While Gatineau Park is a beacon for cross-country skiing and other winter activities in the national capital region, an expanding network of winter trails in Ottawa are becoming popular for cold climate fun.
Like many others, she’s not travelling during Mother’s Day to see her family. I haven’t seen my mom since December 2019; she lives in Toronto. We’ve done a lot of Skype calls and WhatsApp calls, it’s not the same, Yamamura said. A mother herself, she spent the morning with her 10-year-old daughter Elisa. She could pick anything and I had to do it, so we did fitness together, Elissa said. Despite spending more time than normal in close confines with her daughter over the past, Yamamura knows she’s fortunate to be able to spend the holiday with family.
So “I didn’t have any expectations (for the winter) at all,” Ducharme said.
But as the temperature plunged, the Ottawa River began to freeze, and people’s options for social activity began to narrow during lockdown, Ducharme’s business started to boom. “This winter, all of the sudden, every week I’m getting calls from people who want to learn how to snowkite,” he said.
Winter kitesurfing or “snowkiting” – a sport in which skiers and snowboarders use a large kite to glide on snow or ice – has been on the rise in the Ottawa-Gatineau area this winter. Ducharme, 53, says business has “quadrupled” since the summer. Since the snowkiting season started in early January, he said he’s had 50 phone calls from people who want lessons, and is booked for the next three weeks.