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Ottawa, Ontario
When you feel like London and look like Hull
The first page of the 2006 Weekend Trips Slideshows start in Ottawa with pictures center around Parliament Hill, the center of Ottawa and possibly the only reason for its existence. Located atop a bluff on the riverside (it is a hill after all) are three main buildings, the East, West and Centre Blocks. The Centre Block is home the House of Commons, the Senate, the iconic Peace Tower and the Library of Parliament. Of those four components, two play into this picture featuring a bit of the Library as seen from the Observation Deck at the Peace Tower.
If you decide to go to Ottawa yourself (hey, you never know), you will be relieved to hear that after minimal, airport level security, visitors can freely ascend to the observation deck of the Peace Tower or attempt a free tour of the entire Centre Block. As a non Canadian who knows little of its governmental history, I chose only to enjoy the view and skip a history that surely meant much, much more to just about everyone else on line.
During the summer there is a changing of the RCMP guard, a light show and an info tent, while in the winter there's just a door in the basement with a few metal detectors ready for visitors. Once inside you need to ascend two levels of staircases and then wait to board an elevator that goes past the Westminster chime bells and up to the somewhat claustrophobic deck right underneath the clock face. On your way down you have a chance to visit the Memorial Chamber (a space dedicated to Canadian war dead) and then get a chance for a quick balcony view of the lobby, its lone central column and just about all the stone ribs you could ever want.
Ottawa is certainly worth a visit, an extraordinarily accessible capital for a true world power, a reasonably small city with more than its fair share of world class museums. This is one of them, the Canadian Museum of Art, and one that I had some mixed feelings about. Set inside an interesting enough building (see next picture) its collection is marred by a curious curatorial decision. There are two parallel tracks of art on separate floors, both cover the same movements although one is called out as the Canadian Collection. The result as a visitor is a feeling of seeing the same art twice and the unavoidable feeling that Canadian Art needs to somehow be isolated from the other art in order to exist, that as a whole it is somehow inferior. Side by side I would expect that not to be the case, as most of the art from both collections appeared to be on equal footing despite such unnecessary isolationism.
Oh, and there was a creepy giant baby head. See?
The building housing all that art was designed by Canadian Moshe Safdie, one of those people that always seem out of fashion despite the fact that they continuously churn out some damn fine work. Safdie had worked out of Louis Kahn's office and this building had a bit of that feel without all the poetry, something about the geometry and the materials (and the acrobatics to get light into the galleries) seemed to constantly try and reveal such impressive lineage.
A short walk from Ottawa (which is on the very, very edge of Ontario) is Hull, Quebec- a city with not all that much going for it other than a view and a truly world class museum. The Museum of Civilization covers everything you could want to know about that part of North America, from the first nations all the way to the present. Along the way are several spectacular experiences including this one, a grand hall of totem poles that front a series of typically well presented exhibits taking you deeper into Northwestern native cultures than you would have ever thought you'd be.
Inside the Museum of Civilization is more than just a really nice room with a lot of totem poles, although honestly the totem pole room is probably the nicest part.
On many levels, the brand new Canadian War Museum is by itself worth the trouble to visit Ottawa. Really.
The museum is operated by the same people who operate the Museum of Civilization, yet its subject is infinitely more fascinating despite being infinitely more grim. Canadians might not have the reckless war mongering reputation of other, unnamed North American countries (cough, America, cough) but it does have a history in both defending and conquering its land as well as international involvements due to its perceived responsibilities tied with all that British Commonwealth nonsense. Of all of the areas of the museum the most moving (or disturbing, depending on your point of view) involved Canadian troops in World War I, one of those points in history that most people forget but always seems to get me. Something about seeing pictures of trenches, learning how horrible life was in them, seeing charts showing how effective machine guns were and then walking through a full size replica seems to somehow make such forgotten years a little more real.
Between all of the extraordinarily well done historical exhibits (including oddly enough Hitler's parade car) and the hangar of Russian, Nazi, UN, US and Canadian armored vehicles and tanks is a "regeneration hall", a wedge filled with little tiny windows, a stair, some odd sound effects and a series of sculpture studies from a heroic Canadian war memorial in Vimy, France, a place of great heroics and great losses during that otherwise Great War.
A slide featuring a rare cameo by my father as he walks through the World War II section, apparently unfazed by the other, well positioned soldier hiding just on the other side of that wall.
We were in Ottawa for another hockey trip, although it feels like the Ottawa senators play in a completely different province- Scotiabank Place is a far, far drive from downtown. Normally I might include a picture from inside but here the security was far, far stricter than the Centre Block and my camera was barred from inside. So while you’ll never see what I saw in the inside, you can take comfort in the fact that it was nothing particularly special. The most exciting part of the game or the in arena experience was when staff used t-shirt guns to shoot hot dogs at fans, which was actually a lot more awesome than it sounds like.
