Too much car! Finally, Ottowa.

Lots more driving today!  After a morning trip to the Falls, we drove Northeast to Ottowa, the capital city of Canada.

Daylight photo of the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.

Family photo--what a lovely family!

Horseshoe Falls

Top of the falls--kind of scary to reach that point in a barrel and change your mind!

 Ottowa was originally an Irish and French settlement.  The French part can be seen in all of the bilingual signs.  It's fun to read the French part first and figure out the English, then look at the immediate translation right next to it!  We had a roundabout way to our hotel because of road work.  When we finally got to it, we found it was in kind of a seedy area of town and is old and kind of run down.  But, it's only for one night and is within walking distance of the capital buildings we decided to see before dark came.  We found the group of buidlings, and as Shelby and I were talking about the cleaning of the copper roofs they are undertaking, a man walking by overheard us and came over to chat.  He seemed knowledgeable and was able to tell us what each of the building are, as well as some interesting facts about each.  We are pretty sure that he was in the House of Commons, one of the representatives.

East Block building--governmental offices.  Great building isn't it?

The Senate Building (the tower is called the Freedom Tower).  

Anneliese getting friendly with a statue of a man named Pearson.

The House of Commons part of the Senate building (similar to our House of Representatives).
Reminds me of the chapter houses added to cathedrals.

The Famous Five sculpture

It took until 1929 to figure this out?  Really??

   

The man we met is from Alberta and told us about the "Alberta Five" or "The Famous Five," that he says every schoolchild knows about.  They were five Alberta women in 1927 who wanted to be able to be appointed to the Senate and filed a petition about it.  It went to the Canadian Supreme Court who decided that women were not considered "persons" and therefore could not be appointed to the Senate.  They took it further, to the British parliament (which had authority over Canada at the time), who overturned the Canadian Supreme Court and said that women were considered "persons."  And there is a sculpture of these brave women by the capital buildings.  Tomorrow, on to Montreal!  We are on Chapter 20 of Anne of Green Gables and we are all enjoying listening to it as we drive.  (I love the enthusiasm of the children for the book)  :)  Hopefully we'll be done before we get to Prince Edward Island!

Detail from the East Block Building