This Family Day long weekend, Ligeia and Mindy went to Ottawa to enjoy the final weekend of Winterlude. On Saturday, we went to the National Art Gallery and out front is this amazing spider sculpture. It’s hard to see it from the photo, but in the spider’s underbelly are a whole bunch of eggs:
We didn’t spend much time at the gallery, so we focused on Canadian and Native American art. It was definitely interesting to see some of the clothing made and worn by Native Canadians over 400 years ago! What was surprising, was that inside the gallery there was a beautiful garden in a center courtyard:
Outside, back in the bitter cold, there was a church with silver steeples. Photographically, we thought this was interesting:
Since the temperature rose to plus 9C on the Friday, officials closed the Rideau Canal for skating on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That hampered the Winterlude festivities as many of the events were canceled or ruined (the ice sculptures couldn’t handle the warm temperatures).
Finally, though, on the Sunday, after the temperatures dropped to -17C at night, a 4.4 km stretch of the canal was opened for public skating. The ice conditions were bumpy and full of deep cracks, but it didn’t stop us from enjoying it!
And a trip to the canal could not be complete without a compulsory stop for a Beaver Tail (fried dough with your choice of sweet or savory topping). We opted for the garlic butter and cheese variety – very yummy!
In addition to enjoying Winterlude, we were able to spend some wonderful, quality time with Mindy’s cousins. A very special thanks to Maya and Robert for hosting us.
With much love,
Mindy & Ligeia 🙂 🙂
Julie B
Looks like you gals had a lot of fun 🙂 I have never had a beaver tail but soooo want to try one. My sister is headed to Ottawa this weekend and the beaver tail is definitely something she is going to try 🙂
Gaurav Saini
Fantastic post!