Ottawa

Imagine a place where everything you’ve ever needed is within reach. The streets are clean, the people are friendly and diverse, the air is clear. Every person you pass in the street has a vibrant story to tell about how they found their way here. Imagine a place so large and culturally expansive that each district feels like its own small city with individual style, filled with people of every race, creed, and calling. Somehow, whether through an effort of its inhabitants or some magic of the place itself, it feels special; and it’s spilling at the brim with opportunity, art, culture, and history. Imagine a place where your family can settle and live, surrounded on all sides by a perfect mix of city accessibility and nature’s gorgeous doorstep.

Welcome to Ottawa.

There are few places in Canada as historically preserved and artistically inspired as our national capital. Home to the National Gallery of Canada, Canadian Museum of Nature, Canadian War Museum, Canadian Museum of History and much more, Ottawa’s allure is in its ability to connect the past with the present. Downtown is a hub of friendly and personable cafès, always bustling with chatter and life. Ottawa’s pride for its heritage and the beauty of its geography shows in the personality of its architecture and people.

A drive in any direction will eventually lead you to the rolling, picturesque countryside that surrounds the metropolitan areas that make up Ottawa. It’s rare that one location could offer both rural and urban spaces with such close proximity to amenities and entertainment. No matter what you’re looking for - the perfect cottage tucked away from the rush or the ideal family dwelling in the heart of it all - Ottawa is where you will find it.


Arnprior

If you could think of a place that embodies the saying “dog country” - distance, quaint shops and quiet crosswalks, room to run - then I guarantee that Arnprior will meet your expectations. Like much of the riverside country, it is a hidden gem of nostalgia and history that meets modernity with true Canadian grace. Nestled at a point where the Madawaska river breaks into the Ottawa river at a perfect tee - it’s view of the Madawaska-Ottawa tributary is a breathtaking work of Canada’s ecology. This picturesque little town off the 417 promises to be a real up-and-comer in the future of Ottawa-area living.

Walking downtown Arnprior is like taking a step backwards in time. It is in this area that the first railway connecting Ottawa, Arnprior, and Parry Sound was built, which made it a mecca of productivity and progression in its heyday. Today, it is home to generations, new and old, ready and working to bring Canada into the future.


Constance Bay

You’re looking for a beach - not just any old beach, but the age-old, gorgeous, tan-sand stretch of paradise surrounded in cottage country. You’re looking for the beach, the one that shows up in your head every night you fall asleep and can’t seem to shake off - on a lounge-chair, watching sails reflected in the sun dip and rise on sterling blue waves with a cold drink in your hand. Down the line you hear children race into the oncoming wave with a shriek of youth. A place that says “hello, honey” when you drive up it’s pine-covered roads, every bit a living image of camping in the Canadian summer. A place where the sounds of the tide are never that far away, where the sunrise greets you just a little bit closer to home.

Here’s what you can expect from a little place like Constance Bay - fresh air, clear water, and a view of the Ottawa river unlike any other. And, if you believe its residents, home to some of the best poutine you’ll ever try.


Barrhaven

What comes to mind when you hear the word “haven”? Safety, comfort, beauty? How about all three?

The first thing you’ll surely notice about Barrhaven is that everywhere you look, you see families. The crisp inner suburbs are like a mini-village diverse in its residents from all over the world. Dotted with basketball courts and parks, where kids of all ages can be found playing and running to their heart’s content, Barrhaven is the epitome of family-centered. Taking a walk through the courtyards and the streets, you feel nothing but security and comfort. A neighbour waves to another from the driveway. Another is planting a garden. Someone needs a cup of sugar for a birthday cake. A young man helping his grandfather up the steps to their home, one gentle step at a time.

Barrhaven emphasizes an important human truth - looking out for one another always pays off. When we do that, we make our neighbourhoods a truly wonderful place for our kids to live and explore. When we take care of each other, we make the world a little bit better.


Kanata

Kanata began as an experiment. Clustered village communities connected by vast nature parks with a metropolitan core. At the beginning of a new era in technology, it was a booming center of research and development. Since its inception, it has been a place of new beginnings - inspiration and ingenuity fuelling the rich culture of Canada’s presence in technology on the world stage. A place to raise a family, to start fresh and create something out of nothing.

Kanata (sounds a bit like Canada, doesn’t it?) - the stomping ground of the Ottawa Senators, this suburban tech-town is a mix of idyllic walking trails, spacious parks, and forward-thinking business centers. True to the nature of its location, there is a duality of urban and rural spaces that allows you access to the city without being swamped by it. Sports, business, family, or future, Kanata has a little something for everyone.


Orleans

“L’union fait la force.” Unity is strength.

There are so many things that make Canada a unique country. What the rest of the world sees is part of our reputation; we have always been a culturally diverse people. This place began as a meeting of hearts and minds and many different tongues, and the spirit of that is carried on in our memorials. The evidence of our history is in the earth itself. Our greatest asset is our knowledge that we are all cut from the same human cloth. Together, we can create great things.

Resting on the edge of the Ottawa river facing Quebec is the suburb of Orleans. It was one of the first areas settled by francophone pioneers and continues this tradition with its name. The entirety of the district spans several neighbourhoods, between them green parks and trails in a fashion true to the Ottawa area. It’s fresh, idyllic neighbourhoods make a perfect environment for family living.


Manotick

Drive south of the city. Suddenly, through a break in the trees, you see it. Yes, those are open fields. Soil. Farms, pastures, the bread, milk, and butter of Canada right in front of you. The charm of the Ottawa valley area is its proximity to what helps us grow, what connects us to the land. You see a barn cat race out back of a stable in pursuit of something your eye can’t catch. Over the treeline, you can just make out the steeple of a whitewashed chapel and beyond that a great red silo, tractors churning up sillion, stretching out for miles.

For a minute you forget where you are, that only a short ways behind you is a sprawling city full of people. Maybe that’s the true value in a place like Manotick - in it’s effortless and soulful work to unsnare us from the stresses of life, to remind us of what really matters - the sun, the sky, and two feet planted firmly on the ground.


Almonte

Stepping out of Cafè Postino onto Mill St., you breathe in deep, you listen - the clink of the eatery behind you, the rush of the wind against an awning flapping nearby, the crawl of light traffic and people on their way to do their errands. Looking around at this brick hamlet that reminds you somehow of Coronation Street, you feel no rush to be anywhere. You walk further on downtown and see a squat ice cream shack and bodies bustling to get a cone, gulls perched with their curious beaks on the ledges above the small boutique shops all along the street, waiting for someone to drop something. Children rummage by on bicycles, chuckling their secrets to one another.

You walk around the corner and follow the railing along the Mississippi river to the rapids, where water rushes and sprays with the direction of the wind into the sunlight, projecting a brilliant rainbow through the air. Loons and geese flock downriver among the reeds.

No, you’re not in a dream. You’re in Almonte.


Carleton Place

What is it about waterfalls that inspire us? I think it has something to do with movement. People by nature are always moving, doing, making, working to the next thing. We are made of moving parts that ache without use. We stretch in the morning to get it rolling again and by the end of the day we are ready to sit and turn it down to an idle hum. Then we sleep and do it all again tomorrow. This is the definition of hard work, of course!

The humble streets of Carleton Place are alive with an energy worthy of its history. The people here embody a spirit of the river that is always on the go, always on the move. In its heyday, this town was bustling with activity and industry, and that lives on to this day.

Nature’s workshop never disappoints - Carleton Place is proof of that.