Crossing the border

Yesterday I crossed the border to take the dogs for a walk, well it was just the inter-provincial border but I think it's the first time I've been out of Ontario since Sep 2019. 

A story came up on my FaceBook feed about a cultural trail of art installations in downtown Gatineau. Gatineau is just across the river from Ottawa so I decided to take the dogs over for a walk. We parked at the far end of Jacques Cartier Park, good thing we did as the nearer parking lot would have cost $8, although, it turns out that street parking in that area of Gatineau is free on Saturday, Sunday and holidays.

The first sculpture we saw, while not part of the cultural trail, was of the Rocket, Maurice Richard. You know, I had Rockett with me and never thought to get a picture of him with the hockey legend.

Next we came to the Canadian Museum of History which still isn't part of the cultural trail.  There is a pathway around the museum that I had never done so I decided to do that before finding the Gatineau Cultural Trail.  

View of Parliament Hill from Gatineau

The Canadian Museum of History has a façade that's designed to look like a a turtle head, the turtle is the symbol of Mother Earth. The architect who designed the building has designed other museums including one in Washington DC.

I managed to get down the stairs without falling as both dogs were pulling on their leashes. Teddy trying to get to the bottom and with Liam trying to get to the sides to meet the people who were sitting there.  

Liam thought the dog in the canoe was pretty realistic as he barked at it the whole time we were near this little water feature. Rockett came out for a photo op with statue of the Indian Chief Tessouat. The little birch bark lodge is in an outdoor children's area. I would expect in normal times they would have activities going on there but there aren't any group activities going on right now although the museum is open.

Now we were off to find the cultural trail.  There are thirty some art works on a three kilometer trail. I only did about half of the three kilometer route. I also thought all of the art installations were sculptures but many were the graffiti like paintings on the walls of buildings.

I found it a bit difficult to find the plaques for some of the installations and when you did find it, some of them were not translated.  The only official language in Quebec is French. My favourite installation was "One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure, probably because it's of a dog. I also liked the two buildings that were totally painted, you could see something else on them each time you looked.

On our way back to our starting point, we passed by the building where I last worked. It hadn't changed much.

Before heading back to the car, we stopped outside the tourist information office to take a picture of the dogs in the chair outside.  

I'll probably go back one day and park at the other end of the trail so I can see some of the other installations. A fun day out close to home.