Evening walk by the Ottawa River

In the present heatwave, the best times of day for walking are the dawn or dusk. From the edge of Parliament Hill where the stray cats' shelter is––feeding half a dozen raccoon cubs when we walked by around 9 p.m. last week––a flight of steps leads steeply down through the trees to the Ottawa River bank. It would be good for anyone's fitness régime to climb up and down them daily. As we went down, a young man was running up, not something I'd be capable of.

The water level is low this month, so the island of rocks between Parliament and the Maison du Citoyen on the Gatineau side seems larger than usual. On the evening we went by it was crammed with seagulls, their mewling shattering the peace and quiet of the river.

One of the Paul's boats was just docking at the mouth of the Rideau Canal locks, unloading passengers from the last cruise of the day. We had just seen the red globe of the sun sink into misty cloud over the Gatineau Hills. We crossed the last (or first) of the lock gates––there's a handrail for the nervous, but the gate top is wide enough to wheel a bike across––to reach the path up to Major's Hill Park. Be careful if you follow this walk because summer cyclists tend to hurtle round the bend and down the slope at a good 30kph without watching out for pedestrians, because they're so enjoying the speed rush.

Cyclists are too fast to be attacked by mosquitos under the trees, but that doesn't apply to walkers.

At the top of the cliff on that side of the canal sits the National Gallery by Nepean Point, on which a new amphitheatre is going to be built soon, the old one being "full of asbestos" and past its best. In the 1990s I used to enjoy watching the folk dancing there at the annual Carnival of Cultures, which these days takes place at a different location.

Cold front thunderstorm

Thinking we'd take a walk in the cooler part of the day we set out across our park towards the Minto Bridges this evening to be confronted by a menacing black sky to the northwest, a line of turbulent thunder clouds approaching. Sure enough, as we reached the bridges the rain and wind began, and we had to run for cover under the covered walkway beside the Foreign Affairs ministry. From there we could watch the storm lashing the Rideau River so fiercely that the water looked to be rapidly moving upstream; in fact the surface water was doing just that with waves breaking and floating objects moving some distance upriver in the squalls. On the far side of the bank the big trees did a wild dance in the wind.

Maples are the best at withstanding thunderstorms, bending in the gusts but not losing many branches. Willows on the other hand are fragile. Never stand under a willow tree in a thunderstorm. When we returned home down St. Patrick Street after another pause for shelter in a coffee shop on Beechwood Avenue, we saw the havoc wreaked by the storm in the park where we'd started our walk. Chris walked round the fallen trees to make sure nobody was trapped underneath, and I went to fetch my camera so that I could take some pictures before darkness fell:

I then checked the weather reports and radar pictures. It seems that the cold front with severe storms this evening stretched from Kingston to Quebec, crossing the United States border about an hour later.

Another casualty of the Ottawa storm was the stage for the Blues Festival at Lebreton Flats, near the Ottawa River west of Parliament Hill. The Ottawa Citizen has already published its report with a nice misprint that I hope they don't correct:

...Citizen reporter Chris Cobb was on scene and said the storm came in the form of dark clouds and violent wins from the Ottawa River, blew into the MBNA stage and it collapsed immediately. The band Cheap Trick ran from the stage seconds before the stage collapsed and their road crews emerged minutes later to rescue instruments...

(my emphasis)

Hot weather

It "feels like" 40º in most of Ontario at the moment, and that includes the Ottawa Valley. The usual July heatwave is upon us and people either want to stay in the shade of the trees (I see that several more trees have been planted in our neighbourhood park this year) or stay indoors in air-conditioned places, or go swimming. The local rivers offer free swimming, if you don't mind the crowds on some of the beaches, and the City of Ottawa publishes information about the cleanliness (or not) of the water, publishing daily updates on the levels of E. coli per 100mL of water, with a No Swim Advisory at Mooney's Bay today, for example, after the levels tested yesterday turned out to be risky. They'll be flying a red flag on that Rideau River beach to make the point.

Petrie Island beach

Britannia Beach on the Ottawa River is usually a safe place to swim, by the way, because the curve of the bay protects that part of the river's edge from the usual pollutants. I'm adding a picture of one of the Petrie Island beaches on the eastern side of the national capital region (my photo taken at a less populous time of year).

Today Chris and I were in Wakefield for lunch and saw people swimming in the Gatineau River, downstream from the covered bridge. What is more delightful than to float in comfortably cool, sparkling water gazing through your wet eyelashes at a blue sky?

The Ottawa River in summer

I took this photo from above the Rideau Falls a couple of years ago but the view hasn't changed. This is how it looks at the moment, too. Being able to "see out" is worth a lot to me. We were standing there watching the boats pass by a couple of evenings ago. At this time of year it's a perfect vantage point for sunsets as well.

Near the Falls, it looks as though a new access road is being constructed down to the river's edge, from beside the French Embassy. Trees have been felled but the work is by no means finished yet, so we'll have to wait and see what's coming there.

A sunny day and clear water

It's an ideal summer's day today with the sun glistening on the ripples of the blue Rideau reflecting a blue sky. Purple vetch and marguerite daisies are in flower on its banks. I walked across St. Patrick Bridge twice today between concerts of the Music and Beyond Festival, and appreciated the clear river water and healthy reeds beneath the surface as I looked down into it. It compares favourably in that respect with the muddier and more polluted rivers of the Yangtze delta that I was looking at a month ago.

The only thing that spoils the immediate environment here is the noise of the traffic on St. Patrick Street.

"Oh look, geese!"

Walking by the Rideau River we had just noticed the Canada geese swimming past the Chinese Embassy, when we heard another evening walker point them out to her friend. The striking thing was how many birds there were, one behind the other, several families in convoy, presumably. That's what geese are good at, staying in line. From goslings onward, they're brought up to be disciplined, obedient followers. I counted up to sixty, but lost count after that; I think there were about eighty of them swimming together.

I wonder what their purpose was.

Water play

Photo found on Flikr.com

For the last couple of summers a splash pad has been installed in our Bordeleau Park where small children (not to mention the occasional adult) can run around on hot days under jets and sprays of water. Simple, innocent fun, and there should be more of it. Before the water drains away into a bed of pebbles under the footpath near the river itself, it forms a stream which becomes another source of amusement for the children.

Very old dynamite?

This happened last Thursday night, but, probably asleep early, I missed hearing the explosion.

Someone fishing in the Rideau River near the Vanier riverside park hooked a pack of dynamite instead of a fish. According to the Ottawa Citizen the police were "tight lipped" about the incident and nobody knows where the dynamite came from or how old or dangerous it was. Another version of the story claims that a canoeist found the wax-wrapped sticks of dynamite "floating in the water;" it wasn't the same kind of explosive used by the usual ice-breaking crews at the end of winter. The CBC corroborates this.

The Rideau and the Qiantang

I was away from Canada for eight weeks, and in my absence, the Rideau River drifted into midsummer. Water lilies are flowering under the banks by the Chinese Embassy and a new boat launching dock has been constructed in the Bordeleau Park, a welcome addition to our neighbourhood. The river banks have high grass on them, dotted with wild flowers.

In China, other waterlilies were blooming, and as we left Hangzhou lotus buds just beginning to unfold. We were staying in a hotel that overlooked the wide and impressive Qiantang River giving us a daily view of the strange boats on it and of the floods that swamped the willow trees when the rains came last month, lasting almost continuously for three weeks of our visit!