A sacred place on the Ottawa River

A British-Canadian friend has lent me a book of his––nearly 500 pages long––by Peter Ackroyd, entitled Thames, Sacred River. I'm looking forward to reading it. Although Canada doesn't have such a wealth of history as does England, it strikes me that the Ottawa River could also be given a title like that.

There is a site on the Ottawa, known as Oiseau Rock, or, in French, Rocher à l'Oiseau, a 150m high cliff (opposite Chalk River's atomic energy research labs, west of Petawawa and Pembroke) that is specifically sacred to the aboriginal people from this area. The First Nation calls it Migizi Kiishkaabikaan (bird rock) and apparently the locals pronounce its French name "Weeso Rock." Ancient pictographs are painted on the rocks which have unfortunately been defaced by modern graffiti; it would be sad to see this at close quarters.

We have seen this dramatic stretch of river from the air but not from ground /water level. In the 19th century, steam boats used to sail up these upper reaches of the Ottawa upstream of Portage-du-Fort as far as Rapides-des-Joachims, and if their whistles were blown, the sound would echo off the face of Oiseau Rock.

Rushing water

Yesterday morning I caught a glimpse of the Hog's Back Falls as a friend drove me past it on the Colonel By Drive: a magnificent sight, the water rushing in full spate over the falls and drowning the islands in the stretch of river below, so that the bottoms of all their tree trunks are submerged.

Yesterday evening I saw the Rideau Falls in a similar state, the churned up river water the colour of dark ale as it surges over the lip of the falls. The hydroelectric station there is having some major alterations done, it seems, and the park's being re-landscaped, much of the area presently sealed off.

Construction work on the Minto Bridges, on the other hand, has now come to a halt, with renovations of the western most bridge apparently complete and the metalwork repainted, so the bridges are finally accessible to traffic and pedestrians again, only (!) 4 months behind schedule. Presumably they'll start work on the other two bridges later on.

Ottawa's Tall Ship

Yesterday evening, walking downtown, we made a detour down to the Rideau Canal locks to make sure the bottom one was closed. It was, and you can walk across, which means that my husband will be able to cycle to work in Kanata following the riverside trails without having to go through the traffic on Parliament Hill first; he can simply ride down the steep bike path from the National Gallery and then under the cliffs. There is still some ice on the bike trail but none in the river itself, now.

From our vantage point by the locks we noticed two wonderful things. First, the rusty old Alexandra Bridge over the Ottawa River was magically gilded by the setting sun from the west, especially dramatic with a grey sky for a backdrop to the east. I wished I'd had the foresight to bring a camera along. Secondly, as we walked past the penultimate lock, we saw the "Bytown Brigantine," still under tarpaulins, with her masts stowed horizontally, waiting to be sailed this summer. She's called Fair Jeanne and a visit to her website informs you of all kinds of possible adventures aboard. The section about Summer Activities in 2013 suggests that you

... be a part of history-in the-making, as Bytown Brigantine and the Fair Jeanne participate in three major events: the opening of Tall Ships Landing and the Aquatarium, the Tall Ships America Great Lakes Challenge 2013 and the Thousand Islands Flotilla.

You can participate in groups, as young teams (either in the 12 to 14 age group or the 15s to 18s) or as individual adults. It is not prohibitively expensive––each year, 20% of the ship's berths are made available to families through a bursary fund.

Dreaming of little boats

On our away trip last weekend we visited a chandler's store in Peterborough, to buy some rope for our tie-down spot at Rockcliffe airport. Peterborough is a magnet for the boating fraternity in summer, a stop on the Trent-Severn Waterway, famous for its "lift lock." While we were in the chandlery, we made an impulse buy, coming away with a Small-Craft Nautical Chart / Carte marine pour embarcations (published by Fisheries and Oceans Canada) of the Ottawa end of the Rideau Canal: Ottawa to Smiths Falls, Chart 1512.

We are now dreaming of using it, but would have to know how to do so properly. The Becketts Landing to Smiths Falls section looks particularly complicated. As we were overflying the area on our way back to Ottawa yesterday I thought of this and took a couple of photos of the bends and bays in the Rideau River at Smiths Falls. From a mile above the river the view looks very like the charts. The water is not quite ready for navigation at present.

Kilmarnock Island in the middle distance

The Rideau River / Canal at Smiths Falls

Deceptive progress

Debris is now being carried down the Rideau, rather than ice. The river's full, but not dramatically so. Walking on its grassy banks this morning the ground still felt hard underfoot and the grass has very little green in it, as yet.

The Minto Bridge renovation that has taken so long is nearly done. The tarpaulin cover has been removed and it looks from a distance as if we have a new road surface and new board walk beside it, but the fences are still up, so I can't yet take a closer look. There are still vehicles parked on the bridge and workers' huts at this end of it.

Work on the new condo buildings at WaterStreet, though very well publicized all around the city, hasn't begun yet, either, though the street itself was dug up in places a week or so ago, presumably to check the infrastructure––the pipes and cables. The location is being advertised as "a quiet haven amid the excitement and energy of the downtown core" and will no doubt be seen as a desirable place to live. However, someone else's blogpost points out how misleading that map on the Claridge website is, when you take a close look at it:

The actual location of the WaterStreet development is more or less correct, however the developer has taken the liberty to redraw the boundaries of the Byward Market and New Edinburgh (both are highlighted in purple). As one can see from the map, the Byward Market area has leaped across King Edward placing it (conveniently) at the doorsteps of the new Claridge development. New Edinburgh on the other hand covers most of Lindenlea and portions of Vanier. In addition, the entire area located between Mackay and Stanley is turned into parkland.

Dissipating ice

Ottawa River near Constance Lake

The ice on the Ottawa River is breaking up, by degrees. The picture on the left was taken from around 3500 ft ASL on the morning of Good Friday (March 29th) and the picture below it was taken two days later, on Easter Sunday, a few kilometres further east. The same phenomenon is to be seen on the Gatineau and Rideau Rivers now, with some sections still solidly covered with ice and other parts flowing freely. On Saturday, while we were away from town, the region basked in mild and sunny weather which must have speeded up the thaw.

Ottawa River just below its confluence with the Gatineau

From Parliament Hill in Ottawa today we looked down on an accumulation of drifting pieces of ice near the Musée des Civilisations that have been broken up by the force of the Chaudière Falls, carried a little way downstream and then blocked by a sheet of still unmelted ice under the Alexandra Bridge.

Now that there are enough stretches of clear water for them to land in, the geese are back, a potential hazard to pilots, but a welcome sight all the same.

Most of the geese and ducks returning to our neighbourhood were out of the river today, pecking at the grass or swimming in puddles of melted snow. The river itself was flowing fast, full of choppy waves, because it is windy at the moment, with 30 knot gusts. The wind chill tonight is back down to -16ºC!