When to go fishing in winter

There's plenty of perch under the ice at Petrie Island

... ice fishing, that is.

The tributaries of the Ottawa River are frozen now, more or less. There's a rumour that the Rideau Canal will soon be open for skating, and the ice fishermen will also be getting impatient to practise their sport on the Ottawa River itself.

I came across a website that reports the current depth of the ice on the Ottawa near Petrie Island, a popular ice fishing spot. The ice there is already 10" (25cm) thick in places. This website is run by The Petrie Island Ice Fishermen's Association, PIIFA, an organisation that's been in existence for 10 years now.

It all started back in 2004 with a few ice fishermen sitting in a hut discussing ideas on how to combat the increase of vandalism, thefts and break-ins of that season. A few beers were shared and many ideas were tossed around. In the end, the group decided to start an association of ice fisherman. The main task of the association would be to bring hut owners together, so everyone could get to know each other and become a more tight-knit group for better security.

It has become, as they say, "huge" (and popular). Their website includes a fish catalogue, a page of wood stove recipes, and an Angler's Gallery of the proud fishermen with their catches.

The ice has to be 30cm thick before you are permitted to erect a hut on it. (Any day now.) All fishing huts must be off the ice by March 15th, but that leaves you plenty of time to catch fish till then.

A future for the Chaudière Falls

Chaudière Falls from the air, summer 2009

Great things are being planned, it seems, for the lands around Ottawa's Chaudière Falls, and about time too. Much of this industrial landscape has been lying there unused since 2005. The Windmill group of developers has signed a purchase deal with Domtar, who used to manage the site, and will turn the area into a major tourist attraction. Their plans include:

...establishing waterfront restaurants, cafés and public parks, setting up public gathering places that provide views of the river, building a mix of low-rise, highrise and affordable housing, redeveloping some of the heritage buildings, and creating various historical installations honouring the area’s logging and industrial history.

The company also says the project will be carbon neutral and will include on-site stormwater management, the use of solar, wind and other ecologically friendly systems. And it will be connected to a “safe and cohesive” pedestrian and cycle network, a “seamless” public transit system, and, to top it off, “an uninterrupted tourist experience.”

It will offer marvellous views. Because much of the site is in the middle of the river, on the Albert and Chaudière Islands beside the falls, Windmill is calling its project The Isles / Les Îles and is intending to apply some Algonquin names to the new features; the Algonquin people, who are being consulted, have a historic claim to this land, which they see as sacred ground. A spokesman for Windmill promised they

would not neglect First Nations’ concerns. He pointed out that as part of its due diligence Windmill has already consulted with interested parties, including the Algonquins of Ontario and the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg band of Algonquins. Both groups have been positive in their responses to the company’s plans, he said.

(Ottawa Citizen)

"Various historical installations" within the new development will recall the site's logging history as well.

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.