Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had a restful and joyful holiday break, despite the weirdness of the times.
If you’re feeling a bit blue after packing up the wrapping paper and decorations, I have good news for you: there are still lots of things you can do this week, either at home or at a safe distance outdoors. Check out this list!
NOTE: As Ontario and Quebec are both in lockdown, PLEASE stay as close to home as possible when trying any of the outdoor activities suggested in this post. In particular, note that interprovincial travel is strongly discouraged. When you’re out, keep your distance, wear your mask, use your sanitizer and avoid any area that’s crowded. And if you’re feeling even a little ill, stay home!
Update, January 6: As of today, the City of Ottawa is limiting the number of people in outdoor spaces—including skating rinks, and the tops and bottoms of toboggan hills—to 25. See this Ottawa Citizen story for further details.
Lace up your skates
The Rideau Canal isn’t open quite yet, but as of today (January 4) it’s getting close! In the meantime, lots of outdoor rinks are ready for skaters. Make sure you are aware of any COVID-19-related rules for rinks in your community; for instance, in Ottawa, you need to wear a mask when you’re near an outdoor rink but you don’t have to wear it while skating. Also, please check to make sure the rink you want to visit is currently open.
To find a rink near you, check these links:
- City of Ottawa
- City of Gatineau
- City of Kingston
- City of Brockville
- Tay Valley Township
- Town of Perth
- Town of Carleton Place
- Town of Smiths Falls
Skate trails, often running through forests and other scenic places, are another popular option. Here are some to consider. As they are very weather dependent, PLEASE check ahead to make sure they’re open!
- RiverOak Skate Trail (Metcalfe)
- Countryside Adventures (Moose Creek)
- Skating Through the Forest (Lac-des-Loups)
- Laurentian Valley Skating Trail (near Pembroke)
Enjoy a concert from home
Music lovers, take heart: There are concerts for just about every musical taste online this week, including the following:
- Young Québécois pop star Ludovick Bourgeois is giving a free livestream concert on Facebook on Tuesday, January 5, starting at 8pm.
- To celebrate his new single, “My Kind of Road,” hitting #1 on the Canadian Indie Country Countdown, Ottawa singer-songwriter Dan Petti is giving a free Facebook Live concert on Wednesday, January 6, at 8pm. You can hear the single in the video above.
- On Friday, January 8, the Ottawa Symphony is premiering a performance featuring works by a wide range of composers, including Pavane by Gabriel Fauré and The Song of Birds by Pablo Casals. You can watch the show at 7:30pm on Rogers Cable 22 or online. The concert is part of the Ottawa Symphony’s Eine Kleine Distanced Musik series.
- The National Arts Centre is streaming the funky soul sounds of Samantha Martin and Delta Sugar on Facebook Live at 8pm on Friday, January 8.
Sing your heart out
Would you rather sing than listen? Here are some of the online choir rehearsals and other singing events you can enjoy this week.
- The Ottawa Celtic Choir sings songs in six Celtic languages, as well as English, French and Spanish, and they’ll help you trough the unfamiliar words! You can sign up on Eventbrite to join the online rehearsals for $10 a month. The next one is on Tuesday, January 5, at 7pm.
- Bytown Voices is offering 13 weekly rehearsals via Zoom, along with the option to perform one of the pieces in a virtual concert. The rehearsals take place on Tuesdays, starting January 5 and running until March 30. The lineup includes pieces by Elgar, Mozart, and Rogers and Hammerstein.
- Shout Sister Choir is actually a group of choirs across Ontario that welcomes newbies—no auditions and no ability to read music required. In Eastern Ontario, there are chapters in Ottawa, Belleville, Brockville, Kingston, Picton and Smiths Falls. The link above takes you to a page where you can request information on upcoming Zoom rehearsals.
- Not a rehearsal, per se, but a recording of a sold-out crowd at the NAC’s Southam Hall singing ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” at a Choir! Choir! Choir! show in the Before Times (i.e., 2019). The video above was my first taste of the Toronto-based singalong duo’s shows. I loved it so much that, in February 2020, I went to one of their last performances before the pandemic hit. I dare you not to belt out the words as you watch this. If you like it, you can check out Choir! Choir! Choir!’s YouTube channel for more fun videos, including live concert recordings of Weezer’s “Holiday” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Hit the trail
It’s just a hunch, but I suspect trails for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing will be extremely popular this winter. The NCC clearly thinks so, too, as it has just invested some serious money in a number of the capital’s winter trails. Here are Ottawa Tourism’s guides to nearby cross-country skiing trails and snowshoeing trails. And here is a guide to snowshoeing and cross-country skiing trails in West Quebec from Tourisme Outaouais.
For readers outside Ottawa-Gatineau, the South Eastern Ontario tourism board has a comprehensive list of cross-country skiing destinations across Eastern Ontario. The Ontario Parks blog has some good snowshoeing suggestions, including a few in Eastern Ontario, and Lanark County Tourism has a list of cross-country skiing trails in its region.
Get artistic
Ottawa Valley artist Kerstin Peters is offering a Zoom art café on Sunday, January 10. In this class, you’ll learn how to make a personal goal mandala for 2021. Heaven knows, we could all use some goals for this year! The fee is $10 and you need to register by 10pm on January 9.
If you’d like to organize a private art class for a group of two to 18 households, the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning in Kingston has a great list to choose from, including a variety of acrylic painting classes, a drawing class and a session on coloured pencils.
In Old Ottawa South, the Mud Oven is selling paint-at-home pottery kits. Choose your unfired pottery piece, choose your paints, pick up your materials, paint your item, then drop it back at the store, where staff will fire it in the kiln.
In Almonte, JB Arts has a wide range of home art kits for sale, and it has created online tutorials to go with them.
Do you already have a project in mind or on the go? Then perhaps this six-week online studio with Canadian artist Andrew Cheddie Sookrah, offered through the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, will be up your alley. For three hours each Thursday, Sookrah will coach students through their own projects, via Zoom. It starts on Thursday, January 7, so register quickly if you’re keen. (See video above for more info.)
Thinking ahead? You can register now for in-person classes at the Ottawa School of Art, which are scheduled to start after the Ontario lockdown ends.
Grab your toboggan
Do your kids need to burn off some excess energy? Or are you yearning for some kid-like fun yourself, after hours of sitting in front of a computer screen? Get your sled and hit the hills! Just be certain that your chosen hill has a nice, safe base, so you don’t end up rocketing into a fence, creek or roadway. To find a hill in Ottawa, check out the City of Ottawa’s interactive sledding map.
Looking for more ideas for things to see and do in Ottawa, Eastern Ontario and the Outaouais? Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter.