Craving amusement at home—or close to it? Here are 12 ideas you can try this week, including skating in a kilt, having breakfast (online) with the mayor and introducing your kids to opera. Enjoy!
See The Merry Wives of Windsor for free
The Stratford Festival is resuming its free viewing parties, starting this week on Thursday, January 21, with The Merry Wives of Windsor. Each video is available for free on the festival’s YouTube channel for 36 hours, starting at 7pm on a Thursday. Upcoming films in the series include Othello (starting Thursday, February 4) and The Taming of the Shrew (starting Thursday, March 4).
Celebrate Robbie Burns Day—and all things Scottish
Officially, Robert Burns Day is January 25, but various groups are celebrating Scotland’s most famous poet online throughout the weekend. Here are some of your options:
- Take in an online concert by Kingston’s Andrew Vanhorn and Ottawa’s Spencer Scharf on Saturday, January 23, at 7pm. The show is free but tips are appreciated.
- Also on January 23, the Scottish Society of Ottawa is putting on a huge free celebration featuring dancers, musicians, toasts and more. The website also has links you can follow to learn more about Burns and his poetry.
- Throughout January and February, Glengarry County (the 2020 Kilt Skate Capital of Canada!) is encouraging people to enjoy a “home edition” of the Great Canadian Kilt Skate by donning their tartan, lacing up their skates, hitting the ice in a socially distanced way and taking a selfie of the whole experience.
Register for the Virtual Gatineau Loppet
Cross-country ski fans may be pleased to learn that the popular Gatineau Loppet—an annual long-distance fitness event that you can also complete on a fatbike, on roller skis or by various other means—is still around this year. Like almost everything else, it has simply migrated online. The Virtual Gatineau Loppet isn’t taking place until next month (February 13 to 28), but registration is open now.
So, how does it work? First, you register for the distance of your choice (ranging from 2km for children to 50km for adult diehards). Next, you set off on your own along any route that appeals to you, sometime between the event dates in February. (Now would be a great time to do some training and think about routes.) When you’re done, log your time. You’ll even get the usual pins and certificates, by postal mail or email.
Introduce your kids to opera
The National Arts Centre is running a series of four online workshops to prime children for an online performance of Opera Candy: The Gourmet Adventure of Hansel and Gretel by Jeunesses Musicales Canada. Both the workshops and the concert are designed to help kids understand and enjoy opera. The first workshop is taking place this Sunday, January 24. The 30-minute activity will be presented four times that day, with separate workshops in English and French for two different age groups (ages 4 to 6, and ages 7 to 12).
Have breakfast with the mayor…virtually
This year, the annual Mayor’s Breakfast has gone online. So you can sit in your jammies and drink your own coffee as you watch Ottawa mayor Jim Watson and Canadian Chamber of Commerce president Perrin Beatty chat with Bruce Heyman, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada. The event on Thursday, January 28, is free, but you need to register to get the Zoom link.
Get outdoors
We are allowed to get outside for exercise, as long as we avoid crowds.
Ottawa Tourism has a series of posts highlighting all sorts of options, including snowshoeing trails, cross-country ski trails, skating rinks and forest trails, and snowmobiling trails.
Visit Kingston’s winter sports page has links to information about snowshoeing, skating and cross-country skiing destinations around the Limestone City.
Cornwall Tourism has a list of winter fun ideas, including tobogganing, skating and more.
If you live on the Quebec side of the river, Tourisme Outaouais has lots of suggestions. One post points readers to Lac Leamy, Lac Beauchamp and the skating surface at Brewery Creek. Another highlights the attractions of Kenauk Nature, an enormous nature preserve near Montebello.
Laugh at a few Bernie Sanders memes
OK, I’m clearly not getting out much (hey, are any of us?), but this week’s torrent of funny Bernie Sanders photos has me howling. Someone snapped a photo of the Democratic presidential contender at this week’s inauguration ceremonies, looking cosy and casual in a practical coat and big mittens. For some reason, it went viral. Then a bunch of creative geniuses started Photoshopping the Vermont senator into everything from Friends to The Breakfast Club, and I. Cannot. Stop. Laughing.
So I made my own Bernie meme! Check out the video above and follow Bernie around Ottawa, Eastern Ontario, the Outaouais and Montreal.
And if you’d like to make your own Bernie images, just type any address into the Put Bernie Anywhere page. Truly, friends, this is why we invented the Internet.
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