This week Ottawa is in the middle of the Winterlude festival. This tradition is a tradition celebrated in many Canadian cities and is the Canadian winter festival. In Ottawa these festivities are centred on the Rideau Canal as it freezes in the winter to become the longest skate way in the world.
This week marked my first venture out onto this historic ice rink and it was eventful to say the least. I have purchased a pair of budget hockey skates on the recommendation of my Canadian friends with the assurance that I will love skating and they will be a major improvement on the rentals. My skating experience consists of a few trips to indoor rinks as a kid and the usual trip to the temporary rinks in Glasgow or Edinburgh every Christmas. Therefore my skills on the ice are pretty non- excitant. We stumbled out onto the canal in the early evening just as the sun was setting over and casting a pinkish glow over the scenery and just as the snow began to spiral from the sky. We rushed piles of snow off the benched placed on the ice of the canal to change into out skates and we were ready. I rose unsteadily to my feet and scraped my skates tentatively over the bumpy surface. Skating on the canal is more difficult to master than skating anywhere else I have been as the surface is much rougher than the artificial rinks I have skated on before now. However I found skating with more confidence and a little more speed as well as pretending that the ice was flat helped a little and soon I was managing to propel myself in a forward direction, not with any style but at least I was skating and not falling too much. Skating on the canal is a beautiful experience when we arrived it was quiet and calm and I felt like I was visiting another world as the snow spiralled around us and the sun slowly set.
The peace and magic of our ice skate was broken by a yell from one of my friends and I turned to see her lying on the ice clutching her knee and yelling “It popped out!” It looked gross and very painful. We called 911 and tried to describe exactly where we were exactly on the ice and then described how to get there. Eventually after some detailed descriptions and 30 minuets of confusion they eventually arrived and whisked her off to French speaking hospital for even more confusion and more pain as they popped it back in!
Despite this slightly unfortunate start to my Canadian ice skating I have returned again to skating on the canal to perfect my technique. Ok- so my technique is a long way from being perfect but it was improved as well as being enjoyable and definitely less eventful than the first trip.
The other festivities associated with Winterlude include a snow sculpture competition, a snow slide park and a multitude of outdoor concerts. I’m still trying to figure out why in this freezing cold country Canadians feel it is logical to celebrate winter with outdoor entertainment. Therefore these events are scattered throughout the various parks and open spaces thought the city. So it has been another week celebrating the winter and I have to say I’m looking forward to the sun in San Francisco.
