Ottawa, Canada






Backside of Parliment with library.




East Block Parliment Buildings

Honestly, before finding Ottawa on my map to locate the best route in order to go visit my friends Sarah & Steve’s parents house (Sarah’s parents), I probably couldn’t have correctly stated that it was the capital of Canada or pinned its location on a map…and I have a pretty good grasp of global geography.  I might have said that Toronto or Ontario was the capital, which are sorta technically correct, except that Toronto is the Capital of Ontario and Ottawa is in Ontario.  It was never on my list of places to visit, but I sure am glad that I did.  It was great.  First, Valerie and Sherman were really nice, hospitable, interesting to get to know and fun to hang out with.  Might have had a little too much wine and a little too much fun even and Valerie and I may be taking an RV excursion together sometime next year.  The visit to Ottawa gave a really great historical basis and focal point for all of Canada, which has a surprisingly rich history and vast diversity that remains nearly fully intact today between French, British and First Nation indigenous populations that are now fully recognized with their own province (Nunavut as of 1999).  All of this history, governmental systems and cultural diversity was of course well represented and explained in Ottawa.  The parliamentary buildings were extremely gothic and gargoyle infused, and it wouldn’t have been a surprise to see a quidditch game going on overhead.  The guided tours were very enlightening, the view from the top of the Peace Tower (how awesome is it that they have a Peace Tower at the center of their government) was great, and the museum of Civilization had some amazing presentations on the Arctic Circle and Canadian History.  Still a little fuzzy on all the details of the governmental system, but then apparently so are many Canadians (well, for that matter most Americans are of course fuzzy on our own system…electoral college and all that).  Queen Victoria selected the site for Ottawa in the 1800’s specifically because it was defendable against America.  Hard to remember that Canada is still technically semi-British and that Britain and America spent nearly a hundred years attacking each other by way of the Canadian and American frontiers. 



Native art.  Museum of Civilization.



I found a great campground just on the edge of town that is run by the government as the municipal campground, but then got booted from there for Labor Day weekend because I didn’t have reservations to ensure my space through the weekend.  Seems that America and Canada share the same holiday on the same day…who knew.  I moved over to another RV park even closer to Valerie and Sherman’s house and ended up meeting the nicest Canadian guy from Ontario now living full time in his RV with his wife.  The two of them have been to every far reaching point one can drive in Canada.  He gave me a lot of pointers and information and blew flames on my desire to see the Maritimes.  Did not know before this trip that they were called the Maritimes, but they include Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island (didn’t even realize that this was its own province), and Labrador & Newfoundland (Labrador being the mainland and Newfoundland being the island).  He also fueled my fire to drive the RV down into Mexico. He gets scheduled into an RV caravan down through Mexico and breaks off onto his own in the Yucatan where they park for the winter and tour around in their truck seeing the sites, beaches, ancient ruins, etc…I am so there in the next couple of years!  Better go get my Rosetta Stone Spanish edition dusted off.



Museam of Civilization...how cool is that building face!



 

A funny theme that I kept hearing from people that I talked to in Ottawa is the official bilingual status of Canada…French and English of course.  Ottawa is strategically placed across the Ottawa River from Quebec and a portion of the capital buildings and offices are actually in French speaking Gatineau across a relatively short bridge.  The English speaking mostly British heritage citizens of Canada seem a bit incensed with the official bilingual status of Canada for a few interesting reasons.  One being that everything in Canada must legally be in both English and French and there is a Language Police division that constantly enforces this law and applies fines to anyone that breaks this law, except that in Quebec (the only French speaking province) this law is apparently not enforced at all.  Nothing in Quebec is in English…and I know this first hand (see my story from my first few day in Montreal where I spent a very frustrating  30 minutes trying to get gasoline into my Jeep), no street signs, no instructions, no visitor signs, no tourist placards, nothing governmental nor commercial is in English.  But, I heard some interesting stories about how the language police will shut down a website or apply fines to a local retailer that might be situated in British Columbia and thousands of miles away from Quebec and selling local goods only to local customers that haven’t printed all of their signs in both languages or included a French language option for their entire website.  I can also tell you that only half of the websites that I visited in Quebec have an English option.  The second interesting story that I heard is that any official communications going out of any official offices in the local, regional, provincial or central governments must all be translated into both languages even if you are simply generating an announcement to 5 colleagues that you know all speak English.  Their version of the Library of Congress (which I visited and has some amazing architecture) is filled with everything in duplicate language.



Ridea Canal Winter - Stays below freezing the entire winter.



Rideau Canal Summer

   After more socializing with Sarah’s family and a great bike ride across and through the main sections of Ottawa on a nice warm day (was a comfortable 82 degrees, but they were all complaining about the extreme heat), I headed back out to Montreal for a couple more days, then plotted my coarse east toward Quebec City.



Parliment and Peace Tower





 


 

  
 

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

My view of the city from the Yacht Club.

So I finally made it, and WOW is it French.  I of course knew this to a degree, but I had envisioned something between how Spanish Mexico is and how French Louisiana is, where people held on to their culture strongly, but that getting around with English was no problem.  Montreal is the second largest French speaking city in the world, just behind Paris, and it is quite a large city with over 3 million people (the small town of Washington, DC has about 1 million people in all of the MD-DC-VA metro region.  The language barrier was definitely a problem at times.  One day I was exiting a parking lot and the lot attendant (who spoke only French) said “$%&#%$$ gauche $%^&$*##”, and since there was a double yellow line in the middle of the road, I figured he was reminding me not to turn left out of the lot, but when I turned right I realized that the lanes were all reversible, big red “X” above my lane ahead and all traffic coming my way…clearly he instructed me to “be sure to turn LEFT only.”  Another day, it took me literally more than 30 minutes to get fuel in my car because the only attendant on duty only spoke French and the damn automated fueling terminal didn’t have a working “English” language button and was apparently asking me stupid questions in French, like do I want to come inside to get a coffee after fueling, and crap like that. 

Other customers were extremely helpful in translating at retail shops, grocery stores, etc.  The city is very much like a typical East Coast city with some interesting historical sections, cluster of tall buildings and a huge amount of Catholic Cathedrals.  Honestly it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but then again, I was making this excursion to discover and find out for myself.  Many of my East Coast friends over the past 20 years have raved about Montreal, but I now realize that was specifically geared toward club hopping and partying…it is very much like going out in Europe in that regard. 

Not only did people of Quebec (name of this French Canadian Province of course)  keep their language and religion in tact, but they also kept their French looks and cultural style strong.  Probably because much of their advertising, media, news and entertainment is  generated in France and carries with it a very European style.  They are very “French” looking, dark hair and pale skin is common, with lots of short old “French” men sitting around in parks or cafes. They all drive like crazy Parisians in little fast cars.  Driving is of course a fun challenge with everything in French and all road names using long 8 word Catholic names (blvd. Saint-Roy-du-la-Riche Rue).

My local grocery store was amazing with access to a huge selection of pate, terrine, cheeses, dried meats, olives, etc.  They carried bison, rabbit, moose, deer, emu and other exotics, and this was simply in their equivalent of a Safeway.  And again, back to the French theme, every single thing was in French.  How they would get every single package in the entire grocery store in French in North America surrounded on all sides by English speaking Provinces and States is amazing to me.

Farmer's Market.  Open 7 days a week and under permanent structure.  Why do we not have these in America?

The city sits on the St. Lawrence River (which of course Lobo had to go swimming in) and was established in the 1600’s.  It is named after Mont Royal, the mountain (no larger than the Laguna Hills, but typically called a “mountain” under East Coast standards) directly in the center of the city.  For half of my visit, I stayed in the “suburbs”, which like France is actually rolling farmland with clusters of “villages” that might include a tiny convenience store, maybe a commuter rail stop and a cluster of houses all tightly webbed together around the village.  Nobody was living out on half an acre in a McLean style McMansion.  The entire city is surrounded by farmland within 20 minutes drive in every direction.  For the second half of my stay, I had found that the local yacht harbor had an RV facility that was not advertised at all and only luckily did I stumble upon it while driving around.  It provided electrical hook ups and was literally 3 minutes drive across the river and into downtown.  Had a great view of the city.  I of course did all of the touristy stuff, saw the sites, took some tours and generally hung out for a few weeks soaking in the culture and language.  I chugged through my Rosetta Stone French every night for about an hour and by the time that I departed Montreal for Ottawa I could talk to the neighbor’s 2 year old just fine.