Martin's river walks

One of my Facebook Friends, who has been living near the Ottawa River for a long time, has recently been taking photos along its bank and uploading them onto his Facebook wall; he calls them his River Walk pictures.

He describes or comments on them. "Every time I stroll the shore, I pick up some glass or plastic bag," he says, but he leaves most of his finds untouched. He points his cellphone camera at driftwood, at falling water in a small tributary (he likes the way it sounds), at a stone in the grass, at the cracks in a "bedrock formation" on the shore. There are close-ups of the bark of a white oak and of long "water grass," pictures of geese and ducks, a pink beach ball, a metal hoop on a ring attached to a rock and rusted long ago (presumably meant for the painter of a boat) and more conventional ones of a typical sunset. Like me, he appreciates the stone sculptures created by John Félice Ceprano at the Remic Rapids.

The other day, exploring the shore, Martin found something really interesting: an old pipe bowl "Manufactured about 1700-1850 with a long stem. Marked T D or Thomas Dormer from Dorset, England. Broken off ... and tossed overboard ... Lying half above the sand in shallow water, this artifact has rested on my river walk stage and has beautifully illustrated an earlier time of canoe trappers and traders, log booms and chanty men."

The photo he posted this morning was of the corpse of a small cat in the shallows, beside a pile of litter. "Sad resting place for a black cat!" he added.

Petrie Island

Fireworks were set off from Petrie Island too, on Canada Day, as I know from someone who lives in Orleans.

Petrie Island beach on a quiet day

3000 years ago Algonquin and Iroquoian peoples probably used this as a fishing area and no doubt the early explorers and fur traders from Europe camped here in the old days. Captain Petrie, a mid 19th century leader of the Cumberland community, had the first road between Ottawa and Montreal constructed in 1850, and gave his name to the island. Before the Carillon dam between Hawkesbury and Montreal in 1962-64, many long, wide, sand beaches existed on the banks of the Ottawa. Petrie Island, still full of sand today, used to have four cottages. A fire in 1900 destroyed over 3000 buildings in Hull and Ottawa and some residents camped here while their homes were being rebuilt. In the 1950’s portion of the Island was used as a rubbish dump. The National Capital Commission purchased the Islands in 1983 for preservation of the wetlands and five years later the Province of Ontario designated it as a significant area of scientific interest: a Class 1 wetlands area. Over 130 different kinds of birds have been spotted here and it's the home of many rare plants as well.

At the eastern end is Stuemer Beach and Stuemer Park, a reference to the Stuemer family who sailed around the world from here (in 1997) and back to here (in 2001) on their boat Northern Magic. When the voyage was over, the mother, Diane, who had been sending regular dispatches to the Ottawa Citizen, reporting on their progress, published these in a book, but sad to say she died shortly afterwards (in 2003).

I see that the Friends of Petrie Island website has been updated, with an impressive list of what recreations are available there, on the Activities page. Go to the Bait and Tackle shop at Ozile's Marina, and you can rent a pedal boat, a kayak or a boat for fishing expeditions.  From the lifeguards' office you could also rent a volleyball net.  Personally I'd avoid this area at weekends to stay clear of the crowds; most of the facilities are open on weekdays too during midsummer and on the beach lifeguards are on duty every day from noon till 7p.m.

Explosions of joy and all the boats

At nightfall on Canada Day, yesterday, Chris and I stood on the MacDonald Cartier Bridge over the Ottawa River waiting for the start of the fireworks to be launched from Nepean Point. We'd walked there from our house. Canadians, young and old, of multiracial origins but mostly dressed in red and white. We were families, groups of friends, couples or people on their own, all hanging over the railing for the whole length of the bridge as traffic rumbled by behind us. A few people had carried lawn chairs to sit on and some of the children sat in strollers to wait. Below us, the river was covered with little boats at anchor, over 100 of them for sure, too numerous to count. Small groups of people on board were partying and each boat had a stern light to show the others where it was. Police boats with blue lights were patrolling the line of boats closest to the Nepean Point headland, to make sure nobody sailed any closer to where the spent fireworks would fall. 

The show began promptly at 10 o'clock in ideal weather conditions, not too hot, with just enough of a breeze to keep us cool but not too much to affect the trajectory of the fireworks whose colours were reflected in the windows of the high buildings on the Gatineau side of the river. After 15 minutes the fireworks came to a noisy climax and a huge, high bursts of colour. (The highest shells can climb over 300 metres into the air, i.e. to over 1000 feet above ground level). When the last burst had faded away, the watchers on both banks and on the boats and bridges applauded and cheered. Then everyone walked home or back to where they'd parked their cars in a cheerful mood, under a bright full moon.

There was no shouting or pushing or complaining and no rowdiness at all. Very well behaved people, these Canadians!