At just 18 days, the 2016 was the shortest skating season on record. The entire length of the canal was open, it seems, for only a few days, including the last weekend during Winterlude. Still, it was a beautiful skate!
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So far, the winter of 2015-16 brought a total of 25 skates -- not all of them on the Skateway, of course. Every year there's time put aside for a father-son skate around Family Day, and we managed to go out on a day when the NCC was clearing the snow from the 53 cm. that hit us the day before. It made for an interesting skate!
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Yesterday morning, the snow began falling before people woke up to go to work. It continued falling all day. Falling and falling. It was never falling so thick to impair visibility. Just a steady and constant snowfall. And by evening, we had 50 cms -- that's over a foot and a half of snow in one day.
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The winter gods have a sense of humour. Last week, the temperatures were so warm, the Rideau Canal Skateway was covered with meltwater and had to be closed. This weekend, it opens once more, but the thermometer drops to minus-29 and, with the wind chill, minus-40.
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Just in time for the last weekend of Winterlude, the Rideau Canal Skateway has reopened. A blast of Arctic air has brought winter back to the city, and the cold has been intense enough that the National Capital Commission has now opened the entire 7.8 kilometers of the skateway.
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A week of unseasonably warm weather has kept the Rideau Canal Skateway closed, refocusing last weekend's Winterlude activities on the off-ice areas such as the Cartier Park snow slides, the Confederation Park ice sculptures, and the snow sculptures at Lansdowne Park. But good news: the cold weather is back! The canal is open again! And just in time for upcoming final weekend of Winterlude.
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The warm weather has pretty well wiped out the Rideau Canal Skateway for this second weekend of Winterlude. But when you're attracting hundreds of thousands of people to Ottawa from across Canada and around the world, the show must go on! And fortunately there's lots of options.
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Bernardo was determined that “foreign experience” would include the cold embrace of the Canadian winter. And his dream came true in a way he never expected.
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What was Saskatoon's secret? The weather helped. Last year, the temperature as around minus-30, but that didn't stop Sandy Campbell from playing the bagpipes while he skated the first Sir John A skate in 2015.
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across canada, communities host kilt skates to celebrate scotland’s contribution to our multicultural fabric.
