Winterlude and Seeing Something New

Lots of skaters on the canal
In Ottawa this past weekend we just finished Winterlude.

An orgy of skating, music, ice and snow sculptures and BeaverTails.  Plus a whole bunch of things we don't participate in (😉)


Maple Taffy hardening in the snow
















The ice sculptures are an international competition with sections for duos and singles.  Luckily (?) this year the weather has been cold enough that the sculptures basically lasted through the entire festival.  Here are a few of the sculptures (in a bit of a tent to keep them from the rain). 


From a team of Canada and Philippines


Japanese Carver




Russian Carving Team


Ice skating on the canal was very busy with refreshment stands at various points along the way (plus bathrooms and skate rentals).  Unfortunately we decided to go on the last day of Winterlude, which turned out to be a warmish day, and the ice surface was not great.  So we, along with many others, decided the canal would be a great walking track.  Plus that was where the BeaverTails were. 



Yes – we ate a lot of BeaverTails (a stretched out doughnut like pastry in case someone is not familiar with this treat).  This whole crowd, all eating them, are related to me.  Yup – we like them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeaverTails

Not sure if any of you follow food blogs – but one I quite like is from a woman named Julie Van Rosendaal who is from Calgary.  Her blog – Dinner with Julie – featured a home made version of a BeaverTail and she caught some legal XXX for using the name.  All quite funny, and well handled by Ms Van Rosendaal – so – now on her blog the Homemade BeaverTail recipe is called Canadian Semiaquatic Rodent Posterior Doughnuts – quite cute I thought.

http://www.dinnerwithjulie.com/recipe/homemade-beaver-doughnuts/


Harm Reduction Vending Machine
On an alternative side of Ottawa I want to expand on comments from a previous Ottawa post.  All my life I have lived in safe white bread sort of neighbourhoods and though I have heard through the news about the various programs to help addicts I had never seen them.  In any case, our place here in Ottawa is in a somewhat edgier area of town (complete with the safe injection site).  No one bothers us, but we do see things that we might have heard about but never seen.  Such as a vending machine aimed at harm reduction.  What is that???  Well this vending machine is about 2 blocks from us on a street we seldom visit.  Two products are available – one is the equipment required for safe injection, and the other are products aimed at inhalation.  For some reason the inhalation ones are in brown paper so I am not too sure exactly what is there.  They are not technically for sale but can be accessed via a “harm reduction”  token available through public health (which was close by).  Quite interesting.



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