Magic on the river bank

It was the night of the Lumière Festival again, tonight: the Evening of Light Celebration in Stanley Park. It was a well supported event and free of charge. Little girls were swarming through New Edinburgh on their way to the park, dressed as fairies; it's a wonderful experience for all the children whose families bring them along. Some of the adults indulge in dressing up too. Lanterns hang in the trees along the river bank and monsters in the undergrowth glow from within. This year there were goose-lanterns by the path and swan-lanterns floating on the river as well as a crowd of rabbit-lanterns in the grass. People carry their home-made lanterns with them when they visit the park on this night. This month there have been nine lantern-making workshops on different days / times of day.

From the opposite bank of the Rideau you could distantly see the lanterns reflected in the water. The organisers were lucky this year (the 10th time the festival has been held) with perfect mild weather, not a breath of wind to blow out the candles and a full moon to enhance the atmosphere.

On our way home we saw two real swans under the St. Patrick Street bridge, one swimming decorously behind the other.

Poetry by the river

Archibauld Lampman

I happened to pick up a copy of the New Edinburgh News this morning, the December edition actually, which has an article on Page 3, written by Paula Thompson, about Riverside Poetry in Stanley Park. Reading it, I learned that two plaques inscribed with poems, one in English, one in French, have been erected in Stanley Park near the riverside tennis courts there.

The English poem, entitled To the Ottawa was written by Archibauld Lampman, who died in 1899 aged only 37. He is buried in Beechwood Cemetery.

Here is the poem:

Dear dark-brown waters full of all the stain
Of sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,
Laden with sound from far-off northern glens
Where winds and craggy cataracts complain,
Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain
The pines that brood above the roaring foam
Of La Montagne or Les Erables; thine home
Is distant yet, a shelter far to gain.
Aye still to eastward, past the shadowy lake
And the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun,
The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,
The beryl waters that espouse and take
Thine in their deep embrace, and bear thee on
In that great bridal journey to the sea.

Alfred Garneau

Rigaud is a municipality with a sizeable hill to the west of Montreal. The Ottawa's "comrade river" is the St. Lawrence, of course.

The French poem, La Rivière is by Alfred Garneau (1836-1904), and describes not the Ottawa but the Rideau River:

C’est une forte berge, au large flanc de glaise,
Abruptement taillée ainsi qu’une falaise!
Le Rideau passe au bas, riant sous son flot noir.
D’ici, le long des eaux je puis apercevoir
Les roseaux alignés comme une palissade,
Où crie, à pointe d’aube, un grand héron maussade.
Étroite, la rivière a du moins son attrait
D’onde mouvante, avec, entrant sous la forêt,
Tous ses enfoncements, pareils à des alcôves,
Qu’achèvent de fleurir, au bord, les glaïeuls mauves.
L’on a pour horizon des blés, point de lointain
Que le ciel, et dans l’eau son mirage incertain.

Another thing I learned from Ms. Thompson's article is that there's a 35km long Poets' Pathway around Ottawa with other poems by Canada's (early, famous) "Confederation Poets" on plaques along the way. What a nice idea!

Plenty of activity

Just home from a warm (20ºC!) Sunday afternoon stroll by the Rideau River, where we weren't the only ones. People on their own, in pairs, or in families were jogging, running, cycling and roller-blading along the trail, overtaking the fast walkers, the slow walkers and the dog walkers. A young woman was taking photos of the geese from the river bank. On the grass, people were throwing frisbees back and forth or playing impromptu games of badminton. Games of soccer, too, a lively multiracial group of under-fives making up one of the teams, all dressed in the appropriate clothing. Maybe it was someone's birthday party. The tennis courts in Stanley Park in full use and a couple of young men were taking turns to score "baskets" through the nearby hoop.

The willow trees are all in leaf now, including the horizontal ones blown over last week. I hardly need to add that it suddenly looks and feels as if summer's here.