Ice-breaking: a slow process

This month's ice-clearing operations on the Rideau River, upstream from the Rideau Falls, have so far only reached as far as the Chinese Embassy. As usual, dynamite was used first, then the amphibious excavator, but it's taking more time than usual because the ice is so thick this year and because the ice is piling up to a huge extent at the base of the falls.

I took some photos yesterday:

A sight worth seeing

I have never seen the Rideau Falls as iced-over as they are this year. The snow has also piled up around the base of the falls to a phenomenal extent. This afternoon, on a relatively mild but windy day, we walked over to take a look at it.

Pedestrian access to the bridge is sealed off at present. The men in helmets and red jackets in the middle of the bridge are the officials, trying to decide what to do about that much ice, I presume.

Full moon over a full river

The thunderstorms on Friday left a lot of water on the ground and the Rideau River banks have since overflowed in places, which is unusual for midsummer. We walked out onto the boat launching dock in our park last night and I put a hand into the water which after the sunny day was as warm as water in a bath tub. Our walk had been longer than usual because we wanted to see how the flood had affected the Rideau Falls––we made a detour and saw the golden brown flood pouring over. The spray made a rainbow above the falls. The wind had dropped completely which made for perfect riverside conditions and the full moon, when it rose behind Cummings Bridge, was crystal clear. We'd seen the moon the night before as well, from the Minto Bridges, with families of geese swimming in a line in the moonlight, still awake.

Mist rising, with herons

We went for a walk to the Rideau Falls after heavy rainshowers, this evening, and saw mist rising from the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, near the bank. It looked mysteriously beautiful, although something should be done a.s.a.p. about the dilapidated and defaced concrete walls around and below the falls.

Seagulls and ducks were swooping overhead as usual and another bird glided onto the cliffs, that wasn't the right shape for a seagull. I think I have now identified it as a Black Crowned Night Heron (as pictured here, courtesy of the Wikipedia). In fact there was a pair of them.

 We also saw the more familiar kind of herons (the Great Blue) flying over the bridge and perching on the embankments. Ducklings and goslings on Green Island were being taken good care of by their parents.

Ducks are back

I always assumed that the ice breaking operations on the Rideau River finished just upstream from Cummings Bridge, where the rapids are, but today I caught a glimpse of the Amphibex well beyond that point, and the "growlers" that have been artificially broken off the main body of ice continue to sail down the river towards the falls.

Rideau Falls, March 2013, photo by Chris Hobbs

We went to look at the falls at the weekend, very full now and with huge chunks of ice splashing into the river below. It's a dramatic spectacle. The mere picture above cannot convey the noise, the dampness from the spray, the smell of the river water, and the dizziness you feel standing on that bridge and watching all that water in rapid motion just below you. Compare the picture above with the one taken on March 3rd and you can see how much ice on the falls themselves has been dislodged by the sheer force of the water during the last couple of weeks.

It hasn't taken the local ducks long to find the water that's been cleared. I think we saw nine goldeneyes near our house, but what do they find to live on? The freshwater shrimps and the weeds below the surface, I assume. It must be extremely cold in the water, just now.

If you're interested in spotting birds, by the way, there's a list of recent sightings on this page of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club website.

Blasted ice again

I don't mean the icicles that hang by the wall in the melt-freeze-melt-freeze sequence that always occurs at this time of year. I refer to the rivers––it's happening again: they are dynamiting the ice near the bridges on Sussex Drive and the Minto Bridges, just above the Rideau Falls. Yesterday, in fact, a section of Sussex Drive was closed all day during these operations.

Our house shakes and rattles from the explosions. We watched the operations for a while today, three sticks of dynamite being used at a time, and then the ice floes slowly move away from the continuous river ice towards the Falls where they break into fragments as they tip over.

The Rideau Falls, this morning, photograph by Chris Hobbs

The "nibbler," as my husband calls it, meaning the amphibious excavator which I have featured in this blog before, has been at work on the Ottawa River below the Rideau Falls, making room for the extra ice that's coming over. This year a reporter on the CBC radio program, Ottawa Morning, Hallie Cotman, had a ride on the amphibex. From the recording you can hear how noisy the machine is. The reporter also sounds rather nervous, on board. The crew teased her!

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Local+Shows/Ontario/ID/2338952306

The Ottawa River on Christmas Day

To give ourselves an appetite for Christmas Dinner we went for a walk beforehand. Here are two views across the Ottawa River towards the Gatineau Hills in Quebec, from just above the Rideau Falls, mid afternoon.  The whiteness of the hills is an indication of the snow that remains stuck to the branches of every tree up there after last week's storm.

The air temperature was -9º (-15º taking the wind chill into account); we spotted a man skiing across the frozen surface of the river on the far side.

14 billion logs

Yesterday evening we stopped at the New Edinburgh Pub again, where the old photos are hung on the wall; this time we sat near a picture of the Rideau Falls with the mills in the background and, below the Falls, a boom of logs floating.

J.R. Booth's timber raft on the Ottawa River

"It’s estimated that over 14 billion logs floated down the Ottawa River over the course of the log drive era." (www.logsend.com) helped along by working men of a somewhat romantic reputation!  Do you know The Log Driver's Waltz?

For he goes birling down, a-down the white water;
That's where the log driver learns to step lightly.
It's birling down, a-down white water;
A log driver's waltz pleases girls completely.

Logs going over the Chaudière Falls

The Canadian lumber industry began to flourish at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the Ottawa and Gatineau rivers continued to be used for this purpose right to the end of the 1980s. Philemon Wright of Wrightsville (now Hull, part of Gatineau) was the first of the local lumber barons and one of the richest men of his day and a couple of generations later John Booth was the "emperor of the woods" whose small saw mill at the Chaudière Falls eventually became the largest in Canada. E.B. Eddy owned the mills on the Quebec side. These timber empires are what made the national capital region rich.

When he died at the age of 95, Booth's estate was worth $44 million. He had come to Ottawa carrying $9 in his pocket.

The Rideau Falls

When we first arrived in Ottawa from the UK I used to think that the ice floes tipping over the Rideau Falls looked like giant chunks of Kendal Mint Cake. We paused a while yesterday to watch some of this years' ice reach the lip of the Falls and splash down below. A group of people were doing the same on the opposite bank and shouting "Oh!" as the larger pieces hit the Ottawa River with a splash. Perhaps the sight was new to them; it's certainly dramatic. This year is the first time that I recall the bridge across the Falls being ribboned off: no public access. If you stand there watching the full spate of water, it makes you dizzy, and if there's a wind from the northwest, the spray blows up and wets you.

Rideau Falls, 1860 (no public safety measures, in those days!)

The hydro energy used to be harnessed by a series of mills (grist mill, wool mill, saw mill), built by Thomas MacKay, who first saw its potential in the 1820s. MacKay (sometimes spelled McKay) is also famous for having built the mansions Rideau Hall, eventually the official home of the Governor General, and Earnscliffe, now the British High Commissioner's Residence, overlooking the Ottawa River upstream from the Falls.

In our day there's a small hydro-electric station with two turbines beside the Falls which has been in service since 1908 and which generates 8542 MW of power per year.

Rideau

Rideau Falls from the air in winter

The Rideau River pours into the Ottawa River over the Rideau Falls like the curtain after which they were named when the explorer Champlain first saw them. I live on Cathcart Street, adjacent to the riverside park on the banks of the Rideau; the falls are a ten minute walk from our house. For some time I have been thinking that it would be fun to write about the way the river changes from week to week, month to month throughout the year, so this is the purpose of my blog.

In the first week of January the river near our house is usually frozen over with a solid layer of ice, although this year there are still a few thin patches in the centre. It's snowing today; earlier this week there was very little snow on top of the ice.