One of my favorite places we went to while touring Canada was Ottawa, ON. We were camping at Poplar Grove Campground. Its about half an hours drive outside the city of Ottawa, which is really nice after a long day in the city to then come to a quiet campground. The thing my mom and I wanted to see the most was the Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica. We were lucky enough to get the last parking spot right next to the Cathedral. Just the view of the Cathedral from the outside put us in awe. “It was the most beautiful church ever!” were the words straight from Cardy. The inside put my mom into tears. We had a great time viewing and praying in the Cathedral.
As we were walking around the rest of the city we came to The Rideau Canal, also known as the Rideau Waterway. It connects the city of Ottawa, Ontario, on the Ottawa River to the city of Kingston, Ontario, on Lake Ontario. It was really cool to see them using the lock system, letting boats come in and then later letting more out. There were 8 locks from the Ottawa River to the canal, but 49 locks through out the whole canal.
The Parliament Buildings were our next stop. The Centre Block contains the Senate and Commons chambers, and is easily identified by The Peace Tower, which was built after The Victoria Tower burned down during the Great Fire of the Centre Block. The East and West Blocks each contain the ministers’ and senators’ offices. It was to late for us to go inside the buildings, but it was still really awesome to see. I hope next time we go we can be there before they lock the doors!
We planned to go on the right day at the right time because we were going to be on CTV News Ottawa at six that day. We had filmed with them at our campground earlier in the day and we were hoping they would let us in their studio to watch it. There was a little trouble with the security guard, she thought we weren’t allowed, but after my mom got in touch the the reporter, he let us in. The show was great! We were very happy to have seen it!
The reporter suggested that we go around the corner and get a beaver tail. Our first reaction was gross I dont want to eat a Beavers’ tail. We later found out it was an Ottawa pastry. The pastry is fried dough shaped like a beaver tail. You can get pretty much any topping you like. Cardy got an apple cinnamon beaver tail and I just got cinnamon. It was an amazing day filled with lots of history that ended with an amazing pastry!
-Kady Kellogg
Kady that was an amazing blog. You are awesome! Nice job on that. I could never right a blog as nice as you did. Nice job!
Such a tragedy of mass proportions yesterday! Can you believe you were right where this took place only a month ago?
You guys were at the Ottawa River? I live 30 minutes from it!