Back to winter

On our return, late on November 30th, we found the Rideau River already frozen over in our neighbourhood, with snow on the ice. It's an early winter in Ottawa this year. We missed a very cold week last week, apparently. The Ottawa River is still mainly clear of ice. The ducks and geese seem to have gone now.

The WaterStreet condo development has begun, with the old houses knocked down and the ground cleared for the new building work on Bruyère Street.

Here, for the sake of contrast, are some houses on the bank of the Parramatta River in Sydney, Australia (photo taken last week):

The westernmost of our Minto Bridges is under cover again, and a security guard sits there in his or her car day and night to keep guard over whatever is under the tarpaulins, which makes me wonder. Are we still in Phase 2 of the "rehabilitation" or is this the start of Phase 3? Possibly they're just doing more work on the new road surface. Anyhow, the road over the bridges is blocked again but at least pedestrians can get by on the boardwalk, unlike last year. We now have a small roundabout at the King Edward / Union street intersection, near the foreign affairs (Lester Pearson) building which will make for an easier flow once the Minto Bridges are open to traffic again.

A very distant river!

There won't be any blogposts about the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers this month because I'm in another hemisphere (failing to recognize the constellations after dark).

Riverbus stop on the Parramatta River

Sydney Harbour Bridge from Cockatoo Island

Yesterday we took river boats in both directions from Meadowbank to downtown Sydney on the Parramatta River estuary. The boats are like commuter busses, well used and frequent. Every few hundred metres there's a "bus stop" on the bank with its name (e.g. Kissing Point) visible from the river. We passed sandy beaches, sandstone cliffs and many wharfs, the wooden posts rotting away and covered with barnacles, the concrete posts less picturesque, but sturdier. Jellyfish rise and fall in the water. You can sit on the top deck of the catamarans in the sunshine and wind--hang on to your hat!--and watch the world go by. Houses on the riverbank look very desirable and are doubtless worth millions. Most have their own private fishing docks with watercraft anchored beyond them. In the distance are the Sydney skyscrapers.

Military style camping on Cockatoo Island

On our downriver ride we disembarked at Cockatoo Island, a former convict detention centre and shipbuilding yard which is undergoing a "Renaissance in every sense of the word" for the sake of the tourists. Indeed it was a fascinating place to explore, though the conditions for its poor inmates had been disturbingly harsh, and we were justifiably warned about the "aggressive seagulls" (with scarlet beaks and feet) that were nesting on the cliff face. Under the cliff was a field where tourists can camp in military tents overnight, if they wish, and on the other side of the island we found an ancient steam-powered crane, made in the 1880s.

The steam crane

The rocks beneath the Rideau

I had to ask, why all the little orange and yellow flags stuck in the grass in Bordeleau Park? What were all the men in fluorescent jackets doing with their measuring equipment? Why the floaters in the river and the large working boat laden with all its mysterious equipment? The answer is that a geophysical survey is underway to determine the depth of the bedrock in the riverside parks and underneath the river. They need to replace the ancient sewer that crosses the riverbed and services the districts on either side.

On the Rideau Canal website page I linked above, there's some history of the riverbed:

As the glaciers continued their retreat north, the St. Lawrence and Ottawa river valleys were exposed. The bedrock was depressed below sea level from the weight of the ice. This allowed waters of the Atlantic Ocean to fill the depressed area and mix with river waters and glacial meltwaters. This formed a brackish (partly salty) sea known as the Champlain Sea. This sea in the northern Rideau area lasted from about 12,000 BC to 11,100 BC and extended at least as far south as Rideau Ferry, perhaps to Nobles Bay of Big Rideau Lake. Evidence for this sea can be found in the sediments it deposited, including the Leda clay deposits found in the Ottawa area, many sea mollusc shells and even the bones of Beluga whales which have been found as far south as Smiths Falls. With the weight of the ice gone, the bedrock was rising, a process known as isostatic rebound. The rivers and lakes were establishing themselves.

Controlling the flow

The website of the Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board, established in 1983 by the governments of Canada, Quebec, and Ontario to oversee the management of reservoirs of the Ottawa River basin, reports the daily water levels at various points along the Ottawa and the Gatineau Rivers, mentioning that, at present, "levels and flows on the main stem of the Ottawa River are slightly above normal for this time of the year." It also records the outflow from the Carillon dam in cubic metres per second (1700 at the last count).

The people most likely to be interested in these figures are the producers of hydro electric power in our region and the people vulnerable to floods. If there's too much or too little water flowing, one or the other of those groups is going to be affected.

Chelsea dam, Gatineau River

The dams on the Ottawa River and its tributaries are the places where the flow is controlled and the hydro electricity generated.

The combined capacity of the hydro-electric generating stations in the watershed is over 4000 MW, producing over $1 million worth of energy on a daily basis.

There are hundreds of dams and not all their effects are benefits. The Ottawa Riverkeepers list a few problems caused by dams:

• Blocking upstream and downstream migration of fish and mussels, thereby preventing them from reaching spawning and feeding areas
• Flooding, erosion, habitat washout
• Scouring and armoring of the riverbed by infrequent and large releases of water
• Rapid fluctuations in flow that do not mimic the natural flow patterns in rivers
• Modification of water-quality parameters including water temperatures, nutrient concentration and dissolved oxygen.

November 1st by the Rideau River

It's a stormy time of year for the northern hemisphere. The wild weather and the clouds flying across the sky made me feel restless yesterday, so I went out twice across our local park to look at the river in the hope that it would calm me down.

Later in the day the park became covered in twigs, leaves and branches that had blown off the trees and the grey water was whipped into waves by the wind, gusting to >40 knots.

Fresh air before the rain

After an early breakfast on Carling Avenue I had time for a short walk in Dick Bell Park by the Nepean Sailing Club before the rain started (and continued all day). It was cold (4º) but refreshing, with grey views of the Ottawa River, and nobody in the park apart than me and a solitary jogger. A small lighthouse at the mouth of the harbour guides the yachts to their docks in summer; not much need for it at this time of year when most of the yachts have been lifted to higher ground for the winter. The Nepean Sailing Club's website reports:

Despite the nasty weather, a large group of very dedicated volunteers were on hand this past Saturday to help haul about 85 boats. Tow-boat drivers, Radio-jockeys, Dock Crews, Shore Crews, Safety staff, Cradle placement teams, Layout planners [...] All in all, nearly 100 volunteers on hand in cold and wet conditions.

Geese were taking off from Britannia Bay this morning; they sleep on the river in large flocks by night then commute in family formations to the local cornfields by day.

My favourite Ottawa River view, as I've mentioned before, is the view from Dick Bell Park looking west, where the river appears to go on for ever, luring explorers upstream towards the wilds.

"Senseless rowing"

This is the clever title of a new blog being created by Dean Pucsek (previously mentioned here) who hopes to compete in the 2016 Paralympics as an oarsman and who's presently training daily at the Ottawa Rowing Club and on the Ottawa River. His description of what it's like to attempt this with impaired vision starts as follows:

Picture this, it’s 5:00 AM and you just arrived at the boathouse for your morning row. Getting out of the passenger seat you see small orbs of light floating mid-air, that must be the boathouse. As you walk towards the floating orbs you start to see other shapes, what are they? Likely the boathouse. Closer still, you can see a door under an orb. Yep, this is the boathouse. As you go around the front of the boathouse you see more floating orbs and hope the path to what you think are your team mates is clear. As you get closer to your suspected team mates you can hear voices that you recognize—nailed it. [...]

I am posting a link to Dean's blog from this site, so that I can follow his progress.

Good luck to him!