I had a family photoshoot on Saturday morning. The mom asked me if I was from Ottawa.
“I’m from the Toronto-area,” I said, because this is how I explain the sprawl I come from named Brampton/Bramalea. “I came to Ottawa for school and never left because Ottawa totally rocks.”
The lady laughed and told me she was born here.
“An Ottawa native!” I exclaimed. It’s pretty rare to meet someone who was born and raised here. Almost everyone I meet has come to Ottawa for work or school and just stayed.
She then said something about how people who are born here don’t often think that it “rocks.”
I didn’t think that it rocked either, at least, not when I was first introduced to Ottawa.
When I was in my last year of highschool I had to decide where I was going to apply for my post-secondary education. For some reason we were only allowed to choose three places. And so I applied to the English program at the University of Toronto, the Journalism program at Ryerson (that is a story in itself) and to the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University here in Ottawa. This was listed as my number one choice.
I was accepted at all three programs (with scholarships! That’s how smart I was!) but my heart was set on Ottawa. The journalism program was very well known and this is where I wanted to be.
As much as I love life in Ottawa I will freely admit that November is not exactly peak season for beauteous sightseeing. Spring has the tulips, winter has the Rideau Canal, summer and early fall have shades of Gatineau park, but there’s an inbetween time (namely late fall and early spring) that is grey and cloudy and stark. Unless your favourite colour is “monochrome” or you can overlook the lack of colour and sunshine, Ottawa isn’t a very cheerful place to be in November. And that, my friends, is when I decided to visit Ottawa for the very first time. My boyfriend (that’s a whole other post too) and I decided to drive up to Ottawa and check out the scene.
If you’ve lived in Ottawa you might remember a campsite right near the water purification plant near Lebreton Flats? YES. You could pitch a tent a stone’s throw from Parliament Hill! Boyfriend and I parked his Honda Civic hatchback in the campsite parking lot, tilted our seats back and slept (yes, we really slept). We awoke to angry knocking on the windshield. Apparently you can’t just park your car in the parking lot of a municipal campsite and sleep in it like that!
I’m not sure how that particular part of the story ended (where did we go after we were told to leave?), but I do know that we spent some time driving around aimlessly (we really had no clue) and didn’t see anything worth seeing other than Parliament Hill, which is pretty and all but for a teenager who’s moving out of the house for the first time it didn’t seem to be enough of a draw.
Now that I’m writing it all down I’m not sure if I’m combining the memories of two trips or just one, but do I remember the winds, those HOWLING WINDS, threatening to sweep me off my feet somewhere outside the library at Carleton. The campus was deserted (it was a weekend) and we had no idea where the action was. Everything looked so dreary. I questioned why I wanted to come here to this grey grey place.
The kind of weather we’re having now reminds me of the time of The Howling Winds. I did eventually decide that I loved Ottawa and wanted to make it my home. And now I am open to Ottawa’s beauty, no matter the season.
