Whether you’re eager to get outdoors, ready to venture to an indoor venue or happily curled up your couch under a cozy duvet, I have six more ideas for fun this week in Ottawa, Eastern Ontario, the Outaouais and beyond. You can kick back with great jazz performances, skate in a kilt, learn to cook 1920s style and more! Read on for details.
Note: I’m writing this post on Monday, January 31, when access to downtown Ottawa is still very difficult. Things may change as the week progresses, so I’ve mentioned activities happening later in the week on the assumption that they WILL happen! However, please check the websites of the places you’re hoping to visit before heading out to ensure that they are indeed open, and check with sources such as CBC Ottawa Traffic and CityNews Ottawa Traffic for the latest on road closures.
Make a snow angel for a good cause
This year, the Snowsuit Fund is raising much-needed funds by running a virtual Snow Angel Challenge. It’s easy to participate: Just get out in the snow, make a snow angel, record your efforts and collect money for the fund, which buys warm winter clothing for kids in need. There are prizes, too! Registration is free and the event runs from February 1 to 28.
Visit a museum or gallery
Lots of museums and galleries across our region are planning to re-open this week. On Wednesday, February 2, six major Ottawa-Gatineau museums are slated to re-open their doors: the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the Canadian War Museum, the Canadian Museum of History, the Canadian Museum of Nature and the National Gallery of Canada. If you’re at the Museum of Nature, do check out the lovely art exhibition Shadowland (here’s my review). UPDATE: The re-openings of the nature, war and history museums, and the National Gallery of Canada, have been postponed until February 9 due to the protest downtown.
The Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa re-opens today, January 31.
Down the road in Montreal, museums that are open now include the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, the McCord Museum (social history of Montreal) and the Pointe-à-Callière Museum (archaeology).
The Aquatarium in Brockville, which highlights the history and ecology of the St. Lawrence River, is due to re-open on Saturday, February 5.
As always these days, check websites carefully before planning a visit. Most museums are operating on limited hours and require the purchase of timed tickets.
Take a historical, virtual cooking class
Here’s the latest very creative offering from a local museum: the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum is offering a series of online cooking classes to transport you back in time via your kitchen! The registration deadline for the first one is coming up quickly (February 1), but there are others later in the month, too. Each class takes place on a Wednesday, with the registration deadline eight days earlier. Upcoming classes this month are Opulent Eating: 1920s (February 9); Cooking on a Dime: 1930s (February 16); and Eating with Chemistry: 1950s (February 23). Each class costs $29.25 per connection and is offered in English.
Skate in a kilt
People in communities across Canada are donning Scotland’s most famous garment, the kilt, and heading out to the nearest ice surface to skate around with bare knees. Why? It’s all part of the Great Canadian Kilt Skate, a fun, free challenge running until February 28. You don’t have to have any Scottish heritage to participate. You don’t even have to wear a kilt (anything with a tartan pattern will do).
In the “home versions,” such as those running in Ottawa and Montreal until February 28, skate anywhere you choose, take a photo or video of yourself skating in your finery, and post it to social media with your community’s Kilt Skate hashtag. If you want to skate with others, an in-person event is currently scheduled for the Char-Lan Recreation Centre in Williamstown (in the Township of South Glengarry, about an hour and 15 minutes southeast of Ottawa), on February 27. The Kilt Skate website has all the details.
The goal? To make your community the most enthusiastic kilt skating place in the country. The prize? Bragging rights! Aye, bragging rights, laddie. (Glengarry was the 2020 champion.)
P.S.: Gananoque doesn’t have an official horse in this kilt skate contest, but it does have a new outdoor rink—the Canada 150 Rink that was open on Parliament Hill in 2017 has been relocated to the 1000 Islands city. There’s nothing to stop you from skating around it in a kilt!
Enjoy some jazz online
The in-person version of the TD Ottawa Winter Jazz Fest was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, so the organizers have done the next best thing: They’ve opened their vault of recordings of great jazz performances, and jazz fans can buy tickets to stream them. The online festival (February 4 to 13) includes almost two dozen concerts, including shows by Kathleen Edwards, the Larnell Lewis Band, Jim Bryson, Kellylee Evans and the Jazzlab Orchestra.
Eat ice cream for breakfast
Did you know that the first Saturday in February is Ice Cream for Breakfast Day? I didn’t, either, until the good folks at The Ottawan drew my attention to this important fact. And it strikes me that if there was ever a year that justified eating ice cream for breakfast, 2022 is already IT. Here are some of my favourite Eastern Ontario purveyors of yummy frozen dairy goodness, just to get you started. (I’ve included both ice cream and gelato spots—hey, it’s all good, right?)
- Stella Luna Gelato Café (Old Ottawa South, Wellington West, Merrickville)
- Beachconers (Britannia)
- Moo Shu Ice Cream and Kitchen (Centretown) (see my review)
- Carp Custom Creamery (Carp) (it pops up in this post)
- Slickers (Prince Edward County)
Check out my earlier ideas
All through January, I’ve been posting ideas for fun during lockdown. And even though some restrictions are set to end this week, these posts feature lots of outdoor and virtual activities you can still enjoy—from birdwatching and fat biking to online yoga and free streaming movies!
- January 24 road trip roundup
- January 18 road trip roundup
- January 11 road trip roundup
- January 4 road trip roundup
Looking for more ideas for things to see and do in Ottawa, Eastern Ontario and the Outaouais? Subscribe to my free newsletter or pick up a copy of my guidebook, Ottawa Road Trips: Your 100-km Getaway Guide.
As the owner of Ottawa Road Trips, I acknowledge that I live on, work in and travel through the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be present on this land. Ottawa Road Trips supports Water First, a non-profit organization that helps address water challenges in Indigenous communities in Canada through education, training and meaningful collaboration.
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