WHAT’SUP in Official Publication of Tourism’s Communications Team WINTER 2020 WINTER WONDERLAND

In the winter months, Ottawans welcome the ByWard Market Stew Cook-Off, and More fun winter activities include snowshoeing, opportunity to indulge in fantastic outdoor Triathlon (skating/running/cross-country skiing) cross-country skiing, and fat biking in activities, which in December 2019 started also attract fans. www.canada.ca/winterlude Park (downhill skiing is also available), in the NEW! Ottawa Christmas Market with the at NEW! Ottawa plays host to the Canadian National Capital Commission’s that Lansdowne (watch for it to return in 2020). Culinary Championships (also known as encircles Ottawa’s urban core, and along the Sir John A. Macdonald Winter Trail The highlight of winter activities is ice skating on Canada’s Great Kitchen Party) January 31- along the the Skateway which celebrates February 1, 2020. Twelve regional competitions south shore of the heading west www.gatineaupark.ca • its 50th season this year! A UNESCO World across the country send their winning chefs to from downtown. www.ncc-ccn.gc.ca/places-to-visit/greenbelt • Heritage Site, the Rideau Canal becomes the compete for the overall gold medal over two www.wintertrail.ca largest naturally frozen skating rink in the world days of high-intensity competition while raising each winter… as big as 90 Olympic-sized ice money for food security, music, and athletic And if you want to expand your ice skating options: rinks! Experience true Canadiana while skating programs. This prestigious event will be held in • The SENS Rink of Dreams is a refrigerated 7.8km (4.8 miles) through ! Ottawa during Winterlude for at least the next ice surface located outside , FREE! ncc-ccn.gc.ca/places/rideau-canal- www.greatkitchenparty.com three years. adjacent to the Rideau Canal. Check out the skateway Skate and sleigh rentals are available And for something completely different, the sweet lighting display that makes night skating at three locations along the surface, and don’t Rideau Carleton Raceway Casino (which will exciting (until March 31, 2020, weather BeaverTail forget to enjoy a pastry and hot become the Hard Rock Ottawa Casino in 2021) permitting). FREE! Skate rentals available. chocolate along the way! 2020 SnowCross Championships hosts the • Skate outside the historic Aberdeen Pavilion on February 28-29, 2020. Canada’s best the Skating Court. Follow snowmobile and snowbike racers duel it out over your session on this refrigerated rink with a bite giant jumps and moguls! Also on tap: live music, at one of the many restaurants in Lansdowne delicious food and drink options, and more! or in the nearby Glebe neighbourhood (until www.rideaucarletoncasino.com/snowcross.htm March 31, 2020, weather permitting). FREE! Of course, Ottawa hosts fun sporting events • After a tour of , visit the throughout the year; including 41 home games refrigerated skating rink (originally built in Ottawa Senators A must-see event is Winterlude, which takes for the of the National Hockey 1872) and Winter Pavilion on the grounds! place between January 31 and February 17, League and 34 home games for the Public skating is available on weekends (until Ottawa 67’s 2020. Canada’s Capital Region transforms Hockey League junior hockey team! March 15, 2020, weather permitting). FREE! into a winter wonderland as the 42nd edition www.nhl.com/senators • www.ottawa67s.com of the festival takes over Jacques Cartier Park (Snowflake Kingdom), the Rideau Canal FOLLOW ME Skateway, and NEW in 2020 the pedestrian mall. Sparks Street hosts live ice @OttawaJantine carving demonstrations and competitions during Follow on Twitter and all three weekends, while returning favourites Instagram to learn what’s hot, what’s new and such as the Ice Dragon Boat Festival, ice slides, what’s happening in Canada’s Capital Region.

For even more information on intriguing Ottawa activities, please contact Jantine Van Kregten, Director of Communications, Ottawa Tourism 613-237-5150, ext. 1116 • [email protected] • www.ottawatourism.ca MUSEUM ROUND-UP

• Learn about the South African (Boer) War at the Museum’s exhibition, The Gallant Thousand: Ottawa and the South African War, marking the 120th anniversary of the beginning of the war (until February 17, 2020). NEW! $2 admission to the museum for everyone. www.bytownmuseum.com • At the Canadian Museum of History, see UNCEDED – Voices of the Land, a • At the Museum, explore breathtaking multimedia installation that the otherworldly uses of money and the brings together the past, present, and future surprising roots of some very familiar of the Indigenous experience (until March traditions at the Luck and Lore exhibition 22, 2020). This summer, take part in an (until November 1, 2020). FREE! immersive multisensory experience to get an bankofcanadamuseum.ca unforgettable glimpse into Egypt 3,500 years Don’t miss the best museum ago at the Queens of Egypt exhibition (May • At the Canadian Museum of Nature offerings in town! 8-October 12, 2020). At the Canadian check out Me and My Microbes: The Zoo Children’s Museum inside, see Doc • Check out a selection of recent creations Inside You (until March 29, 2020) for McStuffins: The Exhibit, based on Disney by Indigenous artists from around a journey through the human body and Junior’s award-winning series about a young the world at the National Gallery of an in-depth look at health and the human girl who aspires to be a doctor like her mom, Canada’s exhibition Àbadakone / microbiome; while the fun exhibition featuring and magically communicates with toys (until Continuous Fire / Feu continuel live butterflies that fly around visitors in a May 18, 2020). www.historymuseum.ca (until April 5, 2020). www.gallery.ca greenhouse, Butterflies in Flight, has been extended until March 31, 2020. This • At the Canada Science and Technology • At the , discover summer, discover how cold and ice have Museum, see the exhibition Iron a diverse range of stories with nearly 200 created the waterways and landscapes we Willed: Women in STEM, and learn compelling artifacts exploring the human know today and explore how a range of about the historical and contemporary experience of war across Canada and species, including humankind, have adapted women who have contributed to the around the world at the Forever Changed to their cold environments at the Planet Ice: Science, Technology, Engineering, and – Stories from the Second World War Mysteries of the Ice Ages exhibition (June 3, Math fields (until January 19, 2020). exhibit (May 8, 2020-January 2021). 2020-January 3, 2021). www.nature.ca ingeniumcanada.org/cstm www.warmuseum.ca • At the Âjagemô art space run by the • Visit the FREE! Ottawa Art Gallery Canada Council for the Arts at 150 Elgin to discover how contemporary artists Street, see the exhibition Awakening respond to the ground-breaking work presenting 21 works from the Art Bank’s of Surrealist artists and genderqueer collection featuring well-known Canadian, pioneers at the exhibition Facing Indigenous, and culturally diverse artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore (until (March 3-May 31, 2020). February 9, 2020). www.oaggao.ca www.canadacouncil.ca/about/ajagemo QUICK BITES OF OTTAWA’S FOOD AND DRINK SCENE

• NEW! The prestigious Canadian • NEW! The south end of Ottawa • The Andaz Ottawa ByWard Market Culinary Championships (also known has a new restaurant / attraction makes great use of the patio space as Canada’s Great Kitchen Party) comes called Playback Ottawa that offers outside their 16th floor rooftop lounge to Ottawa January 31-February 1, like shuffleboard and bocce games called Copper Spirits and Sights: on 2020! The country’s best chefs compete along with food and drink. each Winterlude weekend, they offer regionally, with those winners then www.playbackottawa.ca Copper on Ice, an outdoor ice bar! spending a whirlwind weekend of black- www.andazottawa.com box competitions, wine-pairings, and amazing food in Ottawa! www.greatkitchenparty.com

• A fun Canadian-themed dinner theatre • NEW! The restaurant formerly known as show called Oh Canada Eh? debuted Le Café, inside the , in 2019 and will expand its season reopened and rebranded itself as 1 Elgin from May to October 2020 at the RA in mid-August 2019. Their dining room Centre a bit south of downtown Ottawa. overlooks the Rideau Canal Skateway. NEW! •  Top Chef Canada winner The plan is to expand to a 10-month run www.oneelgin.ca René Rodriquez has taken the helm at starting in 2021. Grill 41 the ’s restaurant, ! www.ohcanadaehottawa.com • NEW! Popular Zak’s Diner opened a www.grill41.ca new location on in December • Ottawa’s zero-waste grocery store, 2019—get your milkshakes and all-day NEW! Ottawa Tasting Tours •  offers NU Grocery, opened a second location breakfast! www.zaksdiner.com a progressive dinner across Ottawa on Main Street to join its original spot on for up to 8 people (4 courses in 4 Wellington Street West. Bring your own separate restaurants) by limousine. containers to make shopping a more www.ottawatastingtours.com/booking sustainable activity! nugrocery.com NEW! •  If cooking seafood has been • NEW! A restaurant called Brassica— a challenge, you might want to attend which refers to the genus name for School of Fish Pelican the offered by the mustard family, such as cabbage, Seafood Market and Grill and learn to broccoli, etc.—opens in January 2020 prepare a variety of fish and seafood. in the Westboro neighbourhood in www.pelicanseafood.ca/school-of-fish Ottawa’s west end. www.instagram.com/Brassica_Ottawa A LOOK AHEAD… LONGER-RANGE STORY IDEAS

• June 19-July 1, 2020 – The Ottawa • July 2-5, 2020 – A new Cirque du International Jazz Festival celebrates Soleil show called Crystal—performed its 40th edition in on ice—comes to the Canadian Tire in downtown Ottawa. Centre. www.canadiantirecentre.com/ www.ottawajazzfestival.com event/cirque-du-soleil-crystal

• Summer 2020 – NEW! Interzip • Ongoing – the Ottawa International Rogers will be the world’s first Airport has begun renovations, including interprovincial zipline when it opens an expanded and relocated pre-board • 2020 – 15th anniversary of Nordik this summer. A new addition to the Zibi screening area; local vendors contracted Spa Nature, the largest spa in North development (a planned residential and for airport concessions (Big Rig Brewery, America, located just a 15-minute drive business community that is located in Bridgehead Coffee, La Bottega Nicastro, north of downtown Ottawa. both Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, and Zak’s Diner); and a NEW! Alt Hotel chelsea.lenordik.com Québec), the dual-line zipline will soar Ottawa Airport set to open by the end • May-August 2020 – NEW! Professional more than 35 metres (120 feet) above of 2020. www.yow.ca/en/yow-plus basketball comes to Ottawa as the the Ottawa River and stretch 425 metres Ottawa BlackJacks join the Canadian (1,400 feet). www.interzip.ca Elite Basketball League, the 7th franchise • Summer 2020 – NEW! Camp in its second season of operation. There Fortune—a four-season recreational are 10 home games on the schedule, resort located in Gatineau Park, just to be played at TD Place at Lansdowne a 15-minute drive north of downtown between May 14 and August 1, 2020. Ottawa which celebrates its 100th www.theblackjacks.ca anniversary in 2020—is introducing a luge in summer 2020 with a vertical drop of about 130 metres (400 feet). www.campfortune.com

Photo: Southavy Pathammavong

• May 8-18, 2020 – The celebrates the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII and the first Gift of Tulips with a special edition Liberation75 Tulip to celebrate the friendship between Canada and the Netherlands. www.tulipfestival.ca • May 16-October 24, 2020 – NEW! A OTTAWA SIGN IN LIGHTS seasonal direct flight between Frankfurt, Germany and Ottawa will be offered by A sign spelling out OTTAWA was erected in the ByWard Market neighbourhood Lufthansa (previously, this flight was offered in 2017 as part of the major festivities surrounding Canada’s 150th anniversary of by Air Canada). www.lufthansa.com Confederation that year. Designed to be a temporary installation, the sign proved wildly popular and was relocated in 2018. But it was showing its age, so a new permanent • May 17-September 16, 2020 (Sundays) – sign was constructed and installed in December 2019. 50th anniversary of Sunday Bikedays, when scenic routes are closed to traffic so cyclists Popular with residents and visitors alike, the sign is now able to be illuminated in multiple and inline skaters can have free rein! colours, which will change throughout the year to mark holidays and major events. www.ncc-ccn.gc.ca/places/sunday-bikedays

For even more information on intriguing Ottawa activities, please contact Jantine Van Kregten, Director of Communications, Ottawa Tourism 613-237-5150, ext. 1116 [email protected] • www.ottawatourism.ca