Friday 20 May: I visited this place with one of my cousins. This is a huge and modern 4 floor building which holds exhibitions, a library, a cafe, restaurant and an IMAX cinema. One side of the building, named the Grand Hall, extends the entire four floors and holds exceptional totem poles reaching the top of the building.

Level 1 includes the First Peoples’ Hall which is Canada’s largest permanent exhibition on the history, diversity and continuity of First Peoples. There are two places for temporary (non-Canadian) exhibits which held some African stuff when we visited. There’s also aboriginal exhibits from the Pacific Coast.

Level 2 holds up to three special exhibitions, although only one was in place when we visited. That exhibition was all about 60’s Cool in Canada and was simply hilarious. There’s only so many free-standing hi-fi with big globe speakers you can stomach in one place. Lots of funny chairs and furniture and the ubiquitous Thermos flask. Elsewhere we have the Canadian Postal Museum, which we ran through.. stamps.. mmmm.., which lead us backwards through the Canadian Children’s Museum.

Now at the wrong end of Level 2, we had to walk the whole length of the building to get back to the stairs to Level 3.

Level 3 holds the Canada Hall, which is a stunning journey across Canada from East to West through 1,000 years of history. This level holds original and replica artifacts plus full size reconstructions of buildings, such as shops, meeting places, an airport waiting room, chinese laundry, a printing press, and lots more. There’s even a church which was donated as a whole to the museum.

Level 4 holds other sundry exhibitions which weren’t much to write home about, unless you’re into ceramic art, arctic exploration, or collections of international woodworking tools. Really. However, one woman donated her house to the museum a couple of years ago. She spent many years collecting everything from Canada’s 18th century and there are a couple of roomfuls of her items shown here.

Thursday 19 May: My second visit to Gatineau Park. This time to visit the Mackenzie King Estate which was now open and Meech Lake. One thing that is staggering is the number of trails and opportunities for sightseeing in this Park. There are plenty of other things to see and do which will have to wait for another visit.

The Mackenzie King Estate consisted of a Guest Cottage, Boathouse and the Main Cottage. The Main Cottage was built in three phases as funds allowed: 1903, 1916 and 1924. In 1917 the Boathouse was built in honour of Mackenzie King’s mother.

We had afternoon tea at Moorside which was quite pleasant, although I wasn’t sure about the blueberry scones. We plan on coming back here for lunch next week as a starting point for a trip to Wakefield.

Tuesday 17 May: The home of Canada’s government was originally built between 1859 and 1865, and overlooks the Ottawa River. It consists of three main buildings – the Centre Block of the Parliament, which houses the Commons and the Senate, the Library and the Peace Tower.

The Library was closed for extensive renovation when we visited. The Peace Tower is 295ft high and commemorates the 67,000 Canadians killed during World War One. Included throughout the Peace Tower are 53 bells weighing between 10 pounds and 11 tons. The original Centre Block burned down in 1916. It was rebuilt except for the wooden cladding which originally surrounded the stonework.

The Centre Block tour would usually be quite interesting. Except when we visited, the library was out of bounds for its renovation, both houses were in session which meant we couldn’t tour them, so all we got to see were a couple of corridors. However, we went up the Peace Tower and later sat in the public gallery of The Commons, which at the time only had about 8 members of parliament sitting.

The East Block holds the offices for the governing party, the West Block for the opposition and anyone who can’t fit in the East Block. There are little green buses which ferry parliamentary MPs and workers between the three buildings.

I did something on Tuesday, but I’ve not got around to blogging about it yet, so here’s:

Wednesday 18 May: Ottawa used to have a really tiny War Museum. This new one which opened earlier this month is a lot bigger, although it is still dwarfed by the Imperial War Museum in London. The Museum has the following exhibitions – words by the Museum itself:

1. Battleground: Wars on Our Soil, earliest times to 1885. The wars of the First Peoples, the French, and the British shaped Canada and Canadians.
2. For Crown and Country: The South African and First World Wars, 1885-1931. Canada’s contributions in these overseas wars led to a growing autonomy and international recognition, but at great cost.
3. Forged in Fire: The Second World War, 1931-1945. Canada’s fight against dictatorships overseas transformed the country and its place in the world.
4. A Violent Peace: The Cold War, Peacekeeping and Recent Conflicts, 1945 to the present. Canada became a respected international player through its commitments to Western defence and peacekeeping.
5. The Royal Canadian Legion Hall of Honour.
6. LeBreton Gallery: The Military Technology Collection.
7. Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae Gallery (Special Exhibitions).
8. Regeneration Hall: An Architecture of Hope. Rising up to the highest point in the Museum with a tightly framed view of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill, Regeneration Hall is a physical representation of hope for a better future.

Of these, the exhibition on the South African and First World Wars was the most interesting. This and the other main exhibitions are presented in a chronological order, picking out the important events that involved Canada and Canadians. However, as the exhibitions were on both sides of a winding set of corridors it was difficult to know when to move over to the other side. Similarly, there was a lack of context for a lot of the events. For example, why did Great Britain fight in South Africa? You get some flippant introductory comment which does nothing to explain in full the rationale. Likewise some of the main events of the Second World War just appeared out of nothing.

Many of the exhibitions referred to items or displays that were not there which gave an overall impression that the museum was not ready for opening. But, of course, the museum shop was open and appeared to be fully stocked!

The biggest, jaw dropping moment was in the LeBreton Gallery. A lot of the technology and transport remained unlabelled. Essentially it was a car park you could wander around. Bang in the middle of the gallery was a sound desk, and a couple of people setting up tables, chairs and wine glasses mid-afternoon. This obscured full view of some exhibits. No apology or signage indicating what they were doing, and appearing completely incongruous with the surroundings. I almost took a photograph of this.

The exhibition closes with information on the United Nations peace-keeping activities and a plethora of magazine covers and a long-ish video of what’s happening in the world today that involves the UN. At the end of the exhibition there’s a place for writing postcards and one of these poem-boards that you can arrange to make words and phrases all about peace and harmony and love. Well I guess it pleases the liberals in Ottawa.

Regeneration Hall is the most bizarre construction I’ve seen in some years. Some weird Meccano influenced building populated by a dozen or so plaster sculptures of men in various poses. It’s a staggering waste of space

I visited one of my cousins for dinner last Saturday. She and her partner have a dog called Sam who is a springer spaniel. Sam has two main modes of behaviour:

1. The “hello I’m Sam and I want to lick you” mode: this basically involves Sam padding around, whining, licking any hand that comes to reach and wagging his tail
2. The “I’m so excited I don’t know what to do” mode: which involves Sam padding around the house, carrying his toy rabbit in his mouth, whining and wagging his tail.

As my cousin wrote in an e-mail to me, Sam thinks (despite his size) that he’s a lap dog. She’s right. Sam didn’t need much provocation to jump on my lap when I was sat on the couch and I think we’re now the best of friends.