Monthly Archives: June 2010

The one thing you’ll notice on Parliament Hill every year in June is more maintenance workers than tourists. For about 3 weeks prior to the Canada Day festivities, work crews, sound technicians, and IT personnel work long hours to prepare the lawns of Parliament Hill to set up the centre stage. Thousands of people will converge on the Hill this year for Canada Day, plus there will be many other festivities around the city as well. Some events you can expect to see on Parliament Hill are the RCMP Musical Ride Team, the Changing of the Guard, the Raising of the Flag ceremony and, of course, a noon hour flypast of the Canadian Forces Air Demonstration Team, the Snowbirds.

But Ottawa is not the only place to be. There will be thousands of events taking place all across Canada from soap box races, community BBQs, family friendly events, and classic car shows just to name a sampling. Check out your local newspaper or your community’s municipal website for information on events taking place near you. Just remember that to be proud is to be LOUD!

Last week the Department of Fisheries and Oceans issued a press release that has many heritage organisations in Canada very worried. (more…)

For those of you who haven’t seen this already, I wanted to tell you about a fantastic new mini-series on Canada’s History Television. It is called “Saving Places” and each episode documents the hands-on restoration of three historic buildings across Canada. The series demonstrates a good balance of the types of buildings that heritage professionals are trying to save all over Canada: a place of worship in British Columbia, a post office in a Newfoundland village, and a home/art studio in Ontario once owned by one of Canada’s greatest 19th century artists .

The final two episodes air on Saturday June 19th and 26th at 7pm. For those of you curious about what is involved in trying to restore a historically significant building, I would highly recommend watching it. You can also check out the Saving Places Website for more information.

Happy Birthday Jacques Cousteau, who would have turned 100 today! He will be remembered by many for his phrase “Il faut aller voir”  (we must go and see) but he will be remembered by all as the greatest underwater explorer of the past century. He first came to world attention in 1950. Then, he was a 40 year old French naval officer who claimed to have been the co-inventor of the “Aqualung”, or as we landlubbers call it: a dive tank. Plus, he made the bold statement that he would pursue,what he called, his final frontier: exploring and filming the worlds oceans. It was a pretty bold statement which met with some skepticism. I guess you can say the rest was history as he went on to be the most revered underwater documentary filmmaker of the 20th century.

Cousteau’s contribution to underwater exploration opened the doors for others to follow from underwater archaeologists, marine biologists and even famous seahunters like Clive Cussler and Dr. Robert Ballard. Yet Cousteau was passionate about sealife in general and strongly advocated sustainability and preservation of our planet’s oceans. I can only imagine his thoughts on the present BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. I think that would have broken his heart tremendously.

Happy Birthday, Jacques Cousteau. Your legacy lives on!

Despite the heavy rains that came on June 6, the Doors Open Ottawa weekend was a great success. Nearly 60,000 people came out on June 5 and 6 to visit the 119 cultural and historic venues all around the city and surrounding area. As a historian who loves anything to do with heritage, I decided to sign up as a volunteer and really get involved. On June 5, I was at the Parks Canada Conservation Laboratories on Walkley Rd, and boy what a great day that was! If you thought Parks Canada was just about parks and good looking uniformed rangers politely telling you to put your campfire out, than think again and read on! (more…)

One of the great things for me having relocated to the National Capital Region is the closeness to what’s going on in the heritage sector. Think about it, all the political history here in Ottawa is fabulous, Quebec is a hop-skip-and-a-jump away, Kingston is just down the road, and I’m only a few hours from the GTA and all the history and heritage down there. What could be better? So when I heard about Doors Open Ottawa, I was curious, because very few places out west have similar events. (more…)