the bridge, late in the day on the last Saturday of the festival, the final day the ice was open to skaters.

Downstream from there, I stopped at the Patterson Creek area, an inlet for the Canal which allows skaters to come on in and skate, and took some photos around the area in the dying light of day.

This last shot shows the inlet to the left after the sun has gone down under the horizon. There's a speck of light just at the top of the shot- I believe that's Venus.