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Articles tagged with: Canadian Winter

Picture of the Week: Shoveling Snow

March 16, 2012 – 8:10 am | 10 Comments | 83 Read this
Picture of the Week: Shoveling Snow

Most Cana­di­ans keep a shovel in the garage, and it’s not to build sand­cas­tles, but to shovel the snow. A sin­gle snow­storm can bring ten, twenty, thirty of more cen­time­ters of snow and it can make get­ting out of the house a challenge.

On The Rideau Canal

March 5, 2012 – 8:00 am | 10 Comments | 80 Read this
On The Rideau Canal

On one of these cold days (- 25°C with wind-chill), we headed to the Rideau Canal. The “world’s largest skat­ing rink” is one of Ottawa’s most famous land­marks, and with a cleared length of 7.8 kilo­me­tres, it’s a huge frozen play­ground for skat­ing enthusiasts.

Picture of the Week: Red Gloves

March 2, 2012 – 8:00 am | 7 Comments | 75 Read this
Picture of the Week: Red Gloves

I’m ter­ri­ble when it comes to wear­ing gloves. Doing so is com­mon sense: the wind can be extremely cold and win­ter weather is gen­er­ally dry. But I always seem to need my bare hands and I hate tak­ing the gloves off and putting them back a

Surprise Snow Storm

February 27, 2012 – 8:00 am | 8 Comments | 77 Read this
Surprise Snow Storm

I was lucky to be home when the snow­fall started, and bun­dled up like a snow­man, I took a long walk with my cam­era. I loved the colours (or lack thereof) and the fact the sky and the ground seemed to blend per­fectly. It was worth get­ting my hair frozen!

Winterlude 2012 in Gatineau

February 20, 2012 – 8:00 am | 12 Comments | 111 Read this
Winterlude 2012 in Gatineau

Ottawa has the best ice sculp­ture and the Rideau Canal to skate, but Win­ter­lude in Gatineau, Que­bec, is also a great play­ground for some win­ter fun. Although it no longer has the huge snow sculp­tures com­pe­ti­tion, a few impres­sive bas-reliefs are carved at the bot­tom of the main attrac­tion: the giant snow/ice slides.

Winterlude 2012 in Ottawa

February 13, 2012 – 8:10 am | 2 Comments | 131 Read this
Winterlude 2012 in Ottawa

On the open­ing day and despite the very chilly wind, Con­fed­er­a­tion Park and the nearby por­tion of the Rideau Canal were packed. Con­fed­er­a­tion Park always has a nice col­lec­tion of ice sculp­tures: small ones around the foun­tain and big­ger ones around the park. You can even see sculp­tors, wear­ing thick gloves, at work with chain­saws and other power tools.

Winterlude 2011

February 21, 2011 – 10:07 am | 13 Comments | 6 Read this
Winterlude 2011

We came back to Canada just in time to take a peek at the 2011 edi­tion of the Win­ter­lude, our yearly win­ter fes­ti­val. This was Winterlude’s last week-end and even though some ice sculp­tures par­tially melted because of a warmer weather spell last week, the crowd was here.

In The Dead of the Winter

February 19, 2011 – 3:18 pm | 11 Comments | 33 Read this
In The Dead of the Winter

Com­ing back from the trop­ics reminded me how harsh win­ter in Canada can be, and how hard it can be to adapt to this unique chal­lenge. Yet, because I’ve been liv­ing there for a few years, I’m pre­pared and within a few min­utes of land­ing in Ottawa, I was wear­ing my full win­ter armour, com­plete with gloves and a hat.

A Creepy Winter Night

November 17, 2010 – 10:34 am | 16 Comments | 17 Read this
A Creepy Winter Night

Dur­ing sum­mer, days are long, humid and sunny and peo­ple make the most of it by engag­ing in as many out­door activ­i­ties as pos­si­ble. But once a blan­ket of snow falls and the days get shorter, we all become hob­bits. Sud­denly, noth­ing is more appeal­ing than a cup of hot choco­late, a movie and lay­ers of clothes and blan­kets. Peo­ple are less chatty and more reserved—like if the cold had drained all the energy from them and what lit­tle they have left was used to fight winter.

Winter Fun

February 20, 2010 – 5:29 pm | 18 Comments | 6 Read this
Winter Fun

This week­end marks the end of the Win­ter­lude fes­ti­val (but sadly, not the end of win­ter yet). I found myself hang­ing around in Con­fed­er­a­tion park, where it all started a cou­ple of weeks ago, think­ing I will miss the ice sculptures.