Confederation Park

I went there to see the Ice Sculptures — part of the Winterlude 2016 (the Winter Festival) of Ottawa. The park itself is not very big, I believe it is also a music venue sometimes.
The ice sculptures are displayed all over the park, but some are under tents, and some are already broken…
It was an OK to me. Surely, any park in the city is good.

On a regular day this park is tiny and may seem boring, but when a festival is going on, this park is the place to be. The tulips in the spring, the music festivals in the summer, the ice sculptures for Winterlude and the pretty leaves in the fall make this park beautiful year round. A typical person might find it boring on a regular day, but there’s a bit of culture and history hidden within it all. Take a moment out of your busy life (…shopping at Rideau… heehee) and enjoy the fountain and greenspace. If only the trees could talk…

Visiting in February kind of limits your experiences in parks, let alone good ones.
Well except in the case of Winterlude!
Stopped by this park numerous times in a short stay and never had a bad time.
Amazingly beautiful lit up displays of elaborate and intricate ice sculptures, and beautiful displays of unique Canadian artwork.
Even had the chance to check off a bucket lister’ of watching an ice sculpture contest. One hour to do a randomly selected sculpture. An absolute blast to watch and take in.
Scenic views of the Rideau canal and surrounding buildings, and plenty of little food ‘trucks’ during the day
I enjoyed my time in Confederation park.

This park is the definition of just passes aka a 2.5 star. The park itself… not much here minus the fountain. It’s a bunch of green space that surrounds a fountain and is a hub between Elgin St, City Hall, Rideau Centre and a pretty nasty swim in the Rideau Canal.
However, when summer rolls around, Confederation Park gets bumped up a notch when it hosts some goodness from the Jazz Festival and a variety of international festivals like the South Asian festival, Turkish festival and a few others.
The park is then filled with some great people and great atmosphere! Without the great people and great atmosphere you are stuck with the «conservative Ottawa crowd» which really is boring! Sorry people, I’m just saying.
PS — This was home to the disastrous occupy movement held in Ottawa.

Confederation Park is one of Ottawa’s central parks. Before very recently, I hadn’t really spent too much time here, aside from some Winterlude activities and other random events.
After a ceremony at City Hall, the wedding party and I walked through the park on the way to the Château Laurier. It was a nice summer day, sunny with a light breeze — perfect for picture-​taking! We took a ton of pictures near the fountain, the totem pole, on the benches, and other greenery. There were a few people riding bikes, walking along the pathways, reading under trees, and eating lunch on the benches.
It was great during the day, but there are a few sketchy individuals in the park at night, so I try to avoid it when it gets dark.

So it has a rat problem. Yes, a rat problem.
I thought the news reports were a bit exaggerated until one evening I was walking through this park near the fountain to get to the Rideau Centre and I saw this giant thing run across the sidewalk toward the bridge.
This is however a temporary problem and the authorities who run the park claim they’re working on it. If you can get over the current rodent occupation it’s a decent little park smack dab in the middle of the city.
It’s used almost every other weekend in the summer to help host festivals and other events. The picturesque fountain with benches circling it are a good meeting spot or hang out on a summer day or evening.
Most people who use this park are simply passing through so it is still open in the winter months. In fact, it’s one of the main hubs for Winterlude ice carving.
There are parks with better views downtown but this one is suitable for most activities — just maybe wait until they get that small problem cleared up.

Confederation Park is the most prominent and central of Ottawa’s many green spaces that it holds in bounty. The location is surrounded by main arteries and sites of the city as mentioned below. If you don’t come here often, you’ve most likely made an appearance during either Winterlude or Jazz Fest, which are both held in this park.
This is a wonderful place to go during a lunch break or trip downtown to relax, eat and read a book. It may not be a quiet spot, but you do feel a bit more removed as a passive observer of the clamor and excitement of the city around you.

Among the oldest parks in the Nation’s Capital, you can literally feel the history oozing out when you walk through Confederation Park.
Situated right in the heart of the city, the park itself may not consist of a whole lot, but it is location, the history, and its events that make this a destination in Ottawa.
Surrounded by major landmarks such as the Rideau Canal, Major Mackenzie Bridge, Elgin Street, National Arts Centre and Rideau Centre, Confederation is a quiet urban enclave amidst the bustle of the city core; a smaller version of Central Park in New York City, if you will.
Within the park itself, you will find a lot of green space, benches, a central fountain of Peterhead Granite honoring Colonel John By (which stood at Trafalgar Square in London until 1939), a monument depicting Aboriginal War Heroes, as well as other smaller monuments.
Most of the main events of the Ottawa International Jazz Festival take place at this park, as do other annual events such as Winterlude. This all makes for Confederation, which came into fruition during Canada’s centennial birthday in 1967, a central location in the city.