Exploring Canada’s Latest, Greatest Urban Escape

27.05.2024 - 16:45 / forbes.com / queen Victoria

Between Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Quebec City, Canada boasts four amazing urban areas that should be on everyone’s travel bucket list. Now it’s time to add a fifth — Ottawa.

That may seem like an odd choice. Without doubt, it’s a bastion of bureaucrats, politicians and government agencies. Normally the recipe for a bland or boring visitor experience.

Yet Ottawa bucks the trend with a variety of cultural attractions and outdoor adventure experiences, plus a surprisingly good culinary scene — and maybe you can blame the politicians for this last one — great drinking establishments.

Located around halfway between Toronto and Montreal, Canada’s national capital sprawls along the south side of the Ottawa River in eastern Ontario, and as such lies on the cusp of both English and French speaking Canada.

Yet Ottawa never would have made the leap from backwoods outpost to big city if it wasn’t for widespread paranoia that the Americans wanted to make British Canada part of their new United States.

Fearing a Yankee invasion of the St. Lawrence River valley, the Canadians created the Rideau Canal as a watery bypass in case of war. Located at the confluence of the canal and the Ottawa River, it wasn’t long before Bytown (as it was called then) began to boom.

When her Canadian subjects couldn’t decide on a national government location, Queen Victoria intervened and named Ottawa as the capital in 1857.

Yet it’s only recently — thanks to a bevy of new experiences and attractions — that Ottawa has burst onto the global tourism scene.

Ottawa makes great use of its riverside location with a range of ways to work up a sweat.

One of the most thrilling is Interzip, a 1,200-foot-long double zipline that whisks riders 120 feet above the Ottawa River at a speed of around 25 miles per hour.

Farther upstream, Wilderness Tours offers guided whitewater trips in rafts, kayaks and sportyak flexible one-person dinghies on the Ottawa River. The aquatic adventures range from low to extreme intensity, and there’s also flatwater tubing for those who prefer it slow and easy.

One of the coolest ways to explore Ottawa is scooting around town on a muscle-powered or electric bike. Escape Bicycle Tours on the Sparks Street pedestrian mall rents various types of bikes and scooters, and offers guided cycling tours that include Parliament Hill, Rideau Hall park, and two bridge crossings over the Ottawa River.

Running right through the middle of the city, the historic Rideau Canal provides plenty of scope for outdoor fun. The Rideau Canal Eastern Pathway, a leafy hiking and biking trail, stretches five miles between the Senate Building and Prince of Wales Falls.

Or hire a cabin cruiser at Le Boat on Dow’s Lake for overnight voyages down