Ottawa

Last night was the annual Samba Ottawa event at the park at the end of our street. Samba has its origins in Brazil, and of course Wikipedia can tell you far more about that than I can. My first experience with Samba was when I was living in Cologne, Germany in the early 90s. Cologne has a massive Karneval prior to Catholic Lent, just like Brazil does, so I would suppose this is the connection which brings Samba to Cologne. During the week of Karneval Samba bands roam the streets thumping their drums, playing their music, and competing to try to get the most number of people following them. At our annual even in Hintonburg, the Samba band plays stationary for a good while, then keeps the tradition alive by parading around the park once or twice, and then a short distance up the street.

Next week for our Beavers meeting, we'll be taking the boys fishing on the Ottawa River right here in the neighbourhood. The following is a slightly revised version of the email that is going out to parents about it.

We'll be going fishing at Remic Rapids, on the Ottawa River across from Tunney's Pasture. It is an NCC property directly across from Tunney's, and very easy to find. Take the Parkway west bound from Parkdale, and it is the first set of lights. On the left you'll see the exit for Tunney's, and on the right you'll see the road to Remic Rapids.

If you are a parent and think that fishing is something you'd like to do with your kids, Remic Rapids is a really good fishing spot that is close by, so you may want to pick up a rod and reel, and a bit of tackle. Both Canadian Tire and Le Baron are great places to buy fishing supplies. You can often find inexpensive kids' rod-and-reel combos in the $20 range. These work fine for the most part though can be more prone to line tangles - you'll probably end up with 1 or 2 "birds nests" on your reel per season. It is not a big deal to sort out though - definitely worth the money. That's what my boys started with. If you want something better than that for yourself, there are often sale racks at Le Baron and you can often get a really nice setup in the $50 to $60 range. Last summer I got a really nice reel on sale for about $25, and there were some nice rods on the sale rack in the same price range. Then there is also yard sales - last summer I picked up a huge bundle of rods and reels for $1 for the whole bundle, and managed to get 3 or 4 good rods and reels out of it all (these are the extras we have on hand for the kids). In fact 2 of them were so good that I retired the cheap rod/reel combo I'd bought for the boys to share, and was able to give them each their own rod and reel - in their favorite colour even!