Goodbye Ottawa!

This was my last day in Ottawa and the tulips were in full bloom. My mom and sister came to pick me up and visit with my brother.

I'm officially back in Southwestern Ontario. It feels good to be home but I definitely enjoyed my 4 month adventure in Canada's capital! From hitting the slopes at Tremblant, to skating down the Canal, to discovering Canadian history at all the museums, I think I fit a lot in to those 4 months. My brother keeps joking about how I've done more than he has since he moved to Ottawa for his undergrad at Carleton years ago. I tried to fit in as an Ottawaan (yes that is the correct term...I googled it to verify when I wasn't sure whether to believe my brother) strolling around the Market and hitting up the Rideau Center. I met some great friends in the other co-op students and we were able to accomplish some weekday snowboarding after work, comedy clubs, visiting Montreal and ziplining!

And of course, I learned a lot at my placement with Environment Canada in the Biotechnology unit. This summer will bring new learning experiences at my next work term back in Guelph...that's 8 months with the only classes being the odd distance ed class ;)

Taking the work term in Gatineau was a great experience to get a taste for living in another city in which I don't attend school. Thanks for reading! :)

Nepean Point

One day a couple weeks ago while I was running I ran up to this point right before Alexandra Bridge. No matter which way you look there is a great view of Ottawa, Parliament Hill, Gatineau or the Ottawa River.

At the tip of the hill is a statue of French explorer Samuel de Champlain. After work I crossed Alexandra Bridge from Gatineau, climbed the steps and sat on the wooden benches to read since no one else was there. Before I knew it, an hour or two had passed and the sun was getting lower in the sky - I figured it would be a great place to watch the sun set.

Apparently that's definitely not the first time anyone ever had that idea...soon enough dozens of photographers came to set up. I had moved to sit up on the base of the statue and I was quite appreciative that they all seemed to ask me if they were blocking my view before setting up their camera stands.

Every day isn't warm and sunny just yet. Ottawa winter made one more appearance a few days later when I woke up to this....

...and I had to dig out my winter jacket and hat already packed away for the move back to Southwestern Ontario.

Spring!

On my last Thursday we went to the final museum I had not yet visited - the Museum of Civilization. It's 5 minutes from our work building, and I had been there for IMAX movies and to meet Jane Goodall but hadn't seen the actual exhibits yet.

It was a beautiful day and was starting to feel like Spring - hundreds of the Ottawa tulips were ready to bloom and trees were no longer bare. The five minute walk turned out to be quite a bit longer as we admired all of the lovely Spring sightings in Gatineau Park!

The entrance of the Museum is filled with totem poles which are really cool to get a close look at. 

This Kayang pole stood in a village in the late 1880s.

There were some cool exhibits at the Museum like toys that children used hundreds of years ago, dugout canoes and weapons used by First Nations, and life sized models of 19th century homes. This photo is a replica of a parlour from 1885.

It was fun for me to see an exhibit about welcoming the Royals in 1939 because this past summer I was in Ottawa for Canada Day and also got to experience welcoming the Royals to the Capital, when newlyweds Will and Kate arrived. The streets were packed and I had to climb a tree across from Parliament to see!

My view from the tree.

Will and Kate outside of Parliament.

Rideau Canal

     As my time in Ottawa comes to a close I realized I never posted pictures from the Canal, one of the greatest things about winter in Ottawa, in my opinion. The photos here are from the first weekend of Winterlude back in February when my friend Celyne came to visit. It was an absolutely beautiful, sunny day and I definitely got overheated skating 10k up and down the Canal. 

Sun shining outside of Parliament on the walk to the Canal.

The first thing we did was grab some beavertails for a delicious snack - my first one of the season!

There were a few activities to do along the Canal such as meeting up with the Ice Hogs, checking out the art hanging along the inside of the tunnels as you skate along, and there were also teepees and First Nation people telling stories, singing traditional songs, or showing the animals they hunted. 

After a few hours we were definitely tired out. People at work talked about how many years it is almost too cold to enjoy. Unfortunately, the weather later became too warm and the Canal season didn't last too long but I'm glad I was able to experience Ottawa's Rideau Canal in such beautiful weather that weekend!

Laflèche Adventure

     The day after the Biodome and the Biosphere, we headed out to Lafleche Adventure which is located in Quebec, only about 35 minutes from downtown Ottawa. The park has an aerial park, some hiking trails and caves, and we were excited to try out the aerial park, which consists of obstacles up in the trees as well as zip lines. After a 10 minute hike up the side of a mountain and a short tutorial of how to use the harnesses, pulleys and carabiners in order to make sure we were safely connected at all times, we set of on the first of 4 different courses. The first course was mostly obstacles and one short zip line.

George and David starting out on the first course.

The was the end of the first course. The picture below is the beginning of the second course with a bit longer zip line across a valley. 

The sun came out after an hour for some nice 22 degree weather.

Off the side of one of the trails on our way to the next course we found the caves. Unfortunately, they were closed off with big metal gates since only about half of the course was open so early in the season, but I couldn't resist climbing a bit.

One of the larger zip lines

One of the last zip lines across the lake.

     The aerial park took over 4 hours to complete and was a really fun way to move around outside in some nice weather. I would definitely do something like that again!

Biosphere

After the Biodome, we went to the Biosphere, also in Montreal. The building is literally a sphere. This is a museum run by Environment Canada so with out passes we got in for free. All the exhibits in some way raised environmental issues and the impact humans are having on the Earth. There were some exhibits about issues with global warming like the melting of ice caps causing polar bears to go hunting through human garbage since they can't reach their usual meal of seals. The pictures below are from an exhibit of dresses made out of recycled material.

Made out of computer wires, mice, and keyboards.

Made out of almost 7,000 empty pill bottles.

Made out of 2,000 shotgun shells.

The building itself was very ecofriendly. The picture below is from the lookout level, surrounded by the sphere. Here there were some wind turbines. The museum also has a geothermal system to save energy, a water treatment plant that consists of wetland basins to clean wastewater, and it also has greenery and plants covering the roof. The museum encourages the use of planted roofs in urban areas for advantages like dampening noise, increasing energy efficiency and purifying air and water.

The group at the lookout.

This is a photo of the Biosphere and in front of it is an ecological solar house, designed by engineering and architecture students at the University of Montreal for an international Solar Decathlon. We got a tour of the house; outside sat an electric car and the roof was covered in solar panels to produce electricity for the house. It also had green landscaping on the roof like the Biosphere has, and every material used in the house was chosen for a balance of performance with materials that were recycled or not chemically treated, etc.

Solar House at the Biosphere

Biodome

This past weekend was packed with a couple fun activities.  I took a million pictures so I’m gonna split it up into a couple parts.

Saturday involved a day trip to Montreal to see the Biodome, a really fun place that reproduces 4 ecosystems, mimicking the appearance and climate of the areas along with housing some vegetation and animals native to that location.

Our adventure began in the Rainforest. It was a reproduction of a tropical rainforest in Costa Rica. Everything from the temperature (kept around 25 degrees – everyone had to peel off their sweaters), the humidity, and the lighting are built to mimic what the ecosystem is really like in South America. We were able to see alligators, parrots, monkeys, anacondas, piranhas, and toxic frogs. The last 3 were in aquariums behind glass of course.

Some noisy macaws.

Unfortunately, our attempts to find the sloths were unsuccessful and we finally moved on to the Laurentian Maple Forest. The temperature immediately dropped to about 15 degrees and everyone threw their sweaters back on, but it was still pretty humid. In this ecosystem they are actually able to mimic seasons through a number of factors; leaves on the trees really turn red in the Fall and flowers shoot up in the Spring. We saw an otter swimming and diving to catch and eat a few fish, some porcupines sitting in trees, beavers swimming in and out of the hole in the dam and my favourite of the Biodome – a pair of Canadian lynxes.

Lynx!

Next was the Gulf of St. Lawrence. One type of bird in this ecosystem was flying everywhere and a couple zoomed right past my ear. Above ground there were mostly various species of birds and sea anemone, but the underwater observatory was amazing with massive fish and stingrays.

Atlantic sturgeon

We finished in the polar regions: the Labrador Coast and Sub-Antarctic Islands. All animals here are kept behind glass. On the Labrador Coast, the temperatures and duration of sunlight again matches how it would be in the natural environment (about 12 degrees) with the main animal of interest being the puffin. The Antarctic is kept at about 2 degrees and the exhibit was filled with 4 different species of penguins. The King penguins didn’t move from their corner with their heads buried against their chests, just like in the movie the March of the Penguins. The Gentoo penguins were diving and speeding and chasing one another through the water, which was super entertaining; they would stop in front of kids pressed to the glass and speed away while the kids chased them. They were definitely the most fun and playful of the penguins.

Puffin

Rockhopper penguin 

King penguins