August 6, 2023

This is our last night in Ottawa; we arrived on Wednesday, and we will have been here for five nights when we leave tomorrow – Monday. 

I didn’t expect much from Ottawa…just the capital.  Yawn.  Montreal and Quebec City are both supposed to be more exciting.  But we have really enjoyed it!

Ottawa is physically beautiful: because it is the national capital, it features dramatic architecture, LOTS of public parks, and plenty of pomp and circumstance.

Drum and bugle corps passed by.

The Parliament Building and the museums are beautiful.

Traffic is polite and manageable, the people are friendly, and the residential neighborhoods surrounding the downtown are tree-shaded and pretty – lined with single and double homes in the Craftsman style.  And Uber cars are everywhere.

Lots of museums, of course, and we made it to two: the National Gallery and the Nature Museum.  Both featured spectacular architecture; and the content at the Nature Museum was the best I’ve ever seen (Smithsonian included).

Canadian Museum of Nature – a blend of old and new architecture.

Beautiful owl exhibit and we got within a few feet of a bald eagle but the photo was out of focus.

We are staying at a marina on Dows Lake.  It’s a small bay that bulges off the Rideau Canal like an aneurism, just as the canal reaches the urban heart of Ottawa.   It has been so peaceful here…we are literally surrounded by parks and arbretums.

Beautiful gardens to the north of the lake and an arboretum to the south

View from the back of the boat – another beautiful morning.

Everyone here certainly loves the outdoors.  Joggers, walkers, cyclists, kayakers and canoeists are in the parks from dawn until dusk.   We mentioned the boaters earlier – they really love the sun!  Lynn says it’s probably because their summer is so short and their winters are so cold.  Male boaters never wear shirts, but at least we haven’t seen a lot of Speedos.  Most of the women are in bikinis, which for most is a questionable fashion decision.

The last 18 hours careened from the ridiculous to the sublime.  Last night we attended a dinner theater performance of Oh Canada, EH?  A musical revue featuring numbers from famous Canadian artists from Marie McDonald to Paul Anka to Carly Rae Jepson.  Funny and frenetic: everyone dressed in flannel like a bunch of lumberjacks.

Then today we had brunch at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, overlooking the Ottawa River, the Staircase Locks, and the Houses of Parliament.

Then a fun side trip to the By Ward market, an open-air bazaar just a block from the Fairmont.  What a fun city!  And clean!  And safe!  It’s hard to believe Dows Lake is frozen solid in the winter.

Tomorrow, we leave early to travel down the Staircase Locks on our way to Montreal.  We understand it can take HOURS to make your way down the locks.  We’ll let you know how it goes!

August 3, 2023

Guinness here today….

So the last few days have been strange with lots of new experiences. Lynn and Rod keep talking about locks. Mostly I just watch them grab the leash on the boat and tie it around a black thing (they call it a cable.) Sometimes it’s easy for me to jump off the boat because the boat is even with the top of the “lock”, so I have to stay below. There are a lot of boats and it’s fun talking to the other people and dogs. They also got very excited when they saw a tree with red leaves?

People here really enjoy summer – maybe because it’s so short.

Today we were in a place called Autowa, eh?  We rode in a red bus with no top and listened to a cute guy talk about things I didn’t understand. But Lynn and Rod really enjoyed it.

There were marching men with black hats called the guard and they changed them up twice a day. 

They call it “changing of the guard” but I do a good job guarding without a black hat!

We went to an Irish place for lunch and then we got to see the really special locks. (Lynn called them the “staircase locks”.). We walked along the sides and they look very different when you’re standing next to them rather than in them. I heard them say there are 8 of these in a row. Lots of people watching. I think we get to go through them in a few days and there could be a lot of people watching us too. 

Then we went to see a church which was really big and then to a place with pictures. Rod called it a gallery but I didn’t see any “gals” there. 

Rod and Lynn decided to go for Italian food tonight to Little Italy. Just before we left, there was a noise on the phone that scared me because Rod said it meant dangerous weather. And it was awful walking to the restaurant. There was thunder and that REALLY scared me. But Lynn kept saying things were fine. When we got to the restaurant, I was so happy, I just laid under the table where I felt safe. 

So today was a fun day (except for the thunder). We’re back on the boat on a lake with parks all around us. It’s cool so some of us need jackets when we go out, but I just like jumping in the cold water near the boat.  And there is a boat next to us that has EVERYTHING! Made of aluminum and wood with window air conditioners, coils of wire, kayaks, grills with tanks, bicycles, folding chairs, and a mean dog.

Really cool – lots of fun stuff for a dog to play with!

Wonder what we’ll do tomorrow!

August 1, 2023

Last night we stayed at “Merrickville, the Jewel of the Rideau”.  Lynn says it looks like a Hallmark Movie set.

Remember The Good Witch series on Hallmark? This town is almost identical with the shops, pubs, diners, etc.

The town was truly charming, but it is a VERY popular spot.  We tied up at the designated pier, and I was astounded at the number of boats they were able to jam onto one pier!  It seems that we have hit the Rideau at a very busy time of the year: it is the middle of a two-week-long Construction Labor Holiday, and hundreds of boats are passing through the Rideau Canal.  Everyone at our dock spoke French, and one fellow had a guitar, and another boat had a parrot!  Very nice, but nothing like we are accustomed to in the States, where everything is orderly and somewhat impersonal.  

Jasper is 15 years old and travels on the boat with his owners.
Guinness tried to board to say hello.

Once again, what looked like bad news (a Hootnanny!) turned into good news, because all those boats were from Montreal, and they told me how to navigate the huge commercial locks we must transit in the St. Lawrence Seaway.  (More on that in a few days.)

I was musing to Lynn that I really had to change my mindset to become more Canadian…tonight, however, we are in a real marina, with fuel, and pumpout, and a marine store, and a swimming pool, and ice, and a restaurant!  Aaahhh!

The Rideau Canal changes its personality and its appearance every couple of days.  Earlier, we raved about the granite outcroppings.  Today, we passed through farmland and grassy marshes reminiscent of the South Carolina Low Country.

A charming little farm on the banks on the canal.

The Canal is VERY well maintained.  Harvester boats clean up the grasses in the channel, and barges clean up debris.  And every lockstation is picturesque: each one looks like a tiny postcard from another century.

There’s a dam at every lock – also beautiful

This boat cuts the grass below the water level to keep the channel clean.

And this one picks up debris, logs, branches to keep the canal safe.

And this ice cream barge just waits for boats to stop by for a “float”!

Again today, we had a wonderful day on the water.  When we left this morning, there were eight boats waiting to transit the locks, so we went to breakfast!  As luck would have it, the other boats all passed before us, and we ended up going through the locks with just one other boat, a 26’ Cutwater (a modestly sized boat) and we traveled with them all day.  And he traveled FAST!  What a pleasure compared to the prior day, when we had to squeeze into each lock with three other huge boats!

Lots of boats lined up overnight waiting for the locks to open at 9:00 am.

There is a nice restaurant here at the marina called The Swan on the Rideau, and we’ll leave for supper soon.  Tomorrow we’ll be in Ottawa!