Cross-Country Ski Trails in Ottawa

KITC would like to welcome back, guest blogger, Stephen Johnson. Stephen Johnson is an Ottawa writer who loves to write about family travel. During the summer, when there isn’t a pandemic, you will most likely find him and his family at a local fair or festival.

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Anyone who lives in Ottawa knows that spring, summer and fall are brief houseguests whereas winter is like close family.  To enjoy the season more,  our family loves to cross-country ski.  If you’re looking for a way to get some exercise this winter, here are a few of our favourite cross country ski trails in Ottawa   

Mer Bleue

Since moving to the east end,  Mer Bleue has been my go-to spot.  There are four different parking lots to access the trails.  The scenery is amazing and many Ottawa families know the joys of feeding the chickadees.   

Our son, David learned to cross-country ski on the relatively flat trails of parking lot P23. Some of the trails from the other parking lots offer more ups and downs.     

One highlight at all the trails is the canopy of snow in the trees after a fresh snowfall.   

One cool feature is that if all the trails at Mer Bleue are busy, you will often find few people on the Prescott-Russell rail trail which also  has parking just off of Anderson Road.   

Pine Grove

This is my go-to spot if I just want to get away from everything. I find the trails are generally quieter than Mer Bleue and the trails seem to go on forever. I always imagine encountering a bear or a wolf on the trails as you feel completely in nature. Don’t worry,  I have not heard of any bear or wolf sightings.  Perhaps many chipmunks and the odd skunk or raccoon.  

Ski Heritage East/Ottawa River Trail

This is a relatively new trail for me.  In 2018,  a group of volunteers wanted to expand cross-country skiing to Orleans and started grooming the bike trails along the river.  The trail has since expanded all the way from Trim Road to Blair Road making it 30 km there and back.  

I had the opportunity to ski the trail a few weeks ago and it was an amazing experience.  To have the view of the Ottawa River on one side was incredible.  I saw two huge pieces of ice slowly collide on the river. I felt like I could have been on the movie, Titanic and yelled,  ‘Iceberg, right ahead.’   

The day I visited,  the trail was moderately used and there was space to socially distance.  There are nice flat sections and also small hills.

Rideau Winter Trail

This trail started off as a trial project last winter and has grown in scope this year.  Set along the Rideau River,  this may be my new favourite trail in the city.  The Rideau Winter Trail runs from the Rideau Sports Centre near Donald Street to past the Hurdman light rail station.  It offers up nine kilometres of groomed trail.

The thing I love about this trail besides the fact it is beautiful is that it is accessible to many people.  Located right in the heart of Ottawa,  it is easily accessed by University of Ottawa students or anyone taking the light rail.  The trail is literally almost right in front of the light rail station. There is also plenty of space for social distancing.   

Your local park

The great thing about cross-country skiing is that you can throw on your pair of skis and go almost any place there is adequate snow.  This year,  I have been doing a lot just in my local park just outside my backyard.  

One of my favourite memories was doing a video call with my wife’s family from Mexico while David and I skied down a small hill.   

Skiing during COVID-19

It goes without saying the trails are much busier this year.  There is an increase in skiers and also hikers, snowshoers and fat bikers. Most people have been very respectful about social distancing on the trails. I do find the trails are very busy on weekends. I try to go during the week when the trails are less busy. I found the Rideau Winter Trail had the most space for social distancing.  

A big shoutout must be given to the National Capital Commission and the Urban Winter Trails Alliance.  Working together both groups have greatly expanded the urban trail network in Ottawa. Also, a guy with the nickname of Groomer Dave (Dave Adams)  was instrumental in getting the trail project going.  About five years ago,  working with the NCC,  he had the idea of grooming trails along the Ottawa River in the west end.  This led to the creation of the SJAM.  His vision helped us to arrive to where we are at today.  

West End Ottawa Cross-Country Ski Trails

Don’t worry west-enders, you have plenty of options as well.   As mentioned, the SJAM is a wonderful trail along the Ottawa River.  There is also the Britannia Winter Trail  along with the Ottawa West Winter Trail.

All the trails mentioned above are free of charge but donations are gratefully accepted to many.  It is best to check out their website or Facebook page for conditions and possible donation information.  

Wherever you go, happy skiing!

Creative arts classes for kids in Ottawa

I don’t know about you, but my kids have been missing their extracurricular activities. We managed an easy switch to Zoom music classes, but they are sad about their loss of theatre group and dance. Since the pandemic started I’ve been looking for activities online, and we’ve tried cooking, painting and drawing.

Good Morning Creative Arts and Preschool recently reached out to us to let us know about their virtual art classes for kids, and my 8 year-old joined in last week for their weekly class (Thursdays at 5pm). Here’s our review!

First, a little bit about the organization: Good Morning Creative Arts and Preschool (GMCAPS) is a parent-run cooperative organization with a volunteer board staffed by parents. They have facilities on First Avenue, but like most organizations, their programming has been significantly impacted by the pandemic.

During the shutdown, teacher Karen started "Kids Create with Karen" to help parents keep children busy with worthwhile activities. It ended up being a fun, all-ages class, and a great way to connect with both alumni and new young artists! All art projects can be completed using basic art supplies - things like crayons, watercolour paints, pencils, oil pastels, and card stock paper. Kids as young as 3 have joined in, obviously with more parent support!

Other than logging into the Zoom meeting, my daughter didn’t need any help. She was warmly greeted and they got started as soon as everyone had joined in. What I loved about this class was that I didn’t need to worry about purchasing special art supplies. We had everything we needed in the kids regular craft bins!

The instructions were just the right pace for school-aged children. We pinned the video of the step-by-step instructions so that my daughter didn’t have to squint at a small screen. I also loved how they encouraged the kids to be creative….who needs a whole bunch of the same colour giraffe!? My daughter was very proud of her creation.

The other bonus? Cost! Just $10 a class, or you can purchase 10+1 free session for $100. All the registration details are here: http://www.gmcaps.com/programs.html#VirtualArt

I worried that the 5pm time wouldn’t work well for us, but it actually gave my daughter something to do while we were cooking, and by the time she was done we were ready to sit down to eat. It beat the regular scene at our house at 5pm, which is my kids whining that they’re STARVING.

If you’re interested in learning more about the organization, visit their website! They have a number of different programs, including Storyscapes for kids ages 3-6 and spots are availble in their preschool.

Disclaimer: I was provided 1 free pass for my daughter to try this art class, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Skating Through Nature at Countryside Adventures

KITC would like to welcome back, guest blogger, Stephen Johnson. Stephen Johnson is an Ottawa writer who loves to write about family travel. During the summer, when there isn’t a pandemic, you will most likely find him and his family at a local fair or festival.

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What could be more Canadian than skating outdoors on a winter day?! Perhaps skating outdoors through a forest trail and after enjoying a hot chocolate or poutine? That is all possible at Countryside Adventures.  

Countryside Adventures is located about 45 minutes east of Ottawa.  Ahead of time,  our family had concerns as COVID-19 numbers continue to rise, but my fears  were put to rest when we arrived on-site. Before entering the ticket booth area, everyone must wear a mask and it is one family at a time.  Once having passed through the ticket area,  we found there was a lot of space to put on our skates.   

My son, David, and I are used to skating at indoor arenas or venues like Rink of Dreams beside Ottawa City Hall.  In comparison, Countryside Adventures has a three kilometre skating trail that winds through the forest.  The ice surface was quite smooth and was comparable to the Rideau Canal. I am an average skater and decided to use a skating aid.  David is quite a strong skater and opted to go without. 

The trail was nothing short of magical.  It winded and wove between the trees.  I have enjoyed the Rideau Canal and numerous skating rinks but this was my favourite.  

The pathway is wide enough that it can safely accommodate passing another small group of skaters. There are also numerous signs encouraging skaters to stay two metres apart. The trail is also long enough that social distancing is easily maintained.   

David and I did the trail several times.  He even teased me a few times for not keeping up with him. There are numerous spots to stop to take the perfect photo outdoors. There are also many benches along the trail where you can take a break.  

After skating, we decided to relax for a bit by the fire pit. If you’re hungry or need a warm-up, there is a food truck onsite and we grabbed a hot chocolate to complete the experience.   

We are hoping to return later in the season to check out their nighttime skating.  The pathway is illuminated.  You can visit their Instagram page to get a sneak peek at just how beautiful it is.

Countryside Adventures also offers a cross-country ski and snowshoe trail when the conditions are cooperating, as well as a tubing hill when there is enough snow.   

Don’t worry if you do not have skates. They can be rented on-site along with snowshoes.  

Looking ahead to summer,  there are plans to have a stocked pond where you will be able to fish and do water sports like kayaking and paddle boarding.  

For more information and to reserve your visit, take a look at their website at: https://www.countrysideadventures.ca.

Stephen and his family were provided admission to the skating but all views are his own.

Family-friendly pandemic activities and "hacks"

Ten months into the Land of Pandemic. A lot of us have had to come up with new activities over the months to stay entertained, found new foods to eat (because everything started to seem boring), and the tweaking of work systems to accomodate everyone at home.

I thought I would share a handful of the things we’ve done and tried at our house!

Baking Bread

I saw a lot of people baking bread early in the pandemic, and many talking about their sourdough starters. I did not go that route, but instead learned that making bread can be REALLY easy. How? Artisan bread.

It’s usually 4 ingredients (some get fancy and add oil) and requires no kneading.

Mix flour (bread if you have it but all purpose was fine!), yeast, sugar and water, let it rise in the bowl you mixed it up in for a while and bake it. How hard is that!?

If you haven’t tried it and thought baking bread was hard or required huge amounts of effort and arm strength, check out some of these recipes. The recipes are all so similar I’ve never picked a favourite, I just google artisan no knead bread any time I want to make it again!

https://leitesculinaria.com/93789/recipes-5-minute-artisan-bread.html
https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/crusty-artisan-bread.html

Planted a pineapple top

Did you know that if you cut the top off of a pineapple and plant it, it will grow into a plant?

Pineapple plant growing in red pot next to original pineapple top

You can even get it to grow a new pineapple (but this takes 3-4 years so it’s a slow game.)

All you do is plant the top in some soil and nurture it. Eventually ours sprouted a new plant and that is the one that is really flourishing with the original top trimmed down and just chilling in the pot next to it.

We’ve already upgraded to a pot since we planted in the spring and will need to do that again soon. It’s fun to see how you can regrow the fruits and veg you buy from the store (we also planted green onions in the garden in the summer and they grew into new onions!)

Article on planting a pineapple : https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/children/planting-pineapple-tops.htm

Sushi bowls for dinner

Striped bowl with rice, vegetables, egg and spicy mayo with dishes of vegetables in the background.

Most of my family loves sushi but making our own sushi is a little too work intensive for us, and buying sushi is a little too budget intensive. So we came up with an easier way to get a sushi-like experience - sushi bowls. If you’ve never had a sushi bowl, it’s basically deconstructed sushi, or more simply put, it’s a bowl of sushi rice, with whatever you’d like to put in sushi on top. Or… whatever you feel like putting on top of rice :) My kids tend to like any build-it- yourself meal so I just put all the fixings on the table and they dump whatever they want into their bowls.

We usually have edamame, avocado, snack seaweed, some protein (sometimes it’s things you’d see in sushi, sometimes it’s ground beef, the other day it was ham) but they change every time. The photo I included was the time we tried to recreate the egg they use in sushi that my kids really like.

Then we serve with soya sauce and spicy mayo (mayo with sriracha sauce)

Here are a few recipes to check out to see how you could build your own.

https://www.budgetbytes.com/sushi-bowls-sriracha-mayo/

https://www.cookingclassy.com/california-roll-sushi-bowls/

Google Nest Wifi

Whether you use this system or another, having 5 people at home wanting to share the wifi, while two of them are working, has meant there are battles for the wifi strength. By installing the Google Nest Wifi (we have three hubs - one on each floor) we have been able to make the wifi stronger on all floors, and we can prioritize devices for wifi (my work calls get priority over Roblox or Netflix!) The other added bonus is that we can set schedules by device for when they have wifi connectivity. The basement TV doesn’t have internet access after a certain time, nor do computers. It’s been a great way for us to manage everyone the quite heavy wifi use in our household.

Family game nights

With all the time spent on screens, we’ve had to think of ways to spend time together off the glowing devices. We still do family movie nights, but we’ve tried to get a ton of new games to try for those cold winter nights. Some of our favourites include:

Left Center Right
Tenzi
Sushi Go
Sequence
Telestrations
Clue
Ticket to Ride

Let us know in the comments if you’ll try any of these or have any other hacks and foods and activities that have been popular during these pandemic times (and if you’d like us to share more of these!)

Cumberland Vintage Village of Lights: COVID-style

The Vintage Village of Lights at the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum is one of the highlights of our holiday plans every year. I was so sad to think that this year we would be missing one of our favourite Christmas activities! Lucky for us, the museum pulled out all the stops to create a beautiful drive-through experience and my family got a chance to check it out this past weekend.

We pulled up to the front gates where we were greeted by staff in a booth, and handed a lovely little booklet with a map, Christmas activities, trivia and fun historical facts. The directions were very clear, and there were places marked where you could stop along the route to take pictures. The speed limit is 10 km/hr, so there’s plenty of time to see everything you want to see. We were (obviously) asked NOT to get out of our vehicles while driving through.

The staff has gone to an immense amount of work to turn the village into a beautiful Christmas wonderland! If you haven’t visited the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum before, it showcases life in the 1920s and 30s, with dozens of heritage and reproduction buildings. There’s a church, homes, a schoolhouse, forge, you name it! This year, the village has been illuminated with over 30,000 lights, colourful vignettes and we even had a distanced view of the big guy from the North Pole.

I’d have to say that the highlight of the experience was a special radio program that you could tune into on your phone while driving through (and we continued listening on our way home as well). The radio program was created specifically for this year’s village of lights, and is produced in the style of the 1920s and 1930s radio programmes. It was so fantastic - the kids loved hearing old ads like they would have been broadcast, recipes, snippets of radio shows and of course, beautiful recordings of Christmas songs.

Another special treat was the delivery of a Santa-gram and gingerbread cookie decorating kit, all done with social distancing protocols in place.

The whole route took about 10-15 minutes, and the kids were slightly disappointed it wasn’t longer. However, we made an entire evening of the experience, by listening to the full 45 minute radio programme and making our gingerbread cookies at home. You have access to the radio show at any time, so it’s not necessary to listen to it while you’re in your car.

In all, it was a really worthwhile experience and I would highly recommend it if you’re looking for something to do with the kiddos this holiday season!

Where: 2940 Old Montreal Road

When: Wednesday to Sunday, between 5pm and 9pm. Runs until December 23rd

Cost: $25 per vehicle*
*Registration is required and tickets can NOT be purchased on site. Visit the website to register: https://ottawa.ca/en/arts-heritage-and-events/museums-and-historic-sites/cumberland-heritage-village-museum

By: Misty Pratt

Disclaimer: I was provided a vehicle pass to attend the Vintage Village of Lights. All thoughts and opinions are my own!