The Gallivanter: Days 12 & 13: The nation's capital!

Special "Canadian flag" tulip planted all over Ottawa to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation

Parliament Buildings.
You can watch Parliament in session if you go early in the morning and line up for tickets.
I have never felt an urge to do so, in any of the countries of which I am a citizen

Statue depicting NellieMcClung holding aloft the newspaper with the headline "Women are Persons!"
following the passing of the Persons Act in the Canadian Parliament in 1929

Rideau canal & locks. Built for defensive purposes during the war of 1812,
the 202 km long canal links the Ottawa River with Lake Ontario

Plenty to see in Ottawa, even if the weather is changeable! As it is, at the moment. I started out at the National Gallery, a stone and glass structure which is an attraction in its own right - and also contains lots of great art. Unfortunately the Canadian Art section was closed for renovations, so I didn't get to see any of the Group of Seven etc. for which the museum is famous, but it also has a vast collection of international art (including a Simone Martini and a few Canaletto views of Venice to make me feel homesick) and the largest collection of Inuit art in any public museum.

The National Gallery

I believe I've seen this gal before somewhere (hanging out at the Tate, perhaps?)

This Inuit sculpture has a built-in QR code (hand painted on bone)
It links to a you-tube video of the artist telling the story that inspired the sculpture

NOT the Natural History museum... these whale skeletons are made out of plastic lawn chairs!

Plenty of school groups in the National Gallery today

I had been to the National Gallery the last time I was in Ottawa - which was long enough ago that there was a protest against apartheid on Parliament Hill! - but I had never been to the Museum of Canadian History, which opened the year after I was last in Ottawa. In this case too, the building itself is an attraction, across the Ottawa River in Hull, Quebec. Just walk over the bridge (more than a hundred years old) and you are in another province!

I guess this is what they call the Canadian Shield? And perhaps it inspired the museum's architecture?

Here too, one of the major halls was closed for renovations, due to open in July. But there is plenty to see without it. The lower level is entirely dedicated to the first peoples of Canada, with the majority of space dedicated to northwest coast cultures. I found the totem poles a bit out of place here, and I would have liked to learn more about the peoples of eastern Canada, but I guess not everyone has been to BC, or is going there from here, and it's only fair that they should be able to see a few good poles and house fronts too! Besides, the northwest coast peoples definitely had the most impressive and spectacular material culture - which is what can be put in museums. Though I did also experience some intangible culture too, watching some very good short animated videos about creation stories from various cultures, in a comfortable little movie theatre - just the thing when museum fatigue begins to set in!

The Great Hall, getting set up for some special dinner under the totem poles

Northwest coast totems & house fronts looking somewhat out of place in the Great Hall

A plaster cast of the Bill Reid sculpture "The Spirit of Haida Gwaii"
The original is in the airport in Vancouver and so will probably be the last thing I see on my trip to Canada!

Last but not least, when in Ottawa, be sure to stay at the Ottawa Jail Hostel - an attraction in itself. Surely one of the world's most interesting hostels, it is right next door to the Novotel, costs a fraction of the price, and has WAY more character. Maybe even too much character! Sleeping in a jail cell is kind of freaky, especially if you have been on the daily jail tour and know that: prisoners were kept in windowless, unheated (!) cells for 23 hours and 45 minutes of every day. 3 men were officially executed in public hangings; 7 more were "unofficially" hanged in the stairwell, and their bodies made dents in the floor when they dropped to the bottom, which cannot be removed due to their historical significance. 150 more bodies were discovered under the pavement in the hostel/jail courtyard - of people who died of disease, neglect, cold or torture. And there are quite likely just as many more under the hostel parking lot, which has not been excavated! Constructed in 1862, the building served as a jail right up to 1973, when it was closed due to the inhumane conditions; the hostel opened in the building only six months later.

Sweet dreams!

The gallows. The doors would be opened and people would gather on Sandy Hill for public hangings, one of the few sources of entertainment in colonial Ottawa