Since we moved here I have mentioned in a few blogs that Ottawa is home to the worlds’ largest ice skating rink, the Rideau Canal. This claim to fame took on a whole new meaning this week.Upon arrival back from Laguna Beach last Monday morning I checked the Ottawa forecast and, to my dismay, saw that there was a lot of snow to come. Yikes. On Tuesday the snow began. On Wednesday, even the locals were discussing the storm that was on its way and the drive to book club (thanks to chauffeur Mikey) was treacherous. The walk to work on Thursday morning was a challenge but it was still kind of nice because the snow was so fresh and soft and clean!
And then the temperature rose. And the rain started. Not a lot of rain, like Amsterdam, just a mist of rain. But the rain continued all day broken only by snow fall before turning back to rain again. Blech. By the time I was walking home that night the streets were unimaginable. Normally when I walk on the sidewalk I look for spots that are not covered in ice. That night, I was purposely looking for the icy parts of the sidewalk to walk on because the parts of the side walk that were not covered in ice were engulfed by calf deep puddles with chunks of ice floating in them. Yuck!! The first 100 metres was ok. I made it without too much trouble. But it didn’t stay that way. Before too long by boots were getting nicely soaked.
Even worse than this, the icy puddles came up half way up my calves in some parts of the walk!! I’m sure many of you are just wondering why I didn’t just walk around these puddles instead of going through them. I have a good reason for this … the snow banks on the side of the footpaths were too high to allow me to step onto the road and avoid the puddles. Yikes. It was awful.
To add insult to injury, my walk to work is usually broken up by the Rideau mall which allows me to thaw our for a few minutes every day. Alas, my shortcut through the Rideau has been cut off by construction work. As a result I have to walk outside the entire time. The sidewalk around the mall is usually pretty clear of snow but on this night it was icy. Even worse, at one part of the street there was a huge, very deep puddle. It stretched from the bus stop at the edge of the road and it stopped when it met the giant slope of ice that lead up to the wall a metre away. When I reached this puddle I stopped and groaned (not in my head, I actually groaned out loud) … The guy in front of me tried to avoid the puddle by going up the icy slope. I followed suit. We were both unsuccessful and ended up slipping down the icy slope into the puddle. We were both soaked up almost to our knees with icy water. We were also both cursing loudly. After making it through this part of the street I called Joep who supported me through the rest of the walk home by laughing at my troubles. It worked and by the time I got home I could see the funny side of it even though I was soaking wet and my feet were literally squelching as I walked. My boots when straight into the dryer where they had 3 full cycles only to still be damp this morning.
The following morning, I put off leaving the house for as long as possible but eventually gave up and realized I had to face it at some stage. To make the walk somewhat more manageable I put plastic bags around my feet before putting my feet into my boots. It’s a trick we learned while doing the Inca Trail. It totally works. THEN when I was leaving the building I bumped into a girl from book club who also lives in my building. She was sitting in the lobby looking very dismayed. I asked her what was up, she responded with ‘Have you been outside yet?’ When I said no she began to regale me with stories of her first attempt to walk to work which ended in a slippery failure. She came back inside to get her grips … yup. She was attaching rubber things to her boots that had metal picks on the bottom!! They were like the clamps we wore when climbing the Athabasca Glacier. When she had attached her clamps we headed out to walk to work together. She said the clamps were best thing ever. I was happy with my plastic wrapped feet. This is what it has come to.
We walked very slowly along with all the other pedestrians. People are so polite here and nobody was pushing or shoving on the walk in. After only a couple of small slips, we both made it to work alive! It was quite the accomplishment.
Thankfully the weather has continued to warm up so it really was only a few days of that misery however I must note that the Friday evening after these events Joep & I came back from a late night dinner and drinks to find our street looking like a construction zone. There were construction trucks all over the place trying to break up the ice on the sidewalks. It was serious hard work. We were mesmerized for quite some time! We were also super grateful to these guys because the following morning the streets were some what more navigable … these Ottawanegians really know how to cope with extreme weather!
So there you have it. Ottawa – Famous for having the world’s biggest ice skating rink. I never imagined that by ‘world’s biggest ice skating rink’ they were referring to the entire city centre in March! Still, spring is in the air meaning our favourite time of the year is just around the corner!
