Ottawa 2022: Cycling and Tulip Festival

In planning our trip to Ottawa for cycling, the utmost concern for my husband Rich and I was weather and in particular, rain.  Our typical vacations involve walking, hiking and indoor activities such as visiting shops, art galleries and museums—all pursuits that can withstand some amount of rain.  On this trip, we hoped to ride our bicycles for two out of our three days in Ottawa. The main ride would be along the Rideau Canal to get to Dows Lake/Commissioner’s Park to see the Tulip Festival.  Weather permitting, we also wanted to ride a second day along the east side of the Rideau River to visit the Prince of Wales waterfalls and Mooney’s Bay Park and Beach.  We planned a third day in the National Gallery of Art, thinking this could be done on a rainy day.  We were quite flexible in terms of which day we executed each of the three plans and were ready to switch it up at the last minute to match the weather.  

For a trip where the main focus is cycling, we needed to have days that were not necessarily sunny, but warm and dry enough so that we could ride comfortably on paths that were not wet and slippery. The trouble was that in order to secure our desired  apartment rental, we had to commit to paying for the accommodations 9 days prior to the date of the trip. Given the unreliability of weather forecasts these days, looking at long-term forecasts did not give us much reassurance.  So we made the decision to go regardless of what the forecast indicated, but would have backup plans in case we could not ride the two days that we planned for.

As luck would have it, we did have two sunny days in Ottawa sandwiching a rainy day that we spent in the National Gallery. Even more fortunately, we missed the massive storm that hit Central and Eastern Ontario on the day that we left Ottawa to head to Perth, Ontario.  But more on that in the Perth blog!

It was cool but sunny on our first full day in Ottawa, so we executed our plans for cycling to Dows Lake and Commissioners Park for the Tulip Festival.  We wanted to do this as early in the week as possible, to avoid the Victoria Day weekend crowds.  Rich had mapped out a route to Dows Lake that would take us mostly on bike trails that followed either the Rideau River or the Rideau Canal with just a few short stretches across quiet streets, and then to the falls via the Rideau Canal Eastern Pathway.  We would then retrace our route to return home.

We rode the 3 blocks from our rental apartment to an entrance to the Rideau River Eastern Path. We proceeded north for a short distance along the east side of the Rideau River and crossed at the Adawe Crossing Bridge, which featured a great art installation created by Kenneth Emig in 2016, titled “A View From Two Sides”.  It consists of two reflecting spheres affixed to each side of the bridge which provide panoramic views of the bridge and its pedestrians and cyclists, as well as the surrounding river, shores and sky.  These cool orbs brought us to a temporary stop as we took time to try to capture our images reflected by them.

We continued south along the west side of the Rideau River, following the Rideau River Nature Trail while enjoying some beautiful views along the way.  We turned west at Brantwood Park, making note of the public tennis courts with a view of the water and thinking that we could bring our racquets to play here on our next visit.  We rode across the park and then 4 blocks across Clegg St. to reach the Rideau Canal, which we crossed at the Flora Footbridge to get to the west side of the canal.  From there it was a smooth ride to get to Dow’s Lake and Commissioner’s Park where the Tulip Festival was being held.

The Canadian Tulip Festival runs annually in Ottawa for 11 days ending on the Victoria Day long weekend.  It is touted as the largest tulip festival in the world with over 1 million blooms on display.  While tulips are planted throughout the city, the majority are found in Commissioners Park.  The tradition of tulips in Ottawa originally started as a gift from Princess Juliana of Netherlands in 1945, as thanks for sheltering her family during  WWII.  It was amazing to see so many different varieties of tulips in all different colours, including double bloom tulips which have extra petals and fringed tulips with seemingly frayed edges.

In addition to the tulips, there were other points of interest at Commissioners Park.  We admired a stunning  Modernist house at the corner of Old Sunset Blvd and Dows Lake Road that overlooked both the Tulip Festival and Dow’s Lake.  Lining the boardwalk by Dow’s Lake Pavilion were brightly coloured wooden tulips.  Lawn games were found on a large grassy area including giant Chess, Checkers and Connect4 boards that seemed to amuse both kids and adults.  There were two major sculptures of both artistic and cultural notes.  Aries (2009) is a bright red, colourful geometric sculpture donated by Mexican artist Sebastian as a symbol of cultural ties between Mexico and Canada.  The bold red colour alludes to Ares/Mars, the God of War which this zodiac symbol represents.  The sculpture was originally part of a larger exhibit of all the signs of the Zodiac. The Man With Two Hats sculpture (2002) by Henk Visch commemorates the liberation of Holland by Canadian troops during WWII and acts as an expression of joy and celebration of freedom.  An identical sculpture in the Netherlands symbolically links the two countries as friends and allies.

Leaving Commissioners Park, we rode through the Dominion Arboretum towards Hog’s Back Dam where waterfalls could be found. Despite its name, we did not see many interesting trees in the Arboretum other than a few cherry blossom trees.  In order to cross the canal to reach the Rideau Canal Eastern Pathway which would lead us to the falls, we had to lift our bikes and roll them across narrow lock bridges at the Hartwells Locks #9-10.  There is only enough room for one person to cross at a time, so there is often a lineup in both directions waiting to cross.

We continued riding on the Rideau Canal Eastern Pathway, hugging the shoreline of the Rideau Canal, until we reached the Hog’s Back Dam, where the Rideau Canal meets the Rideau River.  The creation of this dam, which diverts water from the Rideau River into the artificially-created section of the Rideau Canal leading to the Ottawa locks, resulted the massive man-made Prince of Wales Falls (more commonly known as the Hog’s Back Falls).  Right up until we passed under the bridge spanning the dam, we did not hear any sounds indicating that a waterfall was up ahead.  Then suddenly as we reached the dam, we heard the loud roar of rushing water.  We have been to Ottawa multiple times in the past, but never knew there were such large, albeit man-made waterfalls here.  By now it was quite a hot day so the spray from the falls felt so refreshing!  We saw people walking along the bridge spanning over the dam but given the big flight of stairs to get to it, we decided not to go there until we could approach it from the other side on our next ride.  Many locks were hung along the wire fence protected us from the falls, including some fairly unique ones.

For our second bike ride, we planned to travel south along the Rideau River Eastern Pathway all the way to Mooney's Bay Beach.  While this path is still fairly smooth and flat, it is much less scenic than the path along the Rideau Canal.  For the most part, there are just trees on either side of the path with little to no view of the river.  However, it was still a pleasant, serene ride, so imagine our dismay when we hit a detour around Bronson Ave, about 2/3 of the way to our destination.  We found out later that the detour was for LRT construction on an existing train and spanned just under 1km, up to Heron Road.  So instead of riding through nature on a nice secluded bike path (I regretted disparaging the pathway at this point), we were forced onto a makeshift path right alongside the busy and extremely steep Riverside Drive.  At least they had erected concrete barriers to separate us from the speeding traffic beside us but it was still daunting, especially given the extremely steep slope of the lengthy incline. We considered turning back but this would mean missing out on the nicest part of our ride. After some consideration, we decided to press on.  I geared down and actually almost made it to the top before I lost the will to continue, as much mentally as physically.  Rich didn’t even try and just pushed his bike up the hill.  Once we reached the top, it was just a few more meters more before the detour ended and we could duck back onto the pathway.

Shortly after that, we arrived at Vincent Massey Park, a 28.9 hectare green space named after former Governor General Vincent Massey (brother of actor Raymond Massey).  The park has picnic areas, barbeque pits, walking and cycling paths, rolling meadows and a pretty pavilion built in 1957 by architect Hart Massey, son of Vincent.

Riding past Vincent Massey Park, we reached Hogs Back Park and saw the Hog’s Back Falls again, but from the other side of the Dam bridge.  The park features a modernist pavilion with a multi-coloured folded roof that originally dated back to 1955.  There are refreshment stands and public washrooms underneath.  It was apparently renovated in 2011 to restore the vibrant colours, but the blue, red and yellow paint has started to peel again and needs another refresh.  Unlike our previous bike ride when we accessed the waterfalls from the other direction, this time coming through the park, we were able to easily access the bridge spanning the dam and overlooking the rapids.

Continuing south after riding through Hog’s Back Park, we finally reached our destination of Mooney’s Bay Beach and Park.  Mooney’s Bay is an artificial bay created during the construction of the Rideau Canal.  The beach features a wide stretch of fine sand and is a popular destination for swimmers, rowers and volleyball players in the summer.  Still early in the season, it was relatively quiet on the beach with just a lone kayak in the water and a few people strolling on the sand.  Next to the beach is a park with some of the coolest playground equipment that I’ve ever seen, including climbing apparatus shaped like a huge whale, a Viking Ship, totem poles with logs, a lighthouse and more.

This marked the end of our ride, so we retraced our steps to return to our rental apartment, this time going downhill on the detour, which was a welcome respite.  Ottawa has exquisite bike trails throughout the city that are a joy to ride on.