"My Home town.....a work in progress : o... " a Ottawa Travel Page by Greggor58

Ottawa is a city of 812,129 according to the Census of 2006.....this does not include the population on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River which technically has to be omitted from the population count.
The Municipality of Gatineau is a substantial factor though in the Regional count and adds another 242,000 people to the total.

Ottawa and Gatineau are separated by a river but linked physically by various bridges,economically by the presence of the Federal Government[offices and employees on both sides of the river],and culturally by the common histories and climate of the area.

Ottawa is the home of the N.H.L. hockey team the Ottawa Senators and of course the Federal Government of Canada convenes here.

Over the years the Ottawa area has become a center of the Canadian High Tech Industry and the Agricultural industry is the largest in Eastern Ontario.

Ottawa is a bilingual city which offers Government Service in either French or English.

Ottawa is what I would consider to be a "green city" with and abundance of parks and protected lands,rivers and even a lake in the center of the city,Dow's Lake,which in fact was actually a part of a swamp area in the early eighteen hundreds.Dow's Great Swamp, as it was once was called, stretched almost from the Rideau to the Ottawa River.This was to become part of the route that the Rideau Canal would follow.

The total land area of Ottawa itself is approximately 2778 square kms.

One last fact..for now...in 2007 Ottawa celebrated the 150th Anniversary of being declared the Capital City of Canada.

In 1857,ten years before Confederation Queen Victoria proclaimed Ottawa to be the seat of Government and the new Capital of the Province of Canada....which was then known as Upper and Lower Canada...

The City of Ottawa is one of the most Northern Capital cities on this planet !!

We deal with sometimes MAJOR snowfalls....and bitterly cold temperatures.

It is a city which in fact has some pretty amazing temperature extremes...Summer temps can easily be as high as mid to high thirties Celcius and Winter temps can be as low as mid thirties BELOW zero Celcius.

Winter can be quite pleasant to enjoy outdoor activities such as skating,skiing, and there are even such events as "Polarbear swims"...involves breaking through ice and jumping in....even if it is for only a second or two....

On the other hand....Winters can be LONG and DIFFICULT....this Winter of 07/08 we have almost broken a record for all time snow accumulations...YUK!! Take a peek at the "Travelogue" accompanying this page.
This winter's total accumulation is a little more than 357 cm -- almost 12 feet -- and Spring has been so long coming this year...THANK GOD its not like this every year.If you like take a look at my "travelogue" if you might like to see what a near record snofall looks like around my house!

In Ottawa...nevertheless.. a lot of people embrace Winter...and often will celebrate particularly around a Festival called "Winterlude"...which is essentialy a Winter Carnival with many activities relating to yess.....Winter....Ice Carvings....Competitions in skiing and skatiing...both serious and silly in nature..and many other "activities"....all intended to provide a bit of fun and light entertainment.The Rideau Canal is once again a prominant focal point with activities happening around and on this frozen stretch of water.

The Canal is a prominent feature of the City of Ottawa....you'll find many people using it for different things....as a spot to simply take a stroll....its a gorgeous place to go for a run...and boaters use this functional waterway as a way to get from Ottawa to access the Great Lakes and whatever lays beyond!

During the Summer months a roadway along the one side of it is closed to vehicle traffic on Sunday mornings and it is used for cycling and walking and runners.This "cycle path" is tied into numerous other bicycle paths around the region and it is quite a popular activity.

The Canal was built by Colonel John By....an Engineer in the British Army in the early eighteen hundreds.The canal was built to be used as a supply and evacuation route in the event of hostilities with the United States...
Many of you reading this might not be aware of it but in fact Lower and Upper Canada were caught up in conflicts with the USA in the early eighteen hundreds under the flag of Great Britain.Unitil as recently as 1912 or so Canada was in a sense just another British Colony.

So Colonel By supervised the construction of the Canal...which stretches aprroximately 200 kms from the Ottawa River to the shores of Lake Ontario at the city of Kingston.

On June 27, 2007, the Rideau Canal and Kingston Fortifications [ Old Fort Henry ] were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee.

During the Winter ...the Canal freezes and is maintained for skating..and is the "Longest Skating Rink" in the World according to the Guiness Book of Records.