Ottawa 2022: National Gallery, Downtown, Hull and Dinners

In between the two sunny days when we went cycling on the Ottawa bicycle paths along the Rideau Canal and Rideau River, we had a day of rain. This fit in perfectly with our plans to spend a morning indoors in the National Gallery of Canada, one of the largest art museums in North America.  Even better, we received free admission due to the reciprocal privileges that we had with our Art Gallery of Ontario membership.

The first exhibit that we saw as we entered the art gallery was titled “Snobird” (1985) by the subversive art collective General Idea. Depicting a flight of birds made from cut-out plastic bleach bottles, the piece is a direct homage/spoof of Michael Snow’s Flight Stop (1979), a permanent installation of 60 fiberglass Canada Geese flying high within the Toronto Eaton Centre.  Given Michael Snow’s total lack of a sense of humour regarding his work, as exemplified by his Grinch-like response to having his geese adorned with Christmas scarfs over a holiday season, I’m not sure he would have seen this imitation as a compliment.

The main exhibition that was running was one on Canada and Impressionism which highlighted Canadian works that were influenced by the Impressionist art movement.  Over 100 works by 36 artists were on display.  We saw David Milne’s “Blossom Pickers” (1911) which is a rare example of Milne’s happier, pre-WWI works.  Amid all the flowers, you need to look closely to see the man in a blue suit with a striped hat in the background, in addition to the joyful woman (bride?) dressed in a white gown in the foreground. Maurice Cullen’s Ice Harvest (1913) applied Impressionist techniques to Canadian topography and harsh climate.  It was also one of a multitude of paintings depicting snow and ice.  Helen McNicoll was one of the leading female Impressionist painters in Canada, specializing in the depiction of women and children going about their lives. “Cherry Time” (1912) features two siblings engrossed with eating their snacks, with the light of the sun shimmering behind them.  I marveled at how with very few brush strokes, Kathleen Moir Morris perfectly portrays a group of nuns strolling in Quebec in her painting simply titled “Nuns, Quebec” (1925).

We really liked the works in the gallery devoted to Contemporary Canadian and Indigenous works. Aganetha Dyck’s “Queen” (2017) sculpture made with honeycomb on porcelain was one of the most stunning, unique works that I’ve seen for a while. Dyck created the porcelain figurine and placed it within a beehive, allowing the bees to cover it with honeycomb. Kananginak Pootoogook’s satirical lithograph on linen paper titled “The First Tourist” (1992) depicts the first white tourist in the Arctic Community, motioning for an Inuit woman holding a seal skin to pose in front of an Inuksuk while he frames his photograph. A very interesting work titled “Inagaddadavida” (2015) is a collaboration between two famous artists—Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona and Contemporary visual artist Shary Boyle, who each drew a portion of this work.  Using coloured pencils, Ashoona drew the initial landscape, wild octopus-like creatures and several Inuk men. Boyle then overlay her imagery of an inky river leading to a red moon, using watercolour, pastel and black felt pen.

By the time we finished our visit at the National Gallery, the rain had stopped but it was still a grey, chilly day.  Standing just outside the building, we could see impressive buildings and sculptures in all directions.  Off in the distance, we spotted the Peace Tower, a bell and clock tower that is part of the Parliament Buildings.  To the right of the Peace Tower, stands the cone-shaped Parliamentary Library, the only surviving part of a larger building that was destroyed by a fire in 1916.  We toured this library on our very first trip to Ottawa back in 2000.  To the south we could see the Reconciliation: Peacekeeping Monument, commemorating Canada’s role as international peacekeepers.  Across the street is the majestic Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica, with its tall twin steeples.  This is the oldest and largest church in Ottawa dating back to 1865.  Continuing towards Byward Market, we spotted more contemporary sculptures and murals.  

Not finding anything that we wanted to eat at the Market, we settled upon the “Chateau Lafayette”, which despite its ritzy-sounding name, is Ottawa’s oldest tavern dating back to 1849.  Nicknamed “The LAFF” which seems much more appropriate, this legendary waterhole and “original dive bar” features live music, pub food and a lively ambience (although not so much on a mid-week afternoon). We ordered some light snacks to share including a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato, pork meatballs and battered cauliflower with a srirachi sauce, which would tide us over until our dinner reservations later that evening.

For dinner we had selected Vivaan, a restaurant featuring modern Indian cuisine with some different dishes that are not found on the typical North American Indian restaurant.  For appetizers, we ordered pan-seared scallops seasoned with cardamom and fennel, served with coconut foam, beet chutney and micro greens, as well as Amritsar fish, a popular North Indian appetizer made of lightly battered cod coated with a Chef’s spice blend and chickpea flour, served with slaw, cilantro and mint mayo.  For our main courses, we chose the butter chicken topped with burrata cheese for extra creaminess and texture, as well as what was advertised as the chef’s signature dish—a chicken biranyi consisting of marinated, battered fried chicken cooked in spiced yogurt and flavoured rice.  As with most restaurants that we dine at, we enjoyed the appetizers the best and found them to be the most special and unique.  While the burrata was a nice touch, ultimately the butter chicken dish did not taste that different from all the other butter chicken dishes that we had in the past.

We also enjoyed our dinner at Frasers the previous evening.  This is a restaurant with locally sourced ingredients that are used to create globally inspired dishes.  We started with albacore tuna sashimi served with dashi-radish, and a large slab of foie gras pate with focaccia bread.  For mains, Rich ordered the lamb with deep fried broccoli and a croquette filled with cheese/spinach.  I selected a dish with seared scallops with zucchini on shell pasta.  For dessert, Rich picked a  raspberry rhubarb donut.  My dessert consisted of a chocolate and cassis mousse cheese cake sitting in a chocolate cup, topped with blackberries and accompanied with a cassis sauce and crunchy meringue pieces.  This was exactly how I like my desserts, with a eclectic combination of tastes and textures featuring chocolate and fruit!

Our last day in Ottawa included a quick trip to Hull, Gatineau, Quebec.  Rich had found reference on the Internet to an Art Culture Trail and we even had a map of where the artworks could be found.  But we quickly realized that the post was from last summer so most of the works were no longer there.  We did come across a giant wire sculpture of a seated man with a hat, an overhead canopy of netting covered with colourful butterflies, a Litchenstein-esque mural created in 2018, and a large lot where the surrounding buildings were covered with graffiti-like murals (which might just be graffiti?).   At the pretty Montcalm Bridge which spans the river that runs through Hull, we found the perfect place for a later afternoon meal.

Les Brasseurs du Temps (aka BDT) is a brew pub that offers beers brewed on site, beer flights and bar food.  We were able to snag a table on the large outdoor patio, right by the river with a view of the Montcalm Bridge. Unfortunately, it was over an hour before they started serving dinner fare, but we were able to get a pitcher of sangria made with rose wine, Midori melon liquor, Peach Schnapps, Cranberry juice, Orange juice and 7-up, and an order of nachos topped with BBQ pulled pork. With the great ambience, good food and drink, this was not a bad way to while away a sunny afternoon, and marked a pleasant end to our stay in the Ottawa area.

Early the next morning, we left Ottawa to meet up with our friends in Perth, Ontario where we had a lovely day before getting caught up in the massive storm that triggered emergency alerts across Central and Eastern Ontario.  There is a story to be told in the next blog...