One of many utilitarian pieces made of frozen atoms of hydrogen and oxygen... ICE!
Although there are four main venues (Confederation Park & the Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa, Ontario and Jacques-Cartier Park & the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatinaeu, Quebec), the entire Capital Region gets in on the action and festivities... many of the hotels display their own ice sculptures welcoming guests, restaurants have "Winterlude" fare and local citizens are friendly and helpful.
Canada's population is quite internationally diverse and this year Chinese New Year was incorporated into the Winterlude festivities. Chinese lanterns and "dragons" were prevalent as well as "fire and ice" (Yin and Yang) themes. A group of college students designed and built a sculpture (top left) depicting a Chinese dragon out of "reusable plastic materials"- it was interesting to see and watch as it moved in the breeze.
Some sculptures were roped off and the stanchions were made of ICE! Very cool!! =)
The official mascots of Winterlude are the Ice Hogs. Legend has it that many, many years ago a family of ice hogs (related to ground hogs but much larger and more mysterious) crossed an ice bridge over the Bering Strait and settled deep in the Canadian north. They love everything about winter - especially the wind, snow and cold - and hold a celebration to say good-bye to winter before they hibernate during the summer. They now live in Jacques-Cartier Park among the snow structures but travel throughout the Capital Region through some mysterious underground tunnel system. We saw them several times throughout the weekend, always ready with a friendly wave or quick hug. And I bet you thought the Ice Hogs were an American Hockey League team!
Meet the twins, Noumi and Nouma... Mr. & Mrs. Ice Hog are nearby!
One of the "coolest" exhibits at Confederation Park is the Crystal Lounge... where everything was made of ice. We sat in ice chairs (I wonder how long they'd last in Arizona in July... they were nice and cool!), stood around an ice high-top table that had electronic gadgets "floating" in it, watched tv mounted in an ice entertainment center and looked at pictures in frames made of ice. Surprisingly, it wasn't all that cold in the Crystal Lounge area despite all that ice... and there was even a certain "warmth" about it.
The little kids were very intrigued with the gadgets in the ice... and so were some bigger kids!
In my last blog post about the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, I mentioned that there are spider sculptures made by the same sculptor in both the US and Canada capitals. The Canadian one is at their National Art Museum and is much, much larger than the one in the US.
This spider sculpture has an egg sac with several eggs... making it even creepier looking!
The many sculptures, ice as well as other mediums, were beautiful to look at during the day. Sunlight danced on them creating sparkles and sometimes rainbows of color. At night, they were often lit up with colored lights making an enchanted landscape.
Magnificent!
The Opening Ceremony- on Friday, February 4th- was at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (really, a museum of Canada's history). Although the museum was open (and free that night!) most of the activities were outside... musical performers, actors performing skits, story-tellers, fire twirlers and dancers- some on stilts! I could barely walk on the icy paths in snow boots- I can't imagine how they did it on stilts! My favorite performers were Jesse Stewart and Johannes Welsch, percussionists who had a unique musical style as well as some unusual instruments- vertically suspended ice marimbas and glass tubes they played like flutes! I wish they had a cd!! It was cold that night (real-feel temperature of 18 degrees) and we dressed warmly with several layers- but it was the hot cocoa and "warm-up spots" (think heated bus stops!) that really warmed us up!
From the museum, we could see Parliament (top left) across the Ottawa River which was frozen and snow-covered.
Finally, the event everyone was waiting for began... the fireworks show. It was the biggest, most unique firework show we've ever seen. The Alexandra Bridge across the Ottawa River was closed and they launched some of the fireworks from there. They also had a fireworks waterfall coming down off the bridge- impressive to watch but it didn't photograph well. And although the other photos don't do the show justice, you can get a taste of what we saw.
It was like watching a 20 minute "Grand Finale!"
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