A Glimpse of the Capital....

We spent a weekend in Ottawa, our nation's capital.    This was not our first visit and it turned out quite differently than I expected.  The last time we came to Ottawa for the annual Winterlude festivities, our kids were quite young.   We really wanted them to experience this piece of Canadiana at that age....skating on the Rideau, visit Parliament Hill, etc....   I wondered what they would take away from it this time.    
Like the tourists that we were, we took in the sights, the sounds, and the flavors of winter in Ottawa. 
Bright sunny, bitterly cold....Canada.   
I love the details and textures.  A detail or a texture that really defines the moment  and the emotion of the moment.   

This is the War Memorial.   I find this a solemn place.  And the neatest moment was when Joe asked if there really were remains in the tomb of the unknown soldier. It brings home the reality of the casualties of war and the fact that some soldiers don't return home alive or with their identities intact.  

I couldn't believe how clear and blue the sky was.    Unnaturally blue.  

And skating on the Rideau Canal of course.    Father-son memories :) There are so many people doing the same thing we are. ...celebrating and embracing winter because the alternative is to complain.. ..oh dear.  

Along the canal are occasional vendor clusters and sponsors.  And you HAVE to try a "beaver tail"!  A lovely deep fried pastry with cinnamon and sugar....

The Snowflake Kingdom in Jacques-Cartier Parc in Hull, Quebec is also a must!   Huge piles of snow are transformed into these icy slides!  Such fun and worth the walk across the bridge...

...and then back again.  Can you spot all 4 boys?   We invited a school friend of Craig's to join us for the afternoon.   

Parliament Hill.  A view from the Alexandra Bridge.

The canal as the sun was going down, on our way back to Dow's Lake.   The ice is chewed up, rutty, and covered with dust.   You have to be vigilant for cracks or you'll end up falling.   But that's pond ice right?   It's all a part of the experience.   Some patches had been flooded the night before but 100,000 skaters are bound to have some impact on ice quality.




Peeps!  We stayed with family. So much fun to catch up and rest after a day filled with activity.



Remember dial up with real dials? Electric type writers. Maps on the wall. Furniture from the 50's and 60's.  Boxes with red alarm buttons. Everything seems so manual, and non technological. Over 150 people were actually stationed here year round. The bunker was in a constant state of readiness. It felt as if people had literally walked off the job leaving things on their desks.Artifacts of that era.  Forms, binders, clips, staplers, file boxes, all army issue.
It was a bit creepy.
It was shocking that the bunker was only decommissioned in 1990ish.  To retrofit that place for today's technology would be a mammoth undertaking.

Ray has  wanted to visit the Diefenbunker since he was a boy.   Built during the height of the Cold War...it is an incredible time capsule...you know, if you're into that sort of thing.

And some funky melamine ware.   I imagine all the staff eating from these in the cafeteria.  

This is the blast tunnel.   You know just in case the threat ever became real.   The blast doors to the bunker are over a foot of solid steel with locking bars....the blast tunnel leads to a short hallway that leads to the doors so that any blast would not impact the doors straight on.    Clever.  The doors in this fotos lead to the outside....

There are 4 levels to the bunker.   Each deeper into the ground than the other.    The model alone was the size of our dining room.
It was immense.

The War Museum was a great experience.   Joe loved the hands on stuff....always fascinated by artillery and weapons.....




If you love architecture you'll appreciate the actual War Museum facility.  It is rich in texture and very deliberate. This texture is repeated throughout the facility on several walls; created from the salvaged roof of the Parliament buildings. Most of the cement walls have a barn board texture. It is so ordinary. So common and "of the people".
I love artifacts.  To see small or great items that were actually present or part of a piece of history.  Things of significance.  Made significant by the time, event, and era.Like this piece of the Berlin wall. People stood on top of this and I watched it on the news...and there it is standing right in front of me.

Peace keeping is underrated.

A UN Jeep with actual bullet holes.   I live in a country where I only see bullet holes in a museum.   

Throughout the war museum were small light boxes displaying medals of certain individuals.  Displayed to honor them and the role these individuals played in war and in peace.   I love the texture of them.   Veterans hands would pin these medals on their parade and dress uniforms in times of remembrance.  Did these medals visit the war memorial, or stand through countless moments of silence at cenotaphs?  It is good to wonder, and to be thankful.

I sense that the boys did not find this as interesting as I did. But I was surprised a few times by the photos and artifacts that made them pause.  Little glimpses. It is good to be exposed to new experiences, people,  and places.  To remember that we are a part of something much larger, and that we have a national identity, whether it garners pride in us or not.