Canada Winter Games: February 11 - 27, 2011

After months and months of advertising and preparation (probably years) the 2011 Canada Winter Games have started. The largest multi-sport winter event for young Canadian athletes, the Canada Winter Games are held every four years in a different province or territory across Canada. The Canada Winter Games are like a mini-Olympics, with the strictly amateur athletes competing for their province/territory in a variety of different sports ranging from judo to wheelchair basketball to snowboarding.

I had the privilege of volunteering at the Canada Winter Games in 1995, when I lived in Grande Prairie, Alberta. It's interesting now to have another chance to experience the games as a spectator some fifteen years later.

(Yes, you're right, the mascots for the Halifax Games are Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retrievers. That's very clever of you to notice.)

I'm breaking form here by writing about the Games while they're still ongoing, but since I'm too cheap to buy a ticket for any of the other events, I had to settle for watching the only free event I could access without a car - the long track speed skating competitions at the outdoor oval.

Long track speed skating has many events, ranging from 100 metres, to 3000 metres. With the oval being 400 metres in circumference, a 3000 metre race entails skating around the rink seven and a half exhausting laps at high speed. Considering a fast 3000 metre time for a male is four and a half minutes, and the body starts creating lactic acid well before twenty five seconds into a race of that kind, you can imagine how painful it must be for the athletes.

(Have you ever noticed how the winner never looks quite as tired as the loser, even though they've raced the same race and the loser, in a sense, worked less hard?)

(After a hard half-hour of watching others exert themselves, it's nice to be able to spend $6 on a messy, sloppy, calorie packed pastry, that will likely spill all over you or on the ground, before you get a chance to eat any of it. Beaver Tails: A Canadian original.)

HRM Point of Interest #21: Outdoor Oval

Later this month, some many hundreds of the best amateur athletes in Canada will arrive in Halifax for the 2011 Canada Winter Games. In preparation for this, the city of Halifax built a massive outdoor long track speed skating oval, the circumference of which being larger than the length of three football fields.

Since the oval was built on the Commons, the city decided to provide a once-in-a-life-time opportunity for the citizens of Halifax to lace up a pair of skates and skate on an Olympic sized speed skating oval for free.

7 days a week, from... well, at least before Christmas, until just before the Games start on February 11 the city of Halifax has/will open up the oval (with its own Zamboni) to the public. There are even free skating lessons offered daily, and free helmet and skate rentals too.

From my understanding, the city of Halifax had planned to make this a one time affair. However, the response from the citizens of Halifax has been so overwhelming, that various aldermen have supported making the oval a permanent winter fixture on the Commons.

I, for one, couldn't be more in favour of such a move. While I was skating on the oval a few weeks ago, there were at least 300 other people on the ice, not including the 500 other people waiting to get skates, drinking hot chocolate, or simply resting.

Not only would it be a fantastic use of a public space that is otherwise wasted during the winter months, but it's also an obviously effective way of getting citizens to be more active (in a country where this is badly needed). In fact, I'm prepared to make an EP Declaration right now, that this is the best use of public funds by a city, ever!

Nova Scotia National Historic Site #1: Halifax Public Gardens

After the 1750s, large, lavish gardens were very popular in Halifax. By the 1780s gardening competitions had developed. In 1867 a 2-acre plot of land was opened by then Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, Sir William Young, to an appreciative public. The park later amalgamated with the 1837 Nova Scotia Horticultural Society Garden to produce the Halifax Public Gardens.

The Halifax Public Gardens were promoted at the time by the Nova Scotia Horticultural Society as a place that would be "accessible to all classes," and where they could find "health and cheerfulness. The Halifax Public Gardens were named a National Historic Site in 1984, and today are still one of the finest examples of Victorian Gardens remaining in Canada.

(Flower beds commemorating the 2011 Canada Winter Games, to be hosted in Halifax next year, and the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Navy celebrated this summer during International Fleet Review Week.)

(Perhaps the most beautiful section of the Gardens is this peaceful stream. It's also probably one of the most photographed areas of the Gardens.)

(I love to take a stroll under the leaning Aralia elata - Devil's Walking Sticks - at the south-west corner of the Gardens.)

(I also like to look up at tall trees in wonder, especially if they aren't standing straight.)

(The Public Gardens bandstand was designed in 1887 by prominent Halifax Architect, Henry Busch, in honour of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.)

(It's hard to see, but the tree in the middle, closest to the camera is a Korean Fir that was planted there on July 31, 1988. It was donated by the Korea Veterans Association to honour all those who fought and died in the Korean War from 1950-1953. Incidentally, the Korean War is still going on, and is currently in its 60th year.)

(This giant Oak tree was planted on June 15, 1939 by His Majesty King George VI, during his Royal Tour to Canada and the United States with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.)