Month: July 2009

One of Ottawa’s hidden treasures: Victoria Island

My friend Todd and I, together with seven kids — my three, two of his three, and two cousins — ranging in age from 17 months to 10 years old, had the most lovely adventure yesterday morning and I highly recommend it as a family excusion in Ottawa. (Why is it far easier for two people to manage seven kids than one person to manage three? The physics of parenting never fails to perplex me!)

We visited Victoria Island and Aborignal Experiences. Never heard of them? I know, and it’s a shame. I’d been wanting to explore Victoria Island for some time. You’ve driven over it if you’ve crossed the Chaudiere Bridge, but have you ever stopped to take a closer look? You should!

Fifty years ago, families lived on Victoria Island, but now with the exception of the Aboriginal Experiences site and a few unmarked buildings, the island has largely returned to it’s natural state. It’s such an incongruous place, lushly green and lightly forested and peppered with ruins of the industrial age, but just steps from the heart of the nation’s capital. The outer walls of this century-old but long-since abandoned carbide mill still stand, and they’re doing some sort of construction work on it.

big old wall

I’m not even sure what this used to be — part of a hydro project, I think. I was fascinated by the various ruins, though, and would like to do more research.

ruins

We arrived (an easy drive — just follow Booth to where the new War Museum is and turn right off the Chaudiere Bridge if you’re coming from Ottawa) at about ten in the morning, a full hour before Aboriginal Experiences opened for the day. Conveniently, it took us about an hour to walk the eastern perimeter of the island, with plenty of stops to peek over outlooks, examine gopher holes and climb random hills.

reflections

There are beautiful views of the Alexandria Bridge, the National Gallery, the Supreme Court building and of course, Parliament Hill, from the eastern tip of the island.

parliament hill

You could say Victoria Island is a stone’s throw away from both downtown Ottawa and downtown Hull, erm, I mean Gatineau…

throwing rocks

After an easy loop that brought us under the Portage bridge but not as far as Chaudiere Falls (I’m saving that for the next visit – stay tuned!) at the western-most part of the island, we arrived back at our starting point and, conveniently, the Aboriginal Experiences site.

I knew that pow-wows and other aboriginal activities took place on special occasions on Victoria Island, but I had no idea there was a permanent (May through October) museum set up there.

totem

There are different tour packages available. With limited time and short attention spans, we chose the basic “Legends” package that got us into the Aboriginal Experiences site and an interpretive tour. (Other packages include authentic Pow-Wow dances, storytelling theatre, crafts, and traditional lunches.) Once we got in the door, though, we still had a half an hour to pass before our tour began. I was a little worried that the kids would start getting antsy, but I was amazed at how content they were simply to explore the (relatively small) site in the way that only kids can do.

tipi and parliament

I think Tristan and Keegan spent the full half hour in this perfectly-climbable tree near the river’s edge.

tree

Lucas was fascinated by the Turtle clan’s tipi.

turtle

I think maybe the First Nations people had the right idea, if they intended this as a kid-cage.

kids cage

In the end, I think letting the kids run wild for an hour and a half did a lot to improve their attention spans for the 40 minute interpretive tour. I have to admit, I was impressed that they were actually paying attention and even asked a few questions. I was highly impressed by the young woman who hosted our tour — by her ease in presenting, her patience with a 17-month old who wanted to steal the show, and by how much I learned.

teacher

I was particularly fascinated by how the Iroqouis nations were matrilineal, meaning the women chose their husbands and when they did, the husband forfeited his clan and his family to join the wife’s family. (Fine for me to do, not so fine for my boys to do!!!)

It was a really interesting and unique way to spend a cloudy, grey summer morning. From the local Ottawa history in the ruins to the greater Aboriginal history of the island, it was fascinating to me and at least acceptably interesting to the kids. It’s definitely worth checking it out!

Next time I go back, I want to explore the Chaudiere side of the island, and I’ll be bringing this really neat history of the island and its buildings that I just discovered with me for reference.

The Family Photographer: Protecting your images online

This is an issue I’ve been struggling with for a while, so it’s not so much as a “how-to” post as an invitation to discuss the subject.

The keen-eyed among you will have noticed that I’ve started watermarking my photos. (A watermark is, in this case, a small and mostly transparent addition to your image that shows the image is copyrighted, to deter unathorized use.) I’ve toyed with the idea of watermarking my images for years, but was too lazy to do it. Now that I run all my pix through Photoshop before I publish them, and thanks to this great tutorial from one of my 365 friends, I can drop a watermark into each image with three clicks.

You can see it in this photo of the American falls at Niagara Falls (because I don’t have enough Niagara Falls in my blog this week, right?)

American Falls 2

I really don’t want the watermark to interfere with the images, so I tucked it way down in the corner and tried to make it mostly transparent. (The problem with putting it way down in the corner is that it’s not too difficult to crop it out, should someone be so inclined, but the kind of people who steal images are generally the lazy sort anyway, and I suffer no delusions that my images are worth the extra effort to acquire!)

So that’s the ‘what’ of watermarking, and a hint at the ‘how,’ but what of the why?

I talked to Andrea a bit about this when we had lunch the other day, and it was great to finally talk to someone about it after stewing on it for weeks. I’ve been having a crisis of confidence about having so much of my world online and out in public lately. Part of it was the (albeit totally innocuous) recognition of Lucas and Beloved in the library by a nice lady who reads the blog and lives in my neighbourhood, but it was mostly motivated by some weird traffic in my Flickr stats.

You might remember back in the fall of 2007, there was a kerfuffle on the ‘net about people stealing images of kids and making fake profiles on the social networking site Orkut. About a month ago, I noticed that there was traffic from Orkut that pointed to a (completely ordinary) picture of Tristan from an apple-picking trip a couple of years ago. I made the image private, and that stopped the traffic, but there are still a few links from sites that Flickr doesn’t recognize pointing to random photos in my stream and if I can’t reconcile it I’m not comfortable with it.

For a while, I was so twitchy about the issue that I thought the solution might be to simply stop taking pictures of the boys for my 365. That idea made me feel sick, and sad, and a little angry. The whole reason I started Project 365 was to improve my photographic skills, and while it’s nice to be able to take better pictures of carrots and fence posts, what *really* matters to me is better pictures of the people I love. If I were to quit taking pictures of the kids, I might as well quit the 365 entirely.

I toyed for a while with making every image of family members private or for contacts only on Flickr (truth be told, I’m still thinking about it) but that certainly wouldn’t help with the images I post here. And it may be a little bit too late in any case, what with four and a half years worth of images already out there in cyberspace.

In the end, I’ve decided on a middle ground of cautious awareness. I think it’s prudent to be conscious of what you put on the Web but, thanks in part to the chat I had with Andrea, I’m feeling less exposed and freaked out about the whole thing. I’m taking simple steps to minimize any potential risks, like being cognizant of the kind of images I put up — no bare bums, stuff like that. I don’t post their pictures to any group that has “child” or “babies” or anything like that in it. And I monitor the traffic on Flickr much more carefully than I monitor my blog traffic. If anything makes me even remotely uncomfortable, I make the image private — so far, I’ve only done it twice.

Andrea asked me what it was that I would be worried about, what nefarious use of my images I feared, and I don’t know, exactly, what could be done. Frankly, I’d rather not think about it! But, as I’ve often said about living my life online, I’m not going to give undue attention to some ephermal and ill-defined potential risk.

And that comes back to watermarking. I’m going to watermark all my images, so I can protect in some small way the intellectual copyright on the few really stellar images that I’ve created, and to deter any unsavoury use of the images of with people in them.

What do you think of all this? Are you a purist who is annoyed by the ‘ego’ factor in watermarking photos? Do you think it’s futile to even bother? I’ve seen people argue that by simply putting images online, you are de facto giving up your rights to what happens to them — something I, no surprise, completely disagree with. What do you do to protect your images online? I’d love to hear your opinions on this!

Five things about Great Wolf Lodge

When planning our family vacation this year, it was Great Wolf Lodge that pulled us to Niagara Falls and not the other way around. I’d been hearing rave reviews about GWL from other families for a while, and though I thought it was rather overpriced, when my sister-in-law said she could share her teacher’s discount, it seemed more reasonable. Lucky for us, about a month after we made our reservation I stumbled onto a special offer for 50% off July prices, so we ended up paying about $180 a night — a little steep for your ‘average’ hotel accommodation, but entirely affordable when you factor in the cost of five unlimited-use passes to the best water park we’ve ever visited. (And I do love me a good water park!)

In the end, I have to say that the good points outweighed the bad points, but there were a few things that keep me from raving with satisfaction (is that an oxymoron?) about our experience. Here are five things about Great Wolf Lodge:

1. There is a wide variety of fun water-based activities for just about any age group. There were tiny slides for the littlest ones (Lucas was just an inch or two too short to try them, but my 2 year old niece had a blast) and more than one pool that started out at zero depth with a comfortable grade — perfect for toddlers. There were bigger slides that were perfect for adventurous five- and seven-year-olds (even Simon, who doesn’t like slides at the park, loved these!) and some really big slides that were fun for grown-ups or grown-ups and kids to ride together.

Fountain fun at Great Wolf Lodge

2. They have an excellent wristband security system. Although I was mildly irritated by the constant presence of the wrist band, it more than made up for the irritation with sheer convenience. Not only does the wrist band allow you access to the water park, but it acts as a room key so you just wave your wristband in front of the door lock to let yourself in. Loved it! Also, the wristbands activated the lockers provided in the water park, which I wish I’d known the first and second day we were there — I’d have more in-park pictures if I’d known I could leave my camera somewhere safe and dry! When I asked if I had to put and keep one on Lucas, the desk staff said yes, but that on a daily basis they used the system to reunite separated kids and parents. It was great not to have to worry about room keys, and the kids loved the novelty and independence of being able to unlock the doors themselves.

3. Everything is oriented to kids. In our case, this is a good thing – others might not agree! You can’t get a less-expensive room if you aren’t planning on using the water slides, for example, so Granny and Papa Lou decided not to come with us this year. But they do offer fun things like crafts and stories for the kids, and even the food on site is heavily geared to kiddie tastes. There’s even a kiddie spa on site, but my boys weren’t particularly interested in getting a mani or a pedi.

4. The place is extremely clean and the staff are super-friendly. Maybe even a little too friendly! The constant refrain of “Have a Great Wolf Day!” wears a little thin by the end of the first day. But I have to say, I was impressed when I called down to the desk to ask about on-site first aid. Lucas had seen a life-sized Bob the Builder (literally Lucas-sized) in the gaming arcade and made a beeline for it, not seeing the sharp edge of the air hockey table between him and Bob, and ended up with a nasty bump and cut just milimeters from his eye. I didn’t even see the cut until we were on our way back up to the room, but it was still bleeding almost a half an hour later, so the desk clerk sent up a couple of the lifeguards with first-aid training to take a look at him. He was fine, but I had to laugh when one of the (barely) 20-something girls suggested I hold some ice on his eye for 15 minutes after he fell asleep when he wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to keep an ice pack on him while he was awake.

Great Wolf Lodge

5. This is really the only negative thing I have to say about Great Wolf Lodge, but considering the price, a few more inclusions and amenities would be nice. It was the nickel-and-diming for the extras that most irritated me. For example, the website says “There’s a bunk bed and TV, so they can “rough it” with movies and Nintendo,” but the you had to pay $8 an hour to play the Nintendo. Not that we needed the video games, but I did feel that it was false advertising to insinuate on their website that it was included when there was an extra charge. There was mini-golf on site, but that was an extra fee as well — it would have been $18 just for Tristan, Simon and I to play… about double what we usually pay. And when I asked at the desk on check-in if there was anything special I could do for our ten-year wedding anniversary, the clerk suggested I buy a cake at the bakery down stairs. Not exactly what I’d had in mind. (Heck, even a free round of mini-golf would have been nice!)

My recommendations to improve Great Wolf Lodge? Some nice terry bathrobes in the rooms would be a lovely touch. The cabin theme with the bunks is great for the kids, but other than that the rooms are pretty stark of comforts for the grown-ups. And, a courtesy phone in the water-park area would be much appreciated so one doesn’t have to truck three dripping kids across the lobby to find one. (It would have been easier to simply walk everyone back up to the room!)

In the end, we enjoyed our stay enough that I imagine we’ll be coming back for a return visit, and I’d recommend it to anyone with a high tolerance for noise and chaos. Luckily, with three boys I’m pretty much immune to both by now.

Project 365: Water play

My favourite group on Flickr (365 Community) has a rotating optional theme. This week, I happened to have been tagged to choose the theme. With no hidden agenda whatsover in thinking about our trip to Niagara Falls, I chose the theme “water play”. I managed a few variations on the theme this week!

Before we even left for Niagara Falls, we spent a sunny Sunday morning at the local splash pad. Lucas absolutely loved it!

160:365 At the waterpark

You’ve seen some of these already in my Niagara Falls recap post, but what the heck. This is Tristan admiring the view when we first arrived in Niagara Falls.

162:365 At Niagara Falls

And this is my ultimate Canada Day shot, from the Maid of the Mist. (From a technical perspective, Beloved pointed out that the bit of deck rail in the lower left, the bit of darkness in the upper left and the dark side of the gorge on the right form a nice compositional triangle around the central subjects in the image. Oh, the things you learn from an artist!)

163:365 Happy Canada Day!

The other theme of the week was road-tripping. I like how crisp Lucas is in comparison to the motion blur outside the window behind him. (Not to mention the inherent cute factor of him playing with his dollar-store drawing thingee. He loves those things!)

161:365 Road Trip!

This one was on the trip home. I had my 50mm fixed lens on, and had to lean way forward in my seat to properly frame Tristan in this one. (He’s drawing a Pokémon card, and his hair is still wet from the water park at Great Wolf Lodge.)

163:365 The trip home: Tristan

Seems like I took these last pictures about a hundred years ago! This was taken on my last day before vacation. It’s the US Embassy in Ottawa, and I was trying to contrast the bright mirrored modernity of it with the beauty of the old “tax castle” beside it. I used B&W for this one to try to convey the starkness and unwelcomingness of this building and I liked how the lines on the Embassy pointed to the tax castle, too. It’s an okay image, but I’m still not sure I’m fond of it — it wouldn’t turn out like I was picturing it no matter what I did to it!

158:365 The US embassy in Canada

Finally, when all else fails, you can find a pretty flower to photograph. I planted this clematis three or four years ago and it promptly withered and died. To my surprise, it came up this summer absolutely covered in buds — I actually thought it was a weed at first. He’s the Little Clematis That Could!

159:365 Clematis

Edited to add: I almost forgot! This week was the end of the month, so I’ve got my monthy mosaic done for June. There were some colourful shots this month!!

June mosaic!

Five things I learned in Niagara Falls

We’re freshly back from three days in Niagara Falls. It was a terrific trip for many reasons, including spending time with our extended family and excellent behaviour on the part of all five kids in attendance. Here, in no particular order, are five things I learned in Niagara Falls. (The “five things” bit is a new idea I had. I think it’s a neat new theme with a lot of potential!)

161b:365 Road trip reflection

1. My boys are excellent travelers! Tristan and Simon have long since proved their roadworthiness, but even Lucas – who fusses on the drive to the grocery store – was an angel in the car. On the way home, we drove straight through from Niagara Falls to Ottawa with only one stop (in Belleville, where we stretched and dined at the Quinte Mall.)

161:365 Road Trip!


3. Don’t let the weather forecast get you down. They were calling for grey skies and rain (and egads, even snow!) in the week leading up to our trip, but the weather was damn near perfect. Cloudy with plenty of sunny breaks, mild enough for shorts but cool enough for walking. It was perfect weather for gazing at the Falls!

162:365 At Niagara Falls

(Or, perfect weather for gazing at each other!)

"Hey Dad, I can't see a thing!"

This is just a gratuitous shot of the Falls because I like it so much!

Niagara Falls


3. You can take 600 pictures of your boys and still not manage to get them to smile nicely once. Sigh.

More Niagara Falls
.

Simon rocks out

4. The time for the “Thou Shall Not Leave My Line Of Sight” lecture is *before* you arrive at the crazy indoor waterpark, not after. Within the first half hour we arrived, I’d had to scoop up Lucas and run into the deep part of the wave pool to rescue a floundering Simon (the lifeguards hadn’t even noticed him, even though he was crying and flailing) and spend more than half an hour climbing up and down stairs searching the water park for Tristan and Simon, who’d wandered off behind their uncle. The place is so noisy that I’d spot them but couldn’t make them hear me hollering (despite my shrillest voice, which is pretty damn shrill) and they’d’ve moved on by the time I made my way down to where they were.

(This is not an image of my kids drowning or disobeying me, but one of the few times I brought my camera into the water park at Great Wolf Lodge.)

(Edited to add: Found this picture on my back-up memory card, and thought it was cute enough to share! It’s the still photo companion to the video above!)

Fountain fun at Great Wolf Lodge

5. A ride on the Maid of the Mist is an excellent way to spend Canada Day! (I was determined to bring my Nikon with me, but was deeply worried about water damage. In the end, I cut a hole in one corner of a large ziploc freezer bag and trimmed it to the exact size of my lens, then taped the edges to my polarizing filter. Ghetto solution, but it worked!!)

This is the Maid of the Mist from above, approaching the Horseshoe Falls:

Horseshoe Falls at Niagara

And this is the view of the American Falls from the Maid of the Mist:

American Falls

My favourite Canada Day shot:

163:365 Happy Canada Day!

(There may or may not be another post about our trip in the near future. I’m struggling with the “and then we did this, and then we did that” travelogue narrative — it seems a little like torturing you with the verbal equivalent of vacation slides! But if you like the pictures, there’s more on Flickr!)

Ten years ago today, I married my Beloved

Ten years ago today, in a tiny church in London’s Pioneer Village in front of 45 of our best friends and family on the hottest day of the summer, I said these words:

I, Danielle, choose you, Mark, to be my love.
I pledge to you my life, my heart, my hope and my joy.
I promise to love you with my finest kindness and my deepest care.
You are my prince, my knight, my king;
My friend, my jester and my inspiration.
I promise that I will love you always, from this day forward,
Blissfully, joyfully, infinitely.

Ten years ago today, I married my best friend. We had no idea what was in store for us, the joys and the fun and the heartaches and the adventures, but we knew we wanted to do it together.

Ten years ago today, we two joined together to start a new family, and in doing so we linked our families and our histories together.

Ten years seems to have passed in the blink of an eye — and yet it was a lifetime ago. Three lifetimes ago, actually! Tristan’s, Simon’s and Lucas’s.

Ten years ago today, I did the smartest thing I ever did: I married my Beloved. And each year since has been better than the one before.

Happy Anniversary, my love! Happy anniversary, and thank you for the honour of your love.