City tour of Ottawa: Ice skaters on the Rideau Canal. Recently, the channel was not released – the ice was too thin.
Bild: Picture Alliance
Ottawa is great for ice skating in the winter. But because of climate change, the ice on the Rideau Canal is now so thin that Canadians have to come up with something.
EA blue sky, even if shrouded in a wispy white veil, tempts thousands of people to pack their skates and head out on a typical Monday in February in Ottawa. Towards the Rideau Canal in the center of the city, which freezes over with a thick layer of ice every winter.
The waterway, built in the early 19th century, is not only a technical masterpiece that connects two important arteries of Canada’s northeast – Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River – over a distance of more than 200 kilometers and with the help of almost 50 locks – and includes the Canadian capital. The canal is a real attraction where it curves through Ottawa in a long arc. Since the 1970s, a stretch of almost eight kilometers has been carefully prepared for skating during the ice-cold season with the help of taxpayers’ money. Lined with stalls selling hot drinks and a coveted Canadian specialty: a fried yeast bun called Beaver Tail.