He’s a Mountie and he’s OK
Friday was a bank holiday in Canada. Yippee a short working week! The official name for the holiday is Canada Day and it’s when all Canadians celebrate their country. Being the country’s capital, Ottawa puts on a big party lasting the whole day. Four of the cities parks were used as venues for hosting activities and concerts and the central roads were closed to traffic. There was no way we could get round to see it all so we picked out a few highlights. Even so our day started at 8:15am watching the parade go past Parliament and ended at 11pm with the fireworks show. A very busy day.
The parade had the usual military bands playing, but also had gymnastics groups, unicyclists (they don’t have two wheeled bikes in Canada) and groups representing populations from across the country. After the parade had past, we stayed on Parliament Hill and watched the governor general attending the flag raising. From there we headed against the flow of the crowds and went to see a celtic band called Celtae from Nova Scotia. The organisers had made use of the stage erected for the Jazz festival but had not covered up the signs saying no photography. We weren’t sure we had the correct venue or if we needed tickets and I think a lot of other people had the same thought as the crowd was small to begin with. No matter. Celtae were really good. They were passionate about their music and their culture and this came across in their lively performance. They got the crowd going with some hand-clapping, foot-tapping, jig dancing songs about Irishmen coming off the wagon after being sober for fourteen years and how it is a tough life making a living from ocean fishing.
After the concert we headed back to Parliament Hill to see a concert by Canadian artists from other provinces and to see the governor general and prime minister receive a 21 artillery gun salute – that woke the crowds up – and fly past by the Snow Birds, the Canadian equivalent of the British Red Arrows. People were packed onto the hill outside parliament now as rumours had gone round the city that the first maple leaf flag had returned to Ottawa and would be presented at a ceremony. The maple leaf was chosen as Canada’s flag in 1965 and the first flag raised over parliament was given to the speaker of the House of Commons when he retired. He sadly passed away and his Belgian wife return to her home land taking the maple leaf flag with her. There had been lots of muted anger (Canadians don’t get outrageous) about this in the newspapers this week. Happily the rumours were correct and the prime minister received the flag and presented it to the crowd.
After a quick Chinese lunch we went across the river to Gatineau to see a lumberjack show. I feel almost embarrassed that we’ve been in Canada for five months and I haven’t made a single lumberjack reference. I haven’t even thought about them. There were checked shirts and sawdust and axes flying everywhere and yet not a sign of high heels or buttered scones for tea. No mention of shopping either, but then it wasn’t a Wednesday. Seriously though, they were very skilful at axe throwing, wood chopping, tree climbing and log rolling, just like their dear papa.
There was supposed be a lasso training event after the lumberjacks. It was meant for the kids, so of course I joined in. I didn’t get much tuition though as five minutes in a dark cloud came overhead and they closed all events because a thunderstorm was expected. I did manage to tickle the stationery replica of a bull with my lasso, probably just enough to antagonise a real bull.
We walked back to Ottawa side of the river and got drenched in the downpour. We decided to head home as we were very tired and thought most events would be closed due to the rain. We both fell asleep on the sofa for half an hour, which was a lovely snooze. We decided that we’d drive back into town to see the fireworks show and get takeaway pizza on the way. We had hard time finding parking and couldn’t decide whether to watch the show from the Ottawa or Quebec side of the river. We ran out of time so decided on the Ottawa side and walked to Major’s Hill, expecting the fireworks to light up Parliament. They didn’t. Instead they lit up over the river (though this would have been over Parliament had we been on the Quebec side – D’oh!). Still it was a good show. They even had some fireworks that exploded into heart shapes! I didn’t know shaped fireworks were possible. Fantastic!
On Saturday we had a relaxing morning, watched War of the Worlds at the cinema and then went to watch the Royal Canadian Mounted Police musical ride. We were expecting maybe half an hour of mounties riding round on horses watched by maybe a hundred people. Instead there were a couple of thousand people most with picnic hampers and fold away chairs. We had no food and were going to have to stand. The show lasted nearly two hours! There were dogs doing exercise tricks, police shooting targets whilst on horseback and of course the mounties riding formations. It was a very entertaining show. Oh, I especially liked the musical interlude. A famous French Canadian singer sung two children’s songs, one in French and one in Native American, but the best part was that they got one of the mounties to wear a mounty-beaver costume and dragged lots of bemused, embarrassed kids on stage too. The woman made lots of odd animal noises too. Apparently they were part of the songs. Bizarre. Sarah nearly wet herself.
The parade had the usual military bands playing, but also had gymnastics groups, unicyclists (they don’t have two wheeled bikes in Canada) and groups representing populations from across the country. After the parade had past, we stayed on Parliament Hill and watched the governor general attending the flag raising. From there we headed against the flow of the crowds and went to see a celtic band called Celtae from Nova Scotia. The organisers had made use of the stage erected for the Jazz festival but had not covered up the signs saying no photography. We weren’t sure we had the correct venue or if we needed tickets and I think a lot of other people had the same thought as the crowd was small to begin with. No matter. Celtae were really good. They were passionate about their music and their culture and this came across in their lively performance. They got the crowd going with some hand-clapping, foot-tapping, jig dancing songs about Irishmen coming off the wagon after being sober for fourteen years and how it is a tough life making a living from ocean fishing.
After the concert we headed back to Parliament Hill to see a concert by Canadian artists from other provinces and to see the governor general and prime minister receive a 21 artillery gun salute – that woke the crowds up – and fly past by the Snow Birds, the Canadian equivalent of the British Red Arrows. People were packed onto the hill outside parliament now as rumours had gone round the city that the first maple leaf flag had returned to Ottawa and would be presented at a ceremony. The maple leaf was chosen as Canada’s flag in 1965 and the first flag raised over parliament was given to the speaker of the House of Commons when he retired. He sadly passed away and his Belgian wife return to her home land taking the maple leaf flag with her. There had been lots of muted anger (Canadians don’t get outrageous) about this in the newspapers this week. Happily the rumours were correct and the prime minister received the flag and presented it to the crowd.
After a quick Chinese lunch we went across the river to Gatineau to see a lumberjack show. I feel almost embarrassed that we’ve been in Canada for five months and I haven’t made a single lumberjack reference. I haven’t even thought about them. There were checked shirts and sawdust and axes flying everywhere and yet not a sign of high heels or buttered scones for tea. No mention of shopping either, but then it wasn’t a Wednesday. Seriously though, they were very skilful at axe throwing, wood chopping, tree climbing and log rolling, just like their dear papa.
There was supposed be a lasso training event after the lumberjacks. It was meant for the kids, so of course I joined in. I didn’t get much tuition though as five minutes in a dark cloud came overhead and they closed all events because a thunderstorm was expected. I did manage to tickle the stationery replica of a bull with my lasso, probably just enough to antagonise a real bull.
We walked back to Ottawa side of the river and got drenched in the downpour. We decided to head home as we were very tired and thought most events would be closed due to the rain. We both fell asleep on the sofa for half an hour, which was a lovely snooze. We decided that we’d drive back into town to see the fireworks show and get takeaway pizza on the way. We had hard time finding parking and couldn’t decide whether to watch the show from the Ottawa or Quebec side of the river. We ran out of time so decided on the Ottawa side and walked to Major’s Hill, expecting the fireworks to light up Parliament. They didn’t. Instead they lit up over the river (though this would have been over Parliament had we been on the Quebec side – D’oh!). Still it was a good show. They even had some fireworks that exploded into heart shapes! I didn’t know shaped fireworks were possible. Fantastic!
On Saturday we had a relaxing morning, watched War of the Worlds at the cinema and then went to watch the Royal Canadian Mounted Police musical ride. We were expecting maybe half an hour of mounties riding round on horses watched by maybe a hundred people. Instead there were a couple of thousand people most with picnic hampers and fold away chairs. We had no food and were going to have to stand. The show lasted nearly two hours! There were dogs doing exercise tricks, police shooting targets whilst on horseback and of course the mounties riding formations. It was a very entertaining show. Oh, I especially liked the musical interlude. A famous French Canadian singer sung two children’s songs, one in French and one in Native American, but the best part was that they got one of the mounties to wear a mounty-beaver costume and dragged lots of bemused, embarrassed kids on stage too. The woman made lots of odd animal noises too. Apparently they were part of the songs. Bizarre. Sarah nearly wet herself.
posted by Ian @ 11:30 pm
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