The last two weeks have been pretty crazy. Lots of stuffs going on, lots of new stu­dents, a lit­tle cold — and above all this cold win­ter which never seems to end. It gets to you. Wak­ing up in the morn­ing, get­ting dressed, start­ing the car. Dri­ving to work. Cig­a­rette. Buy­ing a Diet Coke. Wait­ing for stu­dents who are late when, of course, you arrived early so that the recep­tion­ist who always point at the clock behind her doesn’t start bitch­ing. You can be sure that the only day you’re late any­way, stu­dents will be sit­ting in the class­room, an open book on the table, ready to com­plain that they’re los­ing some pre­cious study time.

Today was a beau­ti­ful day. Crisp light, best time to go take pic­tures. So I went for a walk down­town Ottawa.

I climbed a bit in Majors Hill park to check out the nice view. The sky was clear and I could see the province of Que­bec on the other side of the river. Over­look­ing it, I noticed some­thing mov­ing on the frozen waters.

Bridge To Quebec

The Locks From The Frozen River

A bunch of guys were down there, appar­ently drilling the ice. I didn’t know it was thick enough to walk on it, nei­ther did I know I could access the river from the Par­lia­ment hill ! So I went back towards the Rideau cen­ter and up to Par­lia­ment hill, not sure where to access the path to the river.

I finally found it by the locks. A 10 min­utes walk lead me to the shores of the river.

Guys Drilling On The River

Rideau Canal Locks

The stairs were steep and cov­ered by a thick layer of snow, totally buried under­neath. I tried to fol­low in the foot­steps left by the guys already on the ice. I took small and care­ful steps. My goal was to take a pic­ture of the locks viewed from below…

Once I got to the ice level, I relaxed a bit. I really wasn’t sure how thick the ice was but I decided to walk a few meters to take my pic­ture. Every step I was tak­ing, I was broking the icy layer, my feet sink­ing into the snow. Only then I was finally get­ting some ground to sta­bi­lize. Lift­ing other feet and start­ing all over again a few inches away. The layer on which I was walk­ing looked like slush. I hoped it was thick enough to bear my weight.

After 10 min­utes of strug­gling to keep my bal­ance and sink­ing deeper and deeper into the snow, I paused to take the pic­ture. I didn’t dare to go any fur­ther, but I was pretty happy with the result.

Going Down…

Going Up!

I used my own foot­steps to get back to the stair. I wasn’t able to use the ramp (sunken into the snow) and I real­ized it was actu­ally trick­ier to climb icy stairs…

Related posts:

1. The Rideau Canal
2. The Ottawa Locks
3. The Locks At Dusk
4. A Walk In Ottawa
5. Win­ter Melt­ing Away