This evening I re-visited the Parc Champlain area in Gatineau, which I partially biked through on Canada Day. It hasn’t changed much. The section East of the little stream still has an eclectic mix of homes on big wooded properties, such as this one.
Parc-Champlain East
West of the stream there are huge new homes clad in big stone veneers like this.
Parc-Champlain West
This area is so new some houses are still being built, like this one. I find the temporarily exposed fragility of the chipboard and wood frame skeleton fascinating in contrast to the implied permanency of the stone cladding on the finished houses.
Chipboard & lumber
Heading home I followed the NCC Champlain Corridor Pathway and was pleased to discover the pedestrian/bike bridge over Chemin des Allumettières is completed and open!
New Bridge!
Closer to home along the Voyageurs Pathway the carré rouge paint brigade has been very active recently.
Carré rouge
The authorities are trying to keep up by painting over red squares on the pathway with black ones.
Carrés rouge et noir
Interestingly, Professeur Normand Baillargeon explains in this article how the symbolism of the two square colours correspond.
Visited a bunch of streets in Gatineau just north of Boulevard St Raymond for the first time, in an area called Parc-de-la-Montagne. This was farmland up until 1955 when it was purchased and developed by J.G. Bisson. The houses in this area are similar in proportion to these two below, which appear to have changed little since they were built.
Original houses
Of course most houses have had various amounts of renovation done to the property over time. For example these home owners have had extensive work done on their front yard, including the addition of shrubbery and garden statues. The little sign in front reads, ‘Attention! L’urine des animaux brûle les arbres!’. I did not know that.
Gorgeous tree and shrubbery!
I quite like the design of this modern church on Rue de la Guadaloupe, however I doubt the little banners and mini message board on the front facade were part of the original design.
Church
I’m guessing this is closer to what the architect had in mind.
Church sans banners & sign
On the way to Gatineau I passed this fellow lying under the Portage Bridge. He was in the same position an hour or so later. I assumed he was without a place to spend the night, sleeping in the safest dry location he could find. I realised many people must have biked by him as I had and probably made similar assumptions on his condition, but what if the fellow was hurt or sick? So I called 311 when I got home, who told me to call 911, who put me through to the ambulance dispatch. After asking me loads of questions on his condition I was unable to answer they sent over an ambulance. So, what is the proper thing to do in such a situation? I will try to find out.
Short ride today. Work related. Middle of the day. Almost got smushed on Laurier by a car cutting me off as it turned south onto Elgin. I was going straight. Didn’t give chase as I had an appointment. Couldn’t report it either as I managed to avoid getting hit, so it won’t show up on any heat map intended to give bicyclists an idea of where most accidents occur. Shook it off and made it to my meeting on time. Then I headed South on King Edward for a bit.
King Edward looking south
These sculptures along King Edward are by Karl Ciesluk.
Fiddleheads in the meridian
Some great historical before and after shots of King Edward can be found here.
Interesting name. I don’t know if any of these reasons inspired the powers-that-be to name it as such, but I’m guessing it’s after the Aleut from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, based on some of the surrounding streets named after other aboriginal peoples such as Mohawk Crescent and Sioux Crescent. Similar to the area of streets in Gatineau named after aboriginal groups, both neighbourhoods appear to have originally been developed around the same time, an assumption I’m making based on their period styles.
But before we get there, here’s an interesting building one happens upon en route along the Ottawa River Pathway. It’s the Belltown Dome. There’s a skating rink inside. It’s cramped, but very special in it’s uniqueness. My son has had hockey practice there so I got to go inside.
Belltown Dome
Aleutian Drive has great trees, like this huge oak.
Big Oak
Nanaimo Drive has a number of unique single-story houses such as this.
Eyebrow Arches
Heading East towards Greenbank Road, one comes across many two story houses with decorative shutters.
There are a number of houses in Beacon Hill with the brick work treatment shown below. The grout is left untrimmed, and the exterior walls are painted entirely white. It must must have been a popular style in the 50’s and 60’s, as there are a number of houses with this type of brickwork in Elmvale Acres as well.
Grout – gotta love it!
This style too, with protruding bricks to create a subtle pattern.
Intermittent Outies
At the top of Ski Hill Park along Naskapi Drive I noticed this interesting hedge, trimmed to avoid the side walk. Either that, or a very fussy and hungry deer lives in the neighbourhood.
Serious Hedge Trimming
Ending off with another glorious view of the Ottawa River, as seen from the boat launch at the end of Massey Lane.
Sunday mornings are fantastic for long rides because there are hardly any cars on the road. Yesterday I managed to ride along the 307 on the East side of the Gatineau River, before turning onto Chemin de Mont Cascades towards Wakefield.
Sunday morning along the 307
Beyond Mont Cascades the road was narrow, winding and picturesque like this.
Water Lilies
Chemin de Mont Cascades becomes Chemin Clark, which meets up with the bigger 366, or Chemin Edelweiss, but I didn’t have to follow it for very long before I turned down Chemin du Vieux Pont, named after the covered bridge across the Gatineau River. Originally built in 1915, it has a long and illustrious history, including it’s complete reconstruction in 1998 by the local community after burning down 1984. Here’s what it looks like on the bridge.
Well, we loaded up the Element and headed off towards the Pine Grove Forestry Trail in the Greenbelt.
Driving Directions to P18
I’ve hi-lited the paths we biked and hiked with a white glow on this map.
Where we biked & hiked
The stretch between P18 (where we parked) and the start to the Pine Grove Forestry Trail has the highest concentration of interpretive panels I’ve ever seen along a nature trail. One every 20 yards maybe? Here’s one. The hungry mosquitoes kept me from reading them all, however I caught enough to remark how thorough the information was, providing extensive detail on the surrounding forest, so bravo.
Interpretive Panel
Pine Grove Forestry Trail was a short intimate hike punctuated with smaller interpretive panels along it’s way, as previously mentioned in this post.
Apart from the little stretch running along Davidson Road which was very narrow and grown over, but you can avoid by biking on the road. The rest of the route was wide and just a little bit bumpy. Like this.
Here are a couple of the eight interpretive panels I discovered along the trail.
2 of 8 Hickory Trail Interpretive Panels
Not sure if they are Kiyomi’s illustrations, but the panels are filled with great info on the many tree species found along the trail loop.
Another interesting hi-lite along the trail is this tree trunk tunnelled through at the base.
Hobbit Home?
It also seemed like a nice place for an early morning smooch, at least according to the couple I surprised on the pic-nic table in the clearing at the end of the trail. Shhhhh…… tee-hee-hee. No, I didn’t take a photo. I don’t know if they arrived in separate cars either, because I discovered another path at the opposite end from the trailhead parking lot. I hadn’t noticed this path on any map so I assumed it wasn’t official, until I happened upon this numbered snowshoe trail marker.
Snowshoe Trail
When I got home I looked up the Gatineau Park Winter Trail Map. Lo and behold, there it was – snowshoe trail 66. So what about all the other snow shoe trails that don’t correspond to any of the summer trails? Hmmm… more to explore. I’m hi-liting this section of my route in satellite mode to point out how this trail follows hydro lines most of the way.
Snowshoe Trail
Power line towers are impressive. They embody the modernist mantra Form Follows Function in large scale. Along todays route I happened upon no fewer than five variations of these monsters. Here they are.
Work required that I find my way near the corner of Baseline Road and Clyde Avenue, a heavy traffic zone not easily accessible by bike, especially as one gets closer to the destination. ‘What’s the safest way to go?’ say’s I. Well, this is why I love the bike option in Google Maps. It helps you plot out the safest way to get to your destination.
But before I go too far, I want to mention a couple of side routes around another tricky spot en route, someone other than Mr Google put me onto many years ago. Prince of Wales Drive just beyond Dow’s Lake towards the Experimental Farm is scary because of the crazy speeds motorists reach zipping up and down this curved hill. Below are two suggested ways to avoid this section. Ways around Prince of Wales Drive
The route on the right, or east side of Prince of Wales, follows a gravel path up the hill along the edge of the Arboretum. On weekends one often happens upon events at the top of the hill hosted by the very dedicated Friends of the Farm. The route on the west side, which I took today, takes you through a large parking lot heading up the hill. Once at the top, a few dippy do’s brings you to architectural delights one hardly notices from the beaten path, such as the William Saunders Building shown on the right below, or this Victoriana greenhouse a little further along. It’s presently undergoing some construction. I hope they aren’t dismantling it.
Victoriana Greenhouse and the William Saunders Building
Now back to the really tricky section – getting from the Experimental Farm Pathway where it meets Merivale Road, to the area near Baseline and Clyde. You especially want to avoid Merivale and Baseline. Traffic here is so crazy – last Fall this trailer exploded into flames as I biked by.
FIRE!
But how does one navigate safely through this area? Well for todays route, here’s what I did: 1) I went to the Google Maps site; 2) I typed in ‘Baseline and Clyde’ in the search box; 3) I clicked on the ‘get directions’ icon; 4) In the box beside ‘A’ I entered the address I was taking off from, and then finally; 5) I clicked on the bicycle amongst the four choices of transpo icons. Without further ado, it plotted out a safe route, avoiding the dangerous area in question. It was a path I would not have imagined taking, and it was perfect. The map below shows the section of the route that got me around the trouble spot in question. Thank you Google Maps!
OttawaVeloOutaouais 