Here is an interesting fact for your trivia book - Ottawa is the national capital of Canada, but not the provincial capital of Ontario, Toronto is.
Ottawa is a big city full of people and buildings - just like any other city. But it did have some great places to visit.
Our first duty was to grab a Grey Line tour bus and tour the city to get out bearings. This is a great way to do your first day in any large city. It helps you to find where things are and to let you decide if you want to stop any see anything later. We were trying to catch the 10am bus, but the AAA book gave us the wrong directions to meet the bus. So after I called Grey Line they told us we were a block away and only about 5 minutes to walk. While she had us on the phone she called the supervisor to see if he could hold the bus for us. Off we got hot-footing it to the next block only to discover that we had missed the bus, but the next one would be at 11am. As we were deciding what to do, the supervisor walked up and asked if we were the people that were called about. He took us to his car, radioed the bus and told them to stay where they were and drove us to meet them! We missed about 10 minutes of the actual tour, but the supervisor gave us a short tour as we were racing to meet the bus.
After the tour we walked to an Irish pub that we passed on the tour and had a great lunch with a glass of brew. Then off we went to see the Rideau Canal and Locks. The canal, which was built in 1832 is 123 miles long and was hand dug by Irish immigrants to connect the Ottawa River and Lake Ontario. To go from one end to the other you will have to pass through 45 manual locks and it will take you three days because you can't go any faster than 10 miles per hour. He ran out of money twice and the second time he asked London for more money they refused him. His workers were on strike and he had no cash to finish his project. Before he started digging the canal he was to buy up millions of acres of land for England. So he got smart after their refusal to pay him and he promised the Irish workers that if they would finish the canal he would pay them in land. They accepted and he finished the canal. When it was done he was ordered back to London where he was branded a thief because they thought he was stealing the money they sent for the canal. He died alone and disgraced. A few years later some prominent Englishmen came over to look at the canal and they agreed that he had done a remarkable job and gave him the recognition and respect he deserved, a little too late though. It was built for the purpose of military defense for the British. But like all things that government gets involved in the first vessel to travel the canal was a shipload of pigs for slaughter and was never used for the military!
We then walked to the Currency Museum of the Bank of Canada. This museum has all sorts of coins and paper money. It even had things that were used before money was "invented". Most of the artifacts were real and had dates on them from as far back as Egyptian times. I even saw a $50,000 bank note made in 1924 for Canada.
Getting in the car we were able to drive to the last destination which was the Canada Museum of Civilization. This has got to be the best museum I have ever seen! It is HUGE! We showed up at 3:30 and the clerk was sweet enough to tell us that if we wait until 4pm the admission is free on Thursday! So we went to the cafe and sat until 4pm. We didn't leave the museum until 7:15pm and we didn't really take a lot of time reading everything that was there. It was on three floors - floor 1 dealt with First Nations from all over Canada and upper Alaska, floor 2 was dedicated to changing exhibits and this current one dealt with horses, fur trading and gold rush - the third floor was called Canada Hall and had displays set up like pictogram's with buildings you can walk in and see artifacts. We could have spent a lot more time in this place.
Today was a travel day to Montreal - and that is an experience I will tell you about tomorrow.
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