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Awesome day in Ottawa 🫠 Sunny and a whopping 9 degrees Celsius 😎

📸 by Sophie Perusse

Caught the sunrise and the sunset all on the same day 😝

Rideau Falls, Ottawa River

December 15, 2023

A flotilla of Canada Geese marks Canada Day in the nation's capital

Downtown Hull, 1938

The Rideau Canal in eastern Ontario was opened on May 30, 1832.  

Yesterday’s sunset, which coincided with yesterday’s evening thunderstorm. I stayed out trying to get a shot of the lightning next to the setting sun, and ended up having to run back to my car in a downpour. My camera ran out of batteries about 20 minutes in, so these were taken on my phone.

May 15, 2022

new land february 24

The 32-stateroom riverboat MV Canadian Empress (1981) operates regular passenger cruises on the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers from their base in Kingston, Ontario.

"PETAWAWA IS AN IDEAL CAMP," St. Catharines Standard. June 19, 1912. Page 8. ---- Five Thousand Men of the Canadian Militia Are Now Training There Under the Most Favorable Conditions --- Petawawa, Military Camp, June 17 - Petawawa camp has been one of the busiest spots in Canada during the past few days, and will remain so for three or four weeks more, It is probably the most complete and active camp of any that have been held in the big national maneuvering ground. On the high undulating ground overlooking the Ottawa river, there is pitched a writable city of canvas about four miles long and two and a half miles wide. One British Military camp differs from another very little in anything but magnitude. At the Petawawa camp now there are the neat gun parks with their rows of tents and horses; the cavalry lines with their long stretches of horses and tidy rows of saddles; and bunched up clusters of tents of the infantry, etc., all in'd out with the regularity and order prescribed in the regulations of the Canadian Militia.

But the Petawawa camp is more than a transitory camping ground; Its permanent equipment is very complete. A water service is extended to all lines. The supply comes from the Ottawa River and is forced up to service tanks at intervals tong the grounds. The pumping is done by the Government power house. There are also permanent administrative buildings for the camp commandant and staff and special sidings to accommodate all trains brought to the camp.

For watering horses and washing places for the troops each regiment is equipped in its own lines, even to shower baths, which, it may be said, are used freely.

SPLENDID CAMP. Petawawa is a camp ground of which any, nation might to proud. It is magnificent in extent and the ground admirably adapted to the work. It is very sandy and the heaviest showers of rain are absorbed almost immediately and a few touches of sunshine dry up the ground in a very short time. They are splendid ranges for both rifle and big gun practice. The air of the plains is remarkably clear and healthy and the scenery at the bank of the Ottawa river is full of beauty and natural charm.

About five thousand men are in camp. A feature of this camp is the inaugaration of a complete postal service under the management of the Canadian Postal Corps. These engaged in this work are Lacut. F. D. Sharman of London, Ont.; Ptes. J. J. Fair and H. Kitcheman of Ottawa.

Six collection boxes are placed at different points in the camp. Two collections are made daily and deliveries of mail to each unit. A special cart is provided for this work and H. Kitcheman, formerly a gunner in "D" Special Service battery in Africa, attends to the outdoor duty. The head office also issues postal notes and sells stamps. The service Is well managed and greatly appreciated in the camp.

Sunset lost in the haze

I pushed the bloated corpse of a headless beaver down the Ottawa River with a big stick today. Throw in some Timmy's and a snowstorm and that feels pretty quintisentially Canadian, eh? 🙃🍁

The Ottawa River By Night  // Margaret Atwood

In the full moon you dream more.

I know where I am: the Ottawa River far up, where the dam goes across. Once, midstorm, in the wide cold water upstream, two long canoes full of children tipped, and they all held hands and sang till the chill reached their hearts. I suppose in our waking lives that’s the best we can hope for, if you think of that moment stretched out for years.                                 Once, my father and I paddled seven miles along a lake near here at night, with the trees like a pelt of dark hackles, and the waves hardly moving. In the moonlight the way ahead was clear and obscure both. I was twenty and impatient to get there, thinking such a thing existed.                                         None of this is in the dream, of course. Just the thick square- edged shape of the dam, and eastward the hills of sawdust from the mill, gleaming as white as dunes. To the left, stillness; to the right, the swirling foam of rapids over sharp rocks and snags; and below that, my father, moving away downstream in his boat, so skilfully although dead, I remember now; but no longer as old. He wears his grey hat, and evidently he can see again. There now, he’s around the corner. He’s heading eventually to the sea. Not the real one, with its sick whales and oil slicks, but the other sea where there can still be safe arrivals.                          Only a dream, I think, waking to the sound of nothing. Not nothing. I heard: it was a beach, or shore, and someone far off, walking. Nowhere familiar. Somewhere I’ve been before. It always takes a long time to decipher where you are.

One of our national emblems takes off from the frozen Ottawa River

photography by laika wallace

The new Canadian War Museum opened, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of V-E Day, on May 8, 2005.

It’s been grey and hazy and I’ve been busy trying not to get fired, but here’s the Ottawa River at mid-summer.

June 23, 2022