The Stony Monday Riots

Despite whatever mild-mannered reputation Ottawa may have, the city’s history is rife with roughneck tales of debauchery, riots, and malfeasance going back decades. Here are a few examples of tales seldom told that could easily change your mind about this city and its residents.

In the early 19th century, the construction of the Rideau Canal brought large numbers of recently arrived Irish Catholic labourers into the area. After the canal was completed, and with increased unemployment in the region, the Irish Catholics became restless and revived old animosities with the French, English, and Protestant Irish. A group of disgruntled Irish known as the Shiners began to wage campaigns against French raftsmen and the Protestant fraternal order the Orangemen, escalating from street fights and bar brawls to a series of assaults and murders in 1837 (this period of Ottawa Valley history, 1837-1845, became known as the “Shiners’ Wars”). The end of the Shiner terror came when their leader, Peter Aylen, left Ottawa for Aylmer after a series of particularly brutal attacks, but tensions among the various groups remained.

Most of the affluent Englishmen who lived in Uppertown (now Centretown) were Tories, while the French and Irish were Reformers. The Tories spent much of the 1840s incensed at the Reformist-minded politics of Lord Elgin, then Governor General of Canada. After riots started in Montreal, where Tories burnt down the Parliament Building located there, Elgin was prompted to look for another capital for Canada. When His Lordship announced plans to visit Bytown in September of 1849, the people of Lowertown began preparing a royal welcome. Uppertowners, meanwhile, argued that Elgin should be ignored, and a meeting was called in the Byward Market to discuss the situation. The gathering on September 17 erupted into another riot. Stones were thrown, mayhem broke out, and one person was shot on what became known as “Stony Monday.” The British militia was called in to block the Lowertowners from advancing into Uppertown the following day, and the riot was dispersed.

Origins of Ottawa General Hospital

In June 1847, a typhus epidemic broke out in Ottawa’s Lowertown very soon after the Sisters of Charity constructed the building that would eventually become Ottawa’s first General Hospital (being little more than a wooden house on St. Patrick Street at the time). The disease was thought to have been brought over with the thousands of Irish immigrants fleeing the Potato Famine. By the following May, 167 of the 619 people afflicted had died. The overflow of patients was quarantined on the west side of the Rideau Canal in wooden sheds, under boats, and in tents. Unfortunately, with all the fear of infection from typhus and smallpox, the last thing any of the residents of Sandy Hill wanted in their neighbourhood was a hospital of any kind, and as late as 1879, a couple of them were even burned down by locals. After the typhus epidemic had subsided, the Sisters purchased six lots at what is now Sussex Drive and Bruyère Street (previously Water Street) to build a new General Hospital, which was finally opened to patients in 1866.

Ottawa Festivals

Perhaps Ottawa should be dubbed the “City of Festivals,” given the numerous events held here per season. To name just a few of them, there is Winterlude, the Ottawa Fringe Festival, West Fest, and the Ottawa Greek Fest.

There are well over 45 festivals, special events, and fairs that take place in Ottawa annually, with a variety that is sure to provide something for everyone.

Winterlude

Staged over three consecutive weekends in February, the annual Winterlude festival consists of more than 120 indoor and outdoor activities, which, after 20 years, attract over 1.2 million visitors to the Ottawa region annually. Events include: live music shows, professional figure skating performances, snow sculpting and ice carving competitions, the world’s largest skate-a-thon, and a bed race that draws crowds from miles around. In Gatineau, Jacques Cartier Park is transformed into a winter wonderland, the world’s largest children’s snow playground. Another feature is the downhill and cross-country skiing, including the Winterman and Winterwoman Sports Weekend, the 21-kilometre (13-mi) run that follows “Canadas discovery route” (Confederation Boulevard). World renowned, the event also is part of the prestigious world loppett (cross-country ski race) circuit. And, of course, always a highlight of Winterlude is skating on the Rideau Canal, featuring a “rink’ that stretches 7.8 kilometres (4.8 mi) from the Chateau Laurier to Dow’s Lake.

Ottawa Fringe Festival

This annual festival in June showcases local, national, and international performers and playwrights, some with shows touring other Fringe Festivals across Canada.

Ottawa Greek Fest

Every August, spend a few weeks of living “the Greek way.”

Ottawa International Animation Fest

The largest event of its kind in North America, this competitive festival showcases the best of cutting-edge, trend-setting animation as well as industry standards.

Ottawa International Busker Festival

Showcasing “five days of unorthodox entertainment,” the Busker Festival has some of the best musicians, jugglers, fire-eaters, storytellers, comedians, magicians, and mimes from Canada and around the world.

Ottawa Lumiere Festival

Ottawa’s nighttime festival, celebrating “the magic and mystical beauty of light” in New Edinburgh, with dance, music, poetry, and thousands of lantern.

West Fest

Westfest is Ottawa’s newest large-scale festival, a diverse celebration that includes, multidisciplinary arts, including music, performance art, literature, spoken word, media art, visual art, dance, theatre, and live animation. Starting Friday, June 12 through Sunday, June 14 an estimated 100,000 people will stroll through the community of Westboro Village in Ottawa. Join us on Richmond Road, between Golden Avenue and Island Park Drive. West Fest takes place on Richmond Road in Westboro, and shockingly enough, it is FREE.

For more information, see westfest.ca.

Ottawa Greenspaces

There were complaints about Ottawa city planner Jacques Gréber when he started creating a horseshoe of green space around Ottawa in the 1950s (frustrated developers called him “Jacques Grabber”). But thanks to him, we now have 200 square kilometres (124 sq mi) of greenbelt around the downtown core alone. For picnicking, swimming, Frisbee, hiking, snowshoeing – you name it – here are some locations worth considering (depending on your goals, of course). (Inline skaters can use the miles and miles of paths that line either side of the Rideau Canal, from Wellington Street/Rideau Street all the way down to Hog’s Back, and back.)

Andrew Haydon Park, Acres Road and Carling Avenue: In the west end of the city, this park is named after a former mayor of the City of Nepean. It sits on the Ottawa River and has a view of Britannia Bay. Includes a picnic area, artificial lake, road concession, and yacht club. Considering the state of some parts of the Ottawa River, swimming is not recommended.

Commissioners Park (at Dow’s Lake), Carling Avenue at Queen Elizabeth Driveway: Home to the Dow’s Lake Boathouse, with concessions and restaurants, this is a popular spot during many regattas, as well as during the Tulip Festival in May, and the Winterlude carnival in February.

Confederation Park, Elgin Street at Laurier Avenue: Across the street from the new City Hall (110 Laurier Ave. W.), this is the site of various events throughout the year, including Winterlude, the Ottawa Jazz Festival, and Canada Day celebrations, as well as many others. The fountain here once stood in Trafalgar Square in London, England.

Dow’s Lake: Formerly Dow’s Swamp, Dow’s Lake was created during the construction of the Rideau Canal, and its proximity to Confederation Park, the Central Experimental Farm, and Dow’s Lake Boathouse make it a good spot for picnickers and boat enthusiasts.

Garden of the Provinces, Wellington at Bay Streets: Across from the Library and Archives Canada building, this park commemorates the union of 10 provinces and the territories with flags, bronze plaques featuring the provincial flowers, and a symbolic fountain overlooking LeBreton Flats and the start of the Ottawa River Parkway.

Gatineau Park: a 15-minute drive north of downtown Ottawa, this park is home to a whole slew of trails for biking, walking, snowshoeing, skiing, or hiking. Hog’s Back Falls (officially known as Prince of Wales Falls), Hog’s Back Road at Colonel By Drive: Near Carleton University, these falls are where the Rideau Canal passes through the first locks in Ottawa, with a swing bridge to enable sailing boats to pass under the roadway.

Hog’s Back Park and nearby Vincent Massey Park are both popular spots. Jacques Cartier Park, Rue Laurier, Gatineau: This park, situated between the Interprovincial and Macdonald-Cartier bridges, has great views of Rideau Falls and Nepean Point, and is a popular festival events location, with the Outaouais Tourism office nearby, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization across the street. Pathways connect to Leamy Lake and the Gatineau River.

Leamy Lake Ecological Park and Archaeological Site, Leamy Lake Parkway, accessed from Boulevard Maissoneuve, Gatineau: Where the Gatineau River meets the Ottawa River, this was once a stopping-off point for the First Nations peoples as well as French fur traders, and has since been recognized as a rich site for archaeological digs. The park also has a lake with swimming and windsurfing, and a concession stand. The new Casino de Hull is directly across from Leamy Lake beach.

Major’s Hill Park, Mackenzie Avenue (behind the Château Laurier Hotel): The city’s oldest park, it was developed in 1874 for its view of the Parliament Buildings, and was once the home of Lieutenant-Colonel John By (though his home is long gone). Currently the park is the site of the Astrolabe Theatre and the noon gun, fired daily off Nepean Point.

Mer Bleue Conservation Area, Anderson Road off Inness Road: This parkland is a peat bog, more typical of what you might find in Canada’s far north, despite being located southeast of the city.

New Edinburgh Park, Stanley Avenue and Dufferin Road: On the eastern bank of the Rideau River, this park has plenty of wildlife, including blue herons, muskrats, turtles, and butterflies. In the winter, there is an outdoor skating rink. Pine Grove Forest, Hunt Club at Conroy Roads: This 12-square-kilometre (7.5-sq-mi) urban forest, managed by the National Capital Commission, combines natural and planted forest, and offers wide and level trails for hiking.

Vincent Massey Park, Heron Road (west of Riverside Dr., 733-7704): Just north of Hog’s Back Park and Mooney’s Bay, this park, named for Canada’s first Canadian-born Governor General, is used for events involving large groups, with numerous picnic tables and fireplaces as well as softball fields, horseshoe pits, and a bandstand; in winter, it has some of the best tobogganing hills in the city. A parking fee of $4 is charged from May to October each year.

For the Birds

One of the foremost birders in North America is Ottawa-born Bruce Di Labio, who currently lives just outside Ottawa in the village of Carp. A member of the Ottawa Field- Naturalist’s Club (which is the oldest natural history club in Canada, dating back to 1879), Di Labio spent much of the 1980s working for the Museum of Nature in ornithology before working for the Canadian Nature Federation as Staff Naturalist and finally launching his own birding business in 1998. He conducts birding classes, field trips, and local group tours in Canada, and has also led birding tours to Arizona, Alaska, Texas, New Jersey, California, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Churchill, Manitoba. (See also the Ottawa Field-Naturalists)

Life’s a Beach

If you feel safer with lifeguard supervision while you’re out in the sand, here are some beaches the City keeps an eye on: Britannia Beach (2805 Carling Ave., 820- 1211), Mooney’s Bay Beach (2926 Riverside Dr., 248-0863), and Westboro Beach (follow Ottawa River Pkwy. to Kitchissippi Lookout).

Carelton Cup

Called “The Ultimate Canadian Triathalon,” the Carleton Cup combines skating, running, and drinking in an annual race down Rideau Canal to raise money for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Started in 1989 as a diversion to make winter more tolerable for Carleton University students, the race traditionally takes place on the first Saturday of Winterlude. It starts at the Carleton University campus, moves down the Rideau Canal, and ends at a pub in the Byward Market. Far from helping Carleton University work against its reputation as a slacker school, the Carleton Cup has become a local tradition and even gained a bit of international attention (it didn’t hurt that comedian Mike Myers once wore a Carleton Cup T-shirt while on Saturday Night Live). Kudos also came from such notable Canadian icons as Pierre Berton, Maurice “Rocket” Richard, and Stompin’ Tom Connors.

Ice Skating in Ottawa

Officially the world’s longest outdoor skating rink, the Rideau Canal stretches 7.8 kilometres (4.8 mi) of “skateway” from downtown Ottawa to Dow’s Lake near Carleton University – roughly the equivalent of 100 hockey rinks end-to-end. Skating on the canal remains one of the key elements of the Winterlude festival in February of every year, despite the fact that the changing temperatures have been shortening the skating season over the past few winters.

During Winterlude, various points along the canal include heated shelters, rest areas, change rooms, skate rentals, washrooms, picnic tables, and fire pits, as well as almost 40 sets of stairs along its length. Another place for free skating is the outdoor rink in front of Ben Franklin Place at 101 Centrepointe Drive (no hockey sticks, strollers, or human chains allowed on the ice).

If skating on the canal freaks you out (though it shouldn’t), there’s always the historic Minto Skating Club (733-5292) and Minto Skating Centre (ice rental, 733-7800) at 2571 Lancaster Road, where many an Olympian got her start (including figure skaters Barbara Ann Scott and Lynn Nightingale).

Checking Conditions

If you’re looking for current ski or skate conditions, the National Capital Commission offers information lines: Gatineau Park Information and Ski Conditions at 819-827-2020 or 1-800- 465-1867, and Rideau Canal Skateway Conditions at 239-5234.

No Respect for the Stanley Cup

Hockey’s most hallowed prized has suffered much abuse and misuse over the years – some of it involving Ottawa teams. In 1903, a member of the Cup-winning Ottawa Senators (the “Silver Seven”) decided to take the trophy home with him. When a teammate found out, a fight ensued, which somehow led to the Cup being tossed into a cemetery. Another odd event occurred two years later when the Silver Seven won it again. One of the drunken celebrants boasted he could kick the Cup across the frozen Rideau Canal (remember, this was when the Cup wasn’t much larger than a soup bowl, and rugby was a more popular sport in the Ottawa Valley). Not surprisingly, the Cup didn’t make it across the canal, and somehow got left behind as the party moved elsewhere. Fortunately, when the team returned the next morning, they found the Cup sitting on top of the ice, right where they had left it. A subsequent win by the same team in 1927 led to the Cup being left in King Clancy’s living room, where he ended up using it to hold items like letters, bills, chewing gum, and cigar butts. Fortunately (or unfortunately, if you like these sorts of stories), a representative of the Hockey Hall of Fame now accompanies the Stanley Cup wherever it goes so such incidents can be avoided in the future.

Canada Aviation Museum

The Canada Aviation Museum holds the most extensive aviation collection in Canada and one of the best aviation museums in the world. Plans are currently underway to celebrate 100 years of Canadian flight in 2009. 11 Aviation Pkwy, 993-2010 Canada Science & Technology Museum Includes rockets, trains, and everything that sparks, shines, or lights up. 1867 St Laurent Blvd., 991-3044 or 866-442-4416 Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography Part of the National Gallery of Canada, the CMCP (1 Rideau Canal, 990-8257) sits in part of the original Ottawa train station between the Rideau Canal and the Fairmont Château Laurier. The attractive gallery – with a few too many stairs! – houses a collection of over 160,000 photographic works from the past 40 years. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Thursday to 8 p.m. (Note: at the time of publication, the CMCP was closed for major renovations, so it is best to call or check the website prior to your visit.)

Bytown Museum

Toward the locks, just down from the Fairmont Château Laurier and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography is the Bytown Museum (234-4570), run by the Historical Society of Ottawa. Built during the winter of 1826–27 as the treasury and storehouse during the construction of the Rideau Canal, the museum is located in what is considered the oldest existing building in Ottawa, formally presented by the city to the Women’s Canadian Historical Society (precursor to the Historical Society) by Mayor Charlotte Whitton in 1951. The Historical Society, which currently meets monthly at the Routhier Community Centre in Lowertown, maintains over 1,500 volumes on early Bytown and Ottawa history in the museum. The reference library is available to the public, and open every Wednesday and Thursday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.– it is advised that you call ahead to confirm the librarian is available. The museum itself hosts regular programming throughout the year, including Winterlude events, Haunted March Break, and Canada Day tours; the website grants users a virtual tour if you can’t make it there in person.

Sparks Street

The site of the first asphalt laid in the capital in 1895, Sparks Street was named for Nicholas Sparks – not the well-known contemporary author who shares the same name, but an illiterate Irish labourer who became Bytown’s first tycoon and one of the founding fathers of Ottawa, serving on the first town council in 1847 as well as on the first council of the City of Ottawa. In 1826, he purchased – for £95 – 200 acres of farmland in the heart of the present capital in the area now bounded by Wellington, Rideau, Waller, Laurier, and Bronson streets. He married the widowed daughter of Ottawa lumber baron J. B. Booth and helped raise her nine children, and the land he received as dowry he later sold for the construction of the Rideau Canal (specifically, to then- Governor General, the Earl of Dalhousie). Sparks Street was opened as a pedestrian mall in 1960, originally on a trial basis. Every few years the city decides to revitalize Sparks Street, without always improving it (in much the way the city tries to do the same with Rideau Street). The city’s only pedestrian mall, the city planners spent years changing their minds on whether or not cars should be allowed on the street at all, but they’ve finally left it alone, and the current mall remains a model for other urban communities in North America (including Washington, DC, and Philadelphia).

Sparks Street Bones

On the morning of March 11, 1977, a Fuller Construction backhoe and crew discovered a damaged skull and the partial remains of two bodies while working an excavation site on Queen Street at Metcalf, right behind the Bank of Commerce building at 62 Sparks Street (now home of Ian Kimmerly Stamps). The police turned the bones over to the coroner, Dr Tom Kendall, who determined that the remains were over a century old, and that the couple in question had died of natural causes. The area had been the site of a graveyard in the 1880s, and officials speculated that the bones had perhaps been disturbed and shifted a number of times during previous excavations. The remains were then collected and reburied.

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