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Home » Snapshots

Winterlude (Or Having Fun In The Cold)

Written by on February 6, 2008 – 11:02 pm25 Comments | 464 Read this

After another win­ter storm (where I, among oth­ers, sat on a bus that got stuck in the snow for an hour and shov­eled about 50 cm of white snow to be able to open my door), we decided to make the most of the sea­son and we headed to Win­ter­lude, the annual win­ter fes­ti­val which opened last week-end.

Funny thing is, I was recently read­ing RennyBA’s Terella, where my Nor­we­gian friend was telling about his own Oslo Win­ter Fes­ti­val — guess both coun­tries enjoy hav­ing fun in sub­zero tem­per­a­tures and build­ing stuffs with ice!

After The Storm

After The Storm

Snowy Road

Snowy Road

Win­ter­lude starts here, at the Rideau Canal. The longest skat­ing rink in the world opened last week, and the ice was thick enough for peo­ple to skate on it. It was quite crowed and no, in case you ask, I walked and didn’t skate. Come on, I can’t be perfect!

The Rideau Canal

The Rideau Canal

The Canal At Somerset

The Canal At Somerset

Skating Marks

Skat­ing Marks

Skating

Skat­ing

The Rideau Canal ends down­town, close to the Con­fed­er­a­tion Park. Not all the lit­tle chalets — which usu­ally sell food and hot drinks — were opened, but I found a great ice bar. Bet the drinks are chilled!

Nunavut In Ottawa

Nunavut In Ottawa

Ice Boat

Ice Boat

The sculp­tures were really nice. Made the pre­vi­ous day by an inter­na­tional team, they fea­ture Cana­dian land­scapes (such as this Nunavut scenery) and lots of icy peo­ple. The details are amaz­ing… and don’t for­get every­thing is made of ice!

Dancer

Dancer

Ice Warriors

Ice War­riors

Red Inukshuck

Red Inuk­shuck

Lining Up For Beavertails

Lin­ing Up For Beavertails

Kids were invited to make their own Inuk­shuk. Inuk­shuk (“in the image of man”) are sculp­ture made of stone or ice erected by the Inu­its. They rep­re­sent lead­er­ship, friend­ship and are also used as mile­stones in the North. Mean­while, grown-ups were queu­ing at the Beaver­tails stall.…

Maple Toffee

Maple Tof­fee

Making The Treats

Mak­ing The Treats

But wait, the best is to come. I soon spot­ted… maple treats!! Maple tof­fees, more pre­cisely, my favorite… They are the made by pour­ing maple syrup directly on ice/ snow. Yes, it’s very sweet and sticky but oh-so-good!

What? I deserved it, didn’t I?

Related arti­cles:

  1. Win­ter­lude !
  2. Win­ter Fun
  3. Win­ter­lude 2012 in Ottawa
  4. Pic­ture of the Week: Maple Toffee
  5. Win­ter­lude 2011

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25 Comments »

  • Celine says:

    Win­ter storm, Winterlude..wow! Sounds so inter­est­ing. Your pho­tographs are mar­vel­lous and good to see you smil­ing hap­pily. :)

    Celine’s last blog post..Agra, Hasta La Vista

  • Beaverboosh says:

    Hey Zhu,
    You did those ice carv­ings didn’t you. Awe­some.
    Have you had a beaver­tail?
    BB

    Beaverboosh’s last blog post..What Have You Been Smoking?

  • Zhu says:

    @Reward Rebel — I’m with you on that one: I hate when we have just a lit­tle bit of snow because it gets really slushy right away and you can’t do much with it. That said, this win­ter, we had a ton of it! The ice sculp­tures are gonna last for a few weeks I think.

    @Keshi — Thanks! I took the top two pic­tures the night of the last big storm we had, last Friday.

    @Inga — Thanks! Mak­ing the most of the win­ter… ;-)

    @Shantanu — They have a cool ice hotel in Que­bec as well, although it’s not cheap. Maple tof­fees are more affordable!

    @Celine — I bet it’s quite dif­fer­ent from India! Send me some heat and I send you some snow… deal?

    @Beaverboosh — Of course I did every­thing myself! Cana­di­ans forced me to. You know how cruel this peo­ple can be :lol:

  • Ghosty says:

    I haven’t had maple treats in for­ever! Great pho­tos, I bet­ter get some bat­ter­ies in my cam­era if I want to com­pete with you :)

    Ghosty’s last blog post..Adventures in Dentistry

  • Pearl says:

    Looks like you caught most of the good stuff. The maple taffy mak­ing is fun.

    Did you catch any con­certs too?

    Renny sent me by.

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