The fourth wave may be creating uncertainty, and winter is on its way, but there’s no reason we can’t get out and about in the coming months. Our travel recommendations this time keep us mostly closer to home and include multiple arts suggestions because the arts bolster the heart and mind in precarious times.
Southbound: A scant five kilometres south of Parliament Hill, Old Ottawa South is a blend of small-town Ontario, perogies and one darn big boulder. Bank Street, with its restaurants and small shops, and the surrounding neighbourhood, with its mature streetscapes and expansive parks, make for a fine stroll anytime. If you visit expansive riverside Windsor Park, check out the Bellwood Boulder on display at the Riverdale Avenue entrance. The boulder, which could be a billion years old, was discovered during recent infrastructure work on nearby Bellwood Avenue. Spending time with the ancient rock is a reminder of how fleeting our own woes really are. On a less philosophical note, House of TARG serves up handmade perogies and old-school pinball and arcade games, while Stella Luna Gelato Café offers scrumptious gelato, sorbet, panini and more. The Mayfair Theatre, on Bank Street just north of Sunnyside Avenue, is the city’s oldest operating movie theatre and screens independent, classic and other films.
Museum hopping in Montreal: Ever wondered what more than 1,000 Barbie dolls look like when they’re decked out in custom couture gowns by renowned designers such as Givenchy, Kate Spade and others? The Barbie Expo, a permanent exhibition at Les Cours Mont-Royal, will sate your curiosity. The exhibit starring the apparently ageless cultural icon is free. Still on the fashion runway, Montreal’s McCord Museum features Parachute: Subversive Fashion of the ’80s, an exhibit starting in mid-November. The venerable McCord is hosting other shows, including the permanent Indigenous Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, Resilience and, over Christmas, Enchanted Worlds, a trip back to the wonderful seasonal window exhibits once mounted by Montreal’s Ogilvy’s department store. The city boasts other museums, including Musée des Ondes Emile Berliner. It spotlights audio artifacts, from gramophones to televisions and satellites, illustrating the history of the recording, reproduction and broadcasting of sound and electromagnetic waves. The Canadian Centre for Architecture, a fine research institution, features current exhibits on carpet design and the use of design as a way to return colonized spaces to Indigenous peoples. Don’t miss the outdoor sculpture garden, which is at once an urban garden and an outdoor museum.
Live theatre — journeying into others’ lives: Bit by bit, Ottawa theatre companies and venues have been announcing 2021-22 seasons. At the time of writing, the National Arts Centre had the fullest lineup, with in-person shows from its English, French and Indigenous departments that offer Canadian and international experiences from the comfort of a theatre seat.
Michael Frayn’s award-winning Copenhagen (Nov. 4-7), which was to open just as the 2020 provincial lockdown descended, tackles the moral dilemma inherent in a 1941 meeting between a German and a Danish scientist about the atomic bomb. On Dec. 11 only, NAC Indigenous Theatre presents Tomson Highway: Kisaageetin (I love you/Je t’aime), a musical/literary celebration with the playwright/author/librettist Highway on piano, chanteuse Patricia Cano and others. On Oct. 26 and 28, NAC French Theatre offers a stage adaptation of the dark Rêve et folie by Austrian expressionist poet Georg Trakl, who died in 1914 at the age of 27 from a cocaine overdose. NAC Theatre, 1-844-985-2787
Small town joys: Why do small towns seem to revive the spirit of even the most die-hard urbanite or suburbanite? Maybe visiting them feels like a reconnection with some long-buried part of our past when community and a simpler life could be taken for granted. Fortunately, small towns abound within an hour’s drive of Ottawa, and the fall is a lovely time to make the trek. Wakefield, Que., is home to a glorious red covered bridge, restaurants and shops, occasional intimate concerts at the Blacksheep Inn, and the unfussy MacLaren Cemetery, where former prime minister Lester B. Pearson is buried. The pretty towns of Almonte and Pakenham, part of the larger Town of Mississippi Mills, have the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Cartwright Springs Brewery, hiking at the Mill of Kintail, the High Lonesome Nature Reserve, and more. To the south are Manotick (check out the 19th-Century ghost-hosting Watson’s Mill), Merrickville (a glass blower and fine stone buildings) and Perth (ultra-photogenic). Eastward, about 90 minutes from Ottawa, is Vankleek Hill, the self-styled Gingerbread (as in, architectural trim) Capital of the World, where you’ll also find Beau’s All-Natural Brewing Company and Gardenpath Homemade Soap. Arnprior, Chelsea, Casselman, Carleton Place… check your map to find even more spirit-bracing small towns.
Breaking the Frame in Toronto: If you’re in Toronto before Jan. 16, 2022, leave time for a visit to the North American debut of Breaking the Frame at the Royal Ontario Museum. The photo exhibit showcases works from the Solander collection of mostly vintage prints of the last two centuries. The collection focuses on international traditions, underrepresented and forgotten artists, ethnic diversity and women. The exhibit includes one of the earliest photographs by a female artist, works from West African and Indian photo studios, and names such as Ansel Adams, Robert Frank and Dorothea Lange.
Wildlife in the city: You could commission Ottawa artist Christopher Griffin to create a work you’d treasure forever. Alternatively, and for free, you can just drive to spots like the underpass at Bronson and Riverside and revel in the natural world depicted in his art. Griffin, well-known for his painting and sculpture, has enlivened many of Ottawa’s dull concrete structures with birds, fish, raccoons and other animals. At Bronson and Riverside, there are peregrine falcon etchings and sculptures. You’ll spot a raccoon etching at the Glebe Community Centre and reptiles, birds and others at the four-level Glebe Garage parkade on Second Avenue. A fish mural emblazons a wall at 34 Brighton Ave. near the Rideau River. Lumbering sculptures of Blanding’s turtles enliven the Beaverbrook branch of the Ottawa Public library in Kanata. And an unimaginative bit of graffiti at the Bayswater and Queensway underpass has been reworked by Griffin into an elegant horned animal that, if you look closely, still displays the original graffiti tags. Griffin has good reason for relying on animals in his transformation of uninteresting and even offensive public spaces through art. “They’re fun for me and there’s a spiritual quality to them and an innocence and broad appeal. They’re a way to connect with nature,” he says. You’ll also find what he calls “semi-public” pieces scattered around the city, including a whale sculpture at Flora Hall Brewing and a painting at Planet Coffee.
Patrick Langston is an Ottawa writer who loves the arts, boulders and the romance of the open road.