ART, ENTERTAINMENT, OUTDOORS: EXPERIENCE HIGH QUALITY OF LIFE
Consistently ranked among the highest for quality of life in Canada and across the world, it’s fair to say Ottawa is a great place to live, work and play.
And it’s not just the obvious factors — affordable housing, low crime, low unemployment — that make it that way. Jantine Van Kregten, director of communications for Ottawa Tourism, says the city offers a deep sense of community and a way of life that other major Canadian cities can’t.
“The creative side of things in Ottawa is amazing — everything from spoken word poetry to burlesque to really great underground music,” boasts Van Kregten.
She believes the city’s massive high tech sector, an industry that generally attracts younger employees, helps fuel the abundance of social, cultural and recreational activities in the Nation’s Capital.
For outdoor enthusiasts, Ottawa is a hub of activity year round, even in the dead of winter. Through the heart of the city is the world’s largest skating rink, the Rideau Canal Skateway, as well as hundreds of kilometres of cross-country ski and snowmobile trails and a number of ski hills within a short drive. When the weather warms up, the city continues to bustle with outdoor offerings — everything from major music festivals, hiking, swimming and boat tours to ziplining, whitewater rafting, bungee jumping and, one of the most popular summer activities in Ottawa, cycling.
Ottawa is also home to a number of national museums and major institutions like the National Arts Centre and the National Gallery, not to mention the NHL’s Ottawa Senators and last year’s CFL Grey Cup Champion Ottawa REDBLACKS.
Van Kregten says, to really get the most out of the city, people should shed any preconceived notions of what many think Ottawa is all about.
“A lot of people who talk about or write about Ottawa come here because of our #1 employer, the federal government, whether they are media covering the feds or they are lobbying a minister, so they see ‘Official Ottawa.’ They see the rubber chicken circuit,” she explains.
“But, if you go into ‘Real Ottawa’ — the ByWard Market, Hintonburg, The Glebe, Westboro — those are real people living there and living lives that might have nothing to do with the federal government.”