DAYS GONE BY IN CANADA’S CAPITAL
Explore historic Ottawa’s art and cultural attractions on foot or by bike
The heavy steel door clanged shut with an ominous echo, the light overhead bathing the walls surrounding me in clinical whiteness.
From down the hall came a voice, jumbled phrases rising above the hiss-bang of the radiators. I stared blankly through the bars of cell No. 409 until sleep overtook me.
That extra pint of Guinness the night before was exacting its toll.
However, this was not the reason for my incarceration in a cramped Ottawa hoosegow on a frigid November weekend.
I was paying for the privilege. Canada’s capital is home to one of the world’s creepiest backpacker inns — the HI Ottawa Jail Hostel at 75 Nicholas St. — and I wanted to sample life “inside.”
Opened in 1974, the lockupturned-lodge was the site of the public hanging in 1869 of Patrick J. Whelan.
He paid the ultimate price, in front of 5,000 spectators, for the fatal shooting of the politician-poet Thomas D’arcy Mcgee, struck down as he returned to his lodgings on Sparks Street in April 1868. It was Canada’s first political assassination, the nation not even a year old. Not surprisingly, this austere “gaol,” opened in 1862, still wears an unmistakable cloak of gloom, its stone confines said to be haunted by all manner of ghosts.
Dorms and deluxe rooms are available, but it’s the cells — converted into simple sleeping quarters — that evoke its grim past.
At each entrance is a plaque bearing details of a former inmate. No horrific crimes or criminals are memorialized, lest guests wake up in nightmarish sweats.
In my case, No. 409 was formerly occupied by one Reginald Plucknett, an arsonist who set ablaze the curtains of the family home “while sitting on a chair laughing.” His wife doused the flames and Reginald was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment.
As for ghosts, I never did learn the source of that disjointed voice bouncing off the concave ceiling, so designed to make it easier for guards to eavesdrop on convicts’ whispered conversations.
A night in a one-metre by three-metre (three-feet by ninefeet) cell, whether at law enforcement’s pleasure or on an adventurous whim, is not for everyone.
But the price, which included an optional guided tour of death row, was criminally cheap at just over $50 and the location was unbeatable. A few blocks away at the Chateau Laurier, I could have easily splashed out $1,500 for a night.
Ottawa is awash in contradictions. To many Canadians it is no more than an out-of-touch political abstraction, a place few citizens in such a vast country have the means or will to visit, especially given so many sunnier alternatives.
It doesn’t help that it is regularly voted one of the 10 coldest capitals in the world.
Yet the city of just under one million people boasts an array of important art and cultural attractions, as befitting any global capital, and its mostly flat landscape is ideal for cycling, walking and of course skating on the Rideau Canal, a 200-kilometre UNESCO World Heritage Site that links Lake Ontario with the Ottawa River.
Before this it was Bytown, a fistsup logging town that had more in common with Prince George, B.C., or Medicine Hat, Alta., than a fatcat city living off public-sector salaries and golden pensions, as unfair as that clichéd view may be.
Named after Colonel John By, the military engineer who led construction of the historic waterway, it was rebranded Ottawa in 1855 and became the official capital of the Dominion in 1867. His name lives on in the Byward Market, a lively jumble of bars, eateries and boutique shops wedged just east of official Ottawa’s centres of power.
To the north, away from the crowds, is Lower Town, whose narrow streets, workers’ cottages and Notre-dame Cathedral retain their French flavour and invite leisurely ambles.
Even better: Take in two provinces with a circular hike.
Head west along Wellington
Street, passing the Parliament buildings and the Supreme Court, and then cross the Portage Bridge over Victoria Island and into Gatineau, Que., part of the National Capital Region and site of the sprawling Canadian Museum of History.
The views back across to Parliament Hill are spectacular, the Peace Tower rising majestically over the churning Ottawa River.
Returning to the Ontario side via the Alexandra Bridge, stroll the pedestrianized Sparks Street mall, which has never quite lived up to expectations but is important historically.
A plaque at No. 136 marks the spot where Mcgee was murdered. Pay your respects to this Father of Confederation at D’arcy Mcgee’s pub at Sparks and Elgin.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by institutional and touristy Ottawa, yet the city retains a small-town vibe away from the core.
To the south, for instance, is the Glebe neighbourhood, its busy Bank Street a haven for indie coffee houses and shops, while the modern Lansdowne quarter draws CFL fans to TD Place Stadium, and diners and shoppers looking for glitz.
Walk back downtown along the canal footpath and admire some of Ottawa’s finest old homes.
Farther on is the exclusive Rockcliffe Park, postal code of choice for ambassadors, senior mandarins, former PMS and the leader of the Opposition, who holes up at Stornoway. Head deeper into Manor Park and discover the headquarters of the RCMP Musical Ride, where visitors can tour the stables and buy a trinket at the Mountie Shop.
So, the ayes have it: Ottawa is more than grey government and bureaucrats. You might even warm to it. And a night in jail is strictly optional.
This austere ‘gaol,’ opened in 1862, still wears an unmistakable cloak of gloom, its stone confines said to be haunted by all manner of ghosts.