Wellington Oracle

According to Judi Varga-Toth, her Credible Edibles café just may offer the “greenest lunch” in Ottawa. Already known for its use of locally-sourced organic ingredients, the café has recently teamed up with Gary Watson Cycling Courier to deliver school lunches to Turnbull School on Fisher Avenue.

Though her café just passed its first anniversary, it’s not the first green partnership for Varga-Toth’s young business. Since last summer, Credible has been a leader in the Green Buildings and Workplaces Challenge, a program run by local non-profit group Ecology Ottawa. The café has a reputation for putting the environment front and centre in its business practices, so much so that Jess Wells of Ecology Ottawa calls it a “shining example of a workplace committed to minimizing its ecological footprint however possible.”

Bike courier Gary Watson is a long-time courier who has been using pedal power to make deliveries since the 1980s, and recently added a cargo bike (shown above making a delivery on Wellington Street) to his fleet, enabling the kind bulk of delivery service needed by food service clients.

Business owners along the Wellington strip may be able to take advantage of Watson’s routing now that he has customers in the area. Delivery runs coming from Centretown to outlets like Herb and Spice currently see him returning empty to his Bank Street base “but we’d love to offer our east-bound capacity to Hintonburg and West Wellington businesses with customers downtown”, Watson says.

Close-up views of the cargo bike’s features can be seen here.

About a year ago, author and podcaster Charles Hodgson, was inspired to think about how Gatineau Park is represented on the Internet. The avid cyclist and x-country skier had heard that by 2050, due to climate change, x-country skiing in the park might be no more. The Daniel Street resident decided to take action.

“The National Capital Commission (manager of Gatineau Park) operates a corporate website that’s not very interactive. The focus of XC Ottawa is high performance x-country skiing,” the Champlain Park resident says.

“It seemed to me what was lacking was a focus on the whole other universe of people and activities going on in the Park.”

So, he created Guide Gatineau, a social networking site that he populates with videos about the history of the park, cycling routes, and an open invitation to others to make the site their own.

“I’m really hoping that people will leave their footprints on the site.” The site allows users to set up groups that might meet for walks, for cycling, for bird-watching. Hodgson believes it’s Ottawa and Gatineau people, the “local crowd,” that uses and feels true affection for the Park.

Click on the video to find out what Charles thinks about the future of the Park. He also describes his best day ever in Gatineau Park.

Buoyed from its successful campaign to have foie gras taken off the menu of Beckta restaurant, the Ottawa Animal Defense League  has Holland Avenue’s Canvas Resto-Bar in its sights as the next establishment  it hopes to shame into a goose-liver ban.

As the clip above will show, ADL activists have taken to greeting the dinner hour patrons of Canvas with graphic picket signs and brochures graphically detailing the force-feeding of ducks and geese by foie gras producers. Video highlights include ADL member Jason Halvorson ( seen here in the Ottawa Citizen) getting a strange case of “camera-shy” — he is the one trying to conceal himself behind the banner ( Editor’s note: see comments below) — and other members warning that other west-end restaurants are “on the list”.

But if the ADL’s plan is to rattle Canvas owner Charles Beauregard, it may not be working. In fact, Beauregard sounds almost positive about the protests outside his bistro; listen here for his serene reaction to the latest demonstration.

A couple of years ago, Richard Levis and Carroll Holland, neighbours on adjacent blocks in Champlain Park, created an audio guide to the Canadian War Museum (along with producer Bob Acton). It’s called Thinking About War and Peace.

That’s what both of them are still doing, along with hundreds of other Ottawa residents who are gearing up for peaceful protests on both May 27 and 28 to coincide with the Arms Bazaar planned for Lansdowne Park on those dates. People may also sign an on-line petition. (more…)

By Debra Huron

Pressing the rewind button can be therapeutic and fun for both the people who make up Playback Theatre and for the folks who attend their events.

On Friday May 8, the seven members of Ottawa’s Phoenix Playback Theatre will offer a free evening that highlights the group’s unique approach to improvisational theatre. With Mothers Day as the theme, the action begins at 7 p.m. at the Champlain Park fieldhouse (149 Cowley Avenue).  All are welcome.

“Unlike other improv, Playback can be comedic but it can also be quite dramatic,” says Joe Fairholm, a member of the troupe. “Often, it touches not only the person telling the story but many other people in the audience.”

Jane Keeler, who acts as the group’s Conductor, felt the power of performance when she first saw one of her own stories being played back to her. “In our lives, we tend to tell our personal stories very few times,” she adds. “This is a place where stories are shared and there’s a sense of belongingness in a whole community.”

The video clip (see above) features Joe Fairholm, Phyllis Danu, and Marlene Neufeld in a rendition of “so much to do, not enough time.”

By Debra Huron

With two-thirds of the planet covered in water, CUBE gallery owner Don Monet figured that a celebration of H20 was a good way to mark Earth Day 2009.

About 90 people ventured into the gallery on April 22 to view CUBE’s current water-themed exhibition, taste some wine supplied by Hemispheres Wine Guild, and learn about the work of Ottawa’s Riverkeeper.

The Ottawa Riverkeeper is both a citizen-Meredith Brown-and a citizen-based group with three staff and offices on Danforth Ave. just south of Richmond Road in Westboro. As Executive Director and Riverkeeper since 2004, Meredith explained that her group is part of a global alliance of 185 waterkeepers. Check the video link above for a short interview with Meredith.

More than 200 municipalities line the 1,200 kilometers of the Ottawa River. Community groups in Ottawa are set to clean up sections of the river in the Champlain Park neighbourhood and near Westboro Beach the weekend of April 25-26.

Just two days after his Canada-wide concert on CBC radio, Ottawa recording artist John Carroll recently brought his act to Hintonburg for a standing-room only show at the Elmdale House.

Playing with Montréal musician Mike O’Brien, it was the second time the well-known songwriter has played the Elmdale (click the video at left to view a sample of the show), and a few days after his performance we had the opportunity to ask Carroll about his impression of Hintonburg audiences. Click below to hear John talk about what it’s like to be on the performer’s side of the mic at the historic tavern.

 

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