City's first winter carnival was positively incandescent
A regular weekly look-back at some offbeat or interesting stories that have appeared in the Citizen over its 175-year history.
Ottawa's first winter carnival, held over six days beginning on Jan. 21, 1895, was the hottest cold-weather ticket going in the capital, with snowshoeing, skating, curling, hockey and ice-trotting only small parts of the overall festivities. Visitors from Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, New York and elsewhere filled the city's hotels and rooming houses. Harper's Weekly magazine sent illustrator William Hurd Lawrence here to capture the hibernal hoopla with pen and ink.
Three days before the festival's opening, the electric searchlight atop the main tower of the Parliament Building was tested to great effect. “Its penetrating rays reached the most distant points,” the Citizen reported. “It will prove a great feature of the carnival.”
A second searchlight was placed on top of J.R. Booth's mill, pointed toward Chaudière Falls, with “a number of colored slides … used to procure various effects.”
Meanwhile, the carnival's illumination committee had worked day and night so that “the scene that will be presented to-night (Monday) and every night during the week will probably excel anything of the kind ever attempted in Canada.
“On Sparks and Bank streets over one thousand incandescents will sparkle in graceful festoons above the roadway.
“Some fifty colored arcs will add to the brilliancy, while gliding to and fro like chariots of fire will be the electric cars bedecked inside and out with myriads of colored lights.”
Parliament Square, the Printing Bureau and Post Office were also lit. “Ottawa during Carnival week will live well up to its name as the `Electric City.'”
A massive ice castle, meanwhile, was built on Nepean Point, and numerous toboggan slides were constructed.
An allegorical drive, or parade, was staged, with horse-drawn cars entered by such groups as the Ottawa Bicycle Club, the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club's Snowshoe Club, the Independent Order of Foresters, the Capital Lacrosse Club and the Ottawa Cricket Club, the latter the city's oldest athletic organization.
Meanwhile, local residents portrayed such historical figures as Christopher Columbus, Samuel de Champlain, Jacques Cartier and Louis de Buade de Frontenac. The drive also included mules, oxen, dogs, elks and moose.
Additionally, the Citizen noted, “During the coming carnival extensive preparation will be made to make an attractive show of Scandinavian winter sports,” including “Skider” or skies, and “Sparkstoettingar” (sleighs propelled by the feet).
“Judging from opinions given by people, who have seen those articles of sport, a few of which are already here, this sport will within a year or two be as popular here as in Sweden-Norway, where every man and woman or boy and girl use them.”
The future never looked so promising.
But as followers of Ottawa's later winter carnival, Winterlude, are all too aware, winter is not always an accommodating season, and the 1895 festival opened to “torrents of rain, sleet and hail” that somewhat diminished the opening ceremonies. “The ceremonies were not prolonged,” wrote the Citizen. “With lusty lungs the Frontenacs chorused the `Brigadier'; the Primrose trampers sang their club refrain; the band played the National Anthem, and the pretty scene was at an end.
“All preparations had been made for the opening of the ice castle toboggan slide (Monday) night,” the paper added, “but the inclement weather prevented the main feature of the evening, the sliding, from being carried out. The chutes and top of the hill were gaily decorated with numerous Chinese lanterns, and Professor James Barrett's band played several choice selections, but there was so much water on the slide and the atmospheric conditions were so unfavorable that tobogganing was quite impossible.”
The weather improved, although the next day's sparring tournament was charitably described as “on the whole pleasing, and somewhat instructive,” while the snowshoe races scheduled for two days hence at the Metropolitan Grounds promised to be “the most important and keenly contested ever held in Canada.”
The highlight of the week, though, was clearly the Grand Carnival Ball at the Russell House, the city's poshest hotel. Tickets cost $5 for men and $2 for women, the equivalent today of almost $150 and $60 respectively.
“It was about 10.30 o'clock when the guests began to gather in the ballroom,” the Citizen reported, “and in five minutes the handsome apartment was crowded with beauty and gallantry representative not only of the Capital and other Canadian cities, but of the great social centres across the border.”
The Citizen's report the following day included individual descriptions of what 100 women in attendance wore (e.g.: “Miss Ethel Wright, Ottawa, yellow crepon gown with white satin trimming, white satin puffed sleeves, milk bead trimmings; bouquet of phlox roses; ornaments, gold”).
Dinner, so uncharacteristic of Ottawa, was served at midnight. Civil servants, meanwhile, were given Friday afternoon off.
The entire carnival cost an estimated $11,895, with donations and revenue expected to total $12,138.80, including, the newspaper reported, $25 from the Citizen.