No more outdoor skating

It's good to be able to see the lights reflected in the river again after dark; I had missed them. The wind having dropped since Sunday makes the water smoother, therefore all the more mirror-like. From our bank the brightest light shining into the Rideau is the floodlight by the Stanley Park field-house, which serves the purpose of illuminating the neighbourhood skating rink in the chilly season. Time to switch this off now. The rink has reverted to grass.

On the wider stretches of grass between Riverside Drive and the Rideau near the Riverside Hospital and Billings Bridge, numerous Canada geese are now congregating (I rode past them this morning).

A troubling incident by the riverside

Turning into our street on Sunday afternoon we noticed a disturbing sight. Someone was leading a tottering figure away from the bank of the Rideau River towards a bench. Must be ill, we thought. Chris parked the car in a hurry and rushed across to see what he could do to help. The other helper had vanished by then, leaving the sick man alone. It was someone off the streets. He looked a terrible sight, cut and bruised about the face, and in an advanced state of drunkenness, the bottle of spirits in his hand almost empty. He was foaming at the lips from a mouthful of tablets he had ingested. Hardly comprehensible, he tried to beg Chris not to call for help, but Chris was already dialling 911 for an ambulance and describing the situation over the phone. The sick man was shivering with cold and his hands were numb. He needed to be treated for hypothermia as well as everything else.

We promised the man he'd be warmer soon, once we'd got him inside a vehicle, but perhaps he was past caring. He was gazing into our eyes all the time, though, and said thank you to Chris.

We stayed with him. Help wasn't long in coming, but it wasn't an ambulance; it was two police cars. (Presumably there's a standard procedure for dealing with occurrences like this.) A tall policeman strode over and took charge.

"What's your name?" (the man muttered a first name) ... "Do you have another name? No? Have you got a piece of paper on you that'll tell us? Where have you been today, to the 'Shepherds'? You've drunk a lot of alcohol, haven't you?" etc. The policeman did not speak unkindly, but was very firm.

The man could hardly answer any of the questions, so Chris and the policeman between them dragged him over to the police car. The policewoman from the other car seemed to recognise the down-and-out.

"We'll deal with this now," the policeman told us. "Thanks, guys!" That was our dismissal.

We have no idea what happened after that, whether the man was taken to hospital or not, but he has been on our minds since. The river had drawn him like a magnet to its banks and if nobody had been around to prevent it, he would probably have let himself fall into the icy water, and his troubles would have been over once and for all.

The ice from above

A flight to Kingston and back yesterday took us above several rivers: the Ottawa, the Gatineau, the Mississippi, the Tay, the Rideau and Jock River. Some of the lakes between Perth and Kingston are also part of the Rideau River system, Big Rideau Lake an obvious example.

The faster flowing water in narrower reaches is mostly clear of ice now; wider stretches aren't so clear, as my pictures show. As the outside air temperature had been low all week, that's hardly surprising.

Never mind the late spring. It's a privilege to be able to see the landscape like this, in its frozen state; we were lucky to have such fine weather and excellent visibility for yesterday's outing.

Crossing the Ottawa near Constance Bay

A crack forming at a former crossing point on the ice (Ottawa River again)

Big Rideau Lake, still solid, from 6500 feet up

Corner of the Rideau River, west of Smiths Falls

Dick Bell Park

The Dick Bell Park is by the Nepean Sailing Club, bottom right on this map

Dick Bell, born in Britannia, just downstream of the park named after him, represented Carleton as an MP in the 1950s and 60s.

Next door to Andrew Haydon Park, the Dick Bell Park, as I thought (not for the first time) when I took a walk with a friend there yesterday, offers one of the wildest and most wonderful views in Ottawa. From the footpath to the small lighthouse at the mouth of the marina there, turn to the west! The Ottawa River (this wide stretch—2km wide—is known as Lac Deschenes) with the hills on the Quebec side stretching away into the distance is a sight that makes you forget you're still standing within the city limits. At this time of year the view of this stretch of the Ottawa looks particularly splendid, with the bay still covered with snow and ice: no water yet for the geese to land on, but when the ice melts here they'll flock here in their hundreds, to rest in the evenings after feeding from nearby cornfields.

I have often pulled off Carling Avenue here and parked at the entrance to the park in order to gaze at this relaxing view.

The northwest winds do bite at this spot in winter, though. This week's bright sunlight is deceptive. Our walk was bracing and rather short; we weren't properly dressed for it. Despite the fact that we have nearly reached the month of April, the "feels like" temperature has dropped as low as -19ºC these last two days. It pays to think positively and call it refreshing to breathe this cold air after being cooped up indoors or inside a car.

The Dick Bell Park is home to the Nepean Sailing Club and becomes a stopover for purple sandpipers in the autumn. "Without question," claims the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club, "the best year-round birding hotspot in Ottawa."

All the boats kept at the sailing club are lifted out of the water by crane at the end of the boating season and kept under covers on dry land throughout the winter, not returned to their moorings until Launch Day (this year scheduled for April 30th). So the dock and jetties are bound to look deserted for about two-thirds of the year. One day deep in winter a few years ago our Diplomatic Hospitality Group visited the club premises in winter, took some diplomats snowshoeing across the ice on the marina and encountered an ice-fisherman making a catch there. He actually handed over his fish as a gift to one of the Indonesians!

Like a beached whale

Chunks of ice were washed ashore by the high water in the Rideau River last week and now that the water level is dropping the ice is left stranded on the grass, melted by the sun that's making its presence felt, despite the cold wind.

Return of the geese

Pairs of Canada geese on the Rideau this morning, beside Stanley Park

The snow that fell yesterday will soon disappear; the grass in the parks is visible again (looking remarkably green on Sunday) and the geese are returning. The first thing I heard from outside this morning was a honking. We spotted three of them by the Ottawa River Parkway at the weekend and they're homing in on the Rideau now.

From the Hinterland Who's Who website:

Spring is a very energetically demanding time in a goose’s life, especially for breeding females. Canada Geese feed intensively during the few weeks before they leave southern agricultural areas to prepare for a period with little food when they first arrive on the northern breeding grounds. They will need sufficient reserves of fat and protein to complete migration, produce a clutch of eggs, and survive for about one month of incubation.

One of my friends told me she'd seen a beaver too, swimming in the Rideau.

Ice gone

On Thursday afternoon the surface of the Ottawa River in this part of town was still white. It rained on Thursday night and by Saturday all that ice had broken up and floated away. I saw a massive "island" of chunky ice moving slowly along, further downstream. It took only a few days for all the local rivers to flow free and fast. Walking across the Minto Bridges at the moment we can hear the high water swishing against the bridge supports. Its volume and speed is fearsome where the current's strong and at the calmer edges of the river it's almost overflowing its banks.

Green Island, and the swans

I walked onto Green Island last week, under the semi-circular walls of the Foreign Affairs building at 111 Sussex Drive (formerly City Hall) where a covered walk-way at river level allows a short cut to the Minto Bridges. I was expecting to see sandbags on the steps to the side doors to guard against water seeping into the ministry, but it seems the risk of spring floods this year hasn't been great enough to warrant placing them there.

The path took me past the Unity Tower. Directly under the tower there's a plaque, dated 1993:

Over the years, people from every land and continent have chosen to make Ottawa their home. The Unity Tower looks over Ontario and Quebec, and its symbolism extends to all of Canada. May it stand as an abiding reminder of the richness in diversity that is both our inheritance and our continuing gift to those whom come after us.

Another plaque on the grassy bank beside the tower refers to another kind of inheritance and to what I think is a sad story:

28 June 1967. These swans from the River Thames near Abingdon, Berkshire, the gift to the city of Ottawa of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, commemorate the centennial of the Confederation of Canada.

Off course the Royal Swans don't stay in one place as the Unity Tower does, even though they have their wings clipped and cannot fly away. "These swans" are no longer to be seen anywhere around Green Island; their descendants swim up and down the river between Cummings Bridge and Carleton University during the summer months, these days, and in winter—i.e. for two-thirds of the year!—despite repeated protests to the Ottawa Royal Swan Coalition by the Ottawa Humane Society, they're housed in less than ideal conditions at a facility on Leitrim Road until their new winter quarters can be made available at the Nepean Equestrian Park on Moodie Drive. During the bird flu scare of 2006 the birds were kept at Leitrim Road (aka Swantanamo Bay) all year round.

Last year, they were granted the relative freedom of the river from the end of May till October.

The robins are back

Wikipedia photo of an American robin

It was heartening to drive along the Rockcliffe Parkway this morning and see the widening patches of grass beneath the trees as the snow recedes under the blue sky. The buds on the trees are swelling too. The road, by the way, is riddled with potholes and from the lookouts you can still see people (ice fishermen?) walking about on the ice that remains on the northern side of the Ottawa River. I hope they know what they're doing, because most of the river in this area, to my amazement, is now clear of ice. The rain that fell midweek (at times heavy) must have loosened it.

Best of all, this morning, I noticed a flock of robins by the roadside: turdus migratorius —the summer birds have started to arrive!

The old railway bridge

"Bytown was located within the township of
Nepean, just west of the Rideau River, whereas New Edinburgh was located in the township of Gloucester, just east of the Rideau River. It was only in 1887 that New Edinburgh was annexed to Ottawa."
[...]
"McKay [1792-1855] was quick to grasp the potential of railroads, and he played an important role in the construction of the Bytown and Prescott Railway. Its charter was granted in 1850, and the company’s president was John McKinnon, a son-in-law of McKay. This 52-mile rail link ran east of the Rideau River, from Prescott on the St. Lawrence River through Gloucester Township to McKay’s mills [at the Rideau Falls]. The first train arrived in New Edinburgh on Christmas Day, 1854. During the following spring, a bridge over the Rideau River was completed, so that trains could directly enter Bytown, which was now only two hours from Ogdensburg, New York, and less than 24 hours from Boston."

From A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF NEW EDINBURGH
By Robert Serré, President, Gloucester Historical Society

The remains of that "bridge over the Rideau," its stone supports, can still be seen near our house. Nowadays mallard ducks, mergansers, geese, herons and cormorants perch on these stones in the river, to preen themselves or look for fish. A plaque on the wall that once led to the bridge (visible in my photo) alludes to the history described above.

By car, because there's no opportunity to go by rail any more, it still takes a couple of hours at least to get from here to Ogdensburg or vice versa, depending on how much time you're held up by immigrations and customs at the border.

After rereading the above, I'm puzzled as to why the picture below was dated 1852, because this is surely a sketch of the bridge in question. Perhaps this picture was advance publicity for the bridge.

Houses on the river?

We went for a walk round Parliament Hill tonight, appreciating the view of the city's landmarks lit up after dark. Thousands of lights and plenty of nighttime colour; the only empty area we could see was, of course, the (mostly) frozen Ottawa River lying like a dark open field between all the buildings.

Empty as they seem, our rivers are the central focus of Ottawa-Gatineau, linking all parts of the metropolis.

Remembering that the city planners' main goal is to "develop the downtown core" I suddenly began to imagine what might be done, one day, with this underused open space: it could be built on. Construction on water, especially on water that freezes and floods, sounds unlikely at present, and none too sensible in this climate, but who knows? They are already experimenting with amphibious housing in the Netherlands and in Dubai, and I know someone who's been happily living in a boat on an English canal for the last few years.

A Google Image search for "amphibious houses" brings up quite a selection.

Having said all that, I confess I value the emptiness of the wide river at the heart of our city. It makes for a breathing space. Maybe it should be left alone after all.

A national disgrace

Entrance to the disused Pavilion

This building, opened in 2001, has been closed since 2005, abandoned; for those four years it housed a "permanent" Canada and the World exhibition which, according to the pundits, nobody wanted to visit. On the contrary, in my case. I used to go there regularly, bringing my guests from overseas. It doubled as a venue for diplomatic receptions, etc. I went to a couple of those too, and very pleasant it was, to spend time in the light, airy upstairs room or on its balcony overlooking the adjacent Rideau Falls, the Ottawa River and the Gatineau Hills beyond. You could spend a relaxing hour watching the boats and the sunset from that balcony, a glass of champagne in your hand.

 The Pavilion in profile, showing its viewing balcony

These days, the building is already falling into a state of dilapidation, with rusty pillars and the danger of "toxic mould" forming on its damp inner surfaces.

After World War II, the land on which it stands was acquired by Public Works and Government Services Canada and, more recently, leased to the National Capital Commission.

50 Sussex Drive is one of the most under-utilised prime sites in the capital, a ridiculous waste of space. In 2007 it was considered as a potential  Embassy or High Commission, but this option would limit public access to the lookout over the river (coach loads of tourists regularly wanting to stop and see the Falls) or to the pleasant gardens round about. A monument to Canadian foreign aid workers who have perished in the course of their work is a few paces away, and it wouldn't be right to prevent people from seeing that. There's an outdoor display of ceramic tiles here as well, a reminder of the "cultural and artistic treasures of the Ottoman Empire"—a gift from the Iznik Foundation and the Turkish Embassy.

The pavilion, when it closed, also became a possible new location for the Ottawa Art Gallery, presently on Daly Avenue, but that idea came to nothing as well, perhaps because of the above-mentioned mould problem.

Before the newer pavilion was erected, a one storey, stone structure housed the Canada and the World collection. As new immigrants, we found it an interesting but strikingly small-scale affair, with a snack bar and washrooms at the back, only accessible from the outdoor patio.

The Virtual Tourist website published a comment in April 2003 that throws some light on why the showcase was a failure:

"I thought this museum was a pat-yourself-on-the-back place to re-enforce what people already knew. Mentally, I place the Canada and World Pavillion somewhere in between "kinda/maybe" interesting and an example of the dreaded Canadian inferiority complex [...]  If you really do want to see all the pictures of famous Canadians, see Canadian inventions, Canadian sports, Canadian technology, Canadian footballs, Canadian...ummm...trade relations with EU and U.S., then please come. But if you're not Canadian like myself, you might be bored out of your mind." 

I too remember thinking in the early days of living here: these Canadians are too diffident by far. Visitors were encouraged to make suggestions for the additional display of exemplary Canadian names in the Millenium Year and I filled out a card suggesting Richard Margison, the opera singer (my mother's cousin's son).

If I had a say in the matter, I'd propose that the location become the site of Canada's presently non-existant National Portrait Gallery. I'm sure something could be done to stop the damp seeping in, if the political will were there. The fact that we don't have such an attraction / historical record in our capital city (as does Australia, in Canberra, for example) is another national disgrace.

The Rideau Falls

When we first arrived in Ottawa from the UK I used to think that the ice floes tipping over the Rideau Falls looked like giant chunks of Kendal Mint Cake. We paused a while yesterday to watch some of this years' ice reach the lip of the Falls and splash down below. A group of people were doing the same on the opposite bank and shouting "Oh!" as the larger pieces hit the Ottawa River with a splash. Perhaps the sight was new to them; it's certainly dramatic. This year is the first time that I recall the bridge across the Falls being ribboned off: no public access. If you stand there watching the full spate of water, it makes you dizzy, and if there's a wind from the northwest, the spray blows up and wets you.

Rideau Falls, 1860 (no public safety measures, in those days!)

The hydro energy used to be harnessed by a series of mills (grist mill, wool mill, saw mill), built by Thomas MacKay, who first saw its potential in the 1820s. MacKay (sometimes spelled McKay) is also famous for having built the mansions Rideau Hall, eventually the official home of the Governor General, and Earnscliffe, now the British High Commissioner's Residence, overlooking the Ottawa River upstream from the Falls.

In our day there's a small hydro-electric station with two turbines beside the Falls which has been in service since 1908 and which generates 8542 MW of power per year.

Ice passing Porter Island

The temperature's above zero, it's cloudy but not raining and the Amphibex is as far upstream as Cummings Bridge. That's progress. This afternoon, as we walked towards the Rideau Falls—brown water in full spate!—I could smell the river. Heard and saw ducks on it, too.

Following the current of the river, the pieces of ice broken off by the Amphibex, but not into such large chunks as I've seen in previous years, are making their way to the falls. Beneath the falls the pile of ice is spreading, dirty with foam around the edges. The other (?) Amphibex is no longer trapped in that area. Pools of water are forming in the riverside parks, not to mention the puddles on streets and sidewalks. Slush everywhere.

In my picture the ice is floating between Porter Island and the Bordeleau Park bank. In 1913, there was a smallpox isolation hospital on this island. Nowadays it is where the elderly live, either in one of the most prestigious and expensive retirement residences in town, The Rockcliffe—it offers one or two bedroom and studio apartments, a luxurious lounge "with a panoramic view of the river," a library, a spa, a theatre, a dining room opening out on to the gardens with a and patio area and a limousine to take the residents anywhere they want to go—others live in the building opposite, on the other tip of the island, the nursing home.

Flood risk

The Amphibex, entering the water from Stanley / New Edinburgh Park has been working its way slowly upriver towards the Chinese Embassy these past two days, while the sun has shone from a very blue sky, making the expanses of ice and snow quite dazzling.

Over the weekend, we had relentless rain, later turning to snow; during the rainy phase conditions were ideal for ice-dams to form on the roof and cause leaks (enough water in our basement, for example, to require the removal of two large chunks of "dry wall" and insulation as well as part of the flooring—repairs and renovations to follow). The nuisance is relative. As recently as the 1980s, there had been worse to fear from the thaws in Ottawa: floods piling loose river ice high along the banks of the Rideau and, in the breaches, water that swept into houses several hundred metres from the river itself, sometimes completely submerging parked cars, and trickling in under people's doorways.

The drainage area of the Lower Rideau watershed covers 800 square kilometres. These days, the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority carefully maps the area and calculates the potential for flooding in order to help keep all this water under control.

The Amphibex in action

Rideau River, March 6th

Stuck in the ice!

Amphibious excavators, or water diggers, as I called one last year when I wrote a story about it for my 3-year old grandson (now 4), are used in Ottawa's efforts to break up the ice on the Rideau River. I gave my fictional one a name, Arnie Amphibex.

The deployment of these amphibious vehicles is an alternative to the use of dynamite during the ice-breaking process, less harmful to the creatures in the river. We joke about the beavers and muskrats waking up with a headache when the explosions happen, but it isn't funny for them or for the fish.

Tuesday night, two "Arnies" were on the Ottawa River near the Rideau Falls, where a significant amount of broken ice from the Rideau River is now accumulating. It was night when we spotted them; one machine was lit up and working slowly and steadily, downstream from the falls. The other one, upstream of the falls, could hardly be seen because no light was on in its cabin. It seemed to be wrecked, wedged in the jagged ice. Curious, I went back next morning and saw that the vehicle was stuck indeed, still immobile in the same place, partly submerged, as my photo at the top of this blogpost shows, and presumably abandoned. The other Amphibex was no longer to be seen.

Public access to the footpath across the falls bridge was prohibited yesterday, but I found an impressive view from the lookout point to the side.

This morning, Thursday, there's an Amphibex poised to enter the Rideau River upstream from the falls, at the point where the ice-breaking team have stopped dynamiting. I haven't checked to see whether the wrecked one has been salvaged yet.

The Unity Tower

The Rideau River, March 1st, 2011

There go the ice floes under the Minto Bridges and past the "Unity Tower." The river is visibly moving along once again after another day of blasting, the explosions audible as dull thuds from inside my house. (Strangely enough, during last year's earthquake in mid-summer, centered 60 km north of here, I heard a similar explosive noise.)

Regarding the "Unity Tower" (symbolic of the union of English- and French-speaking Canada) there's a story behind it (this version's in the Wikipedia, describing the architecture of 111, Sussex Drive):

In 1988 Ottawa mayor Jim Durrell initiated a controversial scheme to expand the building, quadrupling its original size. Architect Moshe Safdie was chosen for the redesign. Conflict soon broke out between Safdie and the city. Safdie demanded a higher fee and delayed the project for several months before the city acquiesced to his demand. Then a conflict broke out over a pair of eighteen story observation towers. City council voted to cut the towers to save the million dollars they cost. This infuriated Safdie who felt the towers were essential to the design. The panel that picked the design had singled out the tower as one of the highlights of the design. Eventually the city compromised and a bare scaffold was erected.

This story was going stale by the time when we moved to Ottawa in 1995, but the Quebec referendum of that year caused some more excitement, and in the heat of the moment someone boldly and illegally climbed the scaffold to hang a huge Canada flag at the top, from the symbolic "bridge" between the tower's two supports.