New Ottawa businesses head into holidays with cheer
By Allison McNeely and Micki Cowan A number of Ottawa boutique owners heading into their first Christmas season say they’re feeling optimistic about sales despite the opening of retail giants such as H&M and Target. “I’m pretty dialed into how people shop,” said Mandy Gosewich, owner of Stunning, a new fashion accessories store in ByWard Market. “At the end of the day what it all boils down to is assortment, what you bring into your store, and service.” Gosewich, a fourth generation ByWard market business owner, opened her accessories shop in May of this year. She said her shop has something for everyone, from $12 earring studs to statement necklaces selling for hundreds of dollars. Jill Wilkinson, assistant manager at Baby EnRoute, a baby store in Westboro, shares Gosewich’s commitment to excellent service and product selection. Wilkinson said the store offers a variety of European brands that are “not available at Target.” Sales have increased since the store opened in July, with many parents coming in looking for chariots, the all-terrain vehicle strollers that are robust enough for winter snow and aren’t available in-store elsewhere in Ottawa. BMO Financial Group released its holiday spending outlook in November and predicted Canadians will spend an average of $1,810 this year — up 12 per cent from $1,610 in 2012. Darren Clare, retail specialist at Avison Young, said Ottawa is a reliable place to open up shop. “Ottawa traditionally has a very strong retail market, especially with the government. There’s stability there,” Clare said. “The consumers get out there and they spend their money with confidence.” Clare said geographic location and store size have an impact on whether or not stores are in competition. He said big stores in malls are not competition for smaller boutiques downtown. “H&M being thousands of square feet and a mom-and-pop, somebody in the Glebe with 1,200 square feet, I’d be shocked if there was any impact,” Clare said. “Target’s competition is obviously Walmart.” However, it is getting more expensive to rent retail space in Ottawa’s upscale neighbourhoods. The Glebe currently rents for $50 to $55 per square foot, plus operating costs, due to the construction condos and the new CFL stadium, which drives up land prices in the area, Clare said Gosewich acknowledges that in an entrepreneur’s first year of business, it’s essential to do the work. “I’ll be here seven days per week until Dec. 24,” Gosewich said. She relies heavily on foot traffic through the Market and word-of-mouth, including social media, to get people into her shop. Knifewear, a shop in the Glebe selling high-end Japanese kitchen knives, has relied on the chef community...
Snow: New exhibit opening at Museum of Civilization
By Diana Matthews and Mara Selanders with Brett Throop We love it, we hate it, and we live with it. Snow. It is a vital part of Canadian identity and now the focus of an exhibit opening at the Museum of Civilization on Friday. Whether or not the white blanket leaves you cold is irrelevant, exhibit curator Bianca Gendreau said. The installation isn’t about changing popular opinion. “We don’t plan to change people’s minds,” she said. “People are invited to discover the cultural history of snow.” The exhibit will focus on adaptation, innovation and inspiration, three key cultural aspects of how snow is a part of our daily lives. The adaptation section will show the methods First Nations people and European settlers after them used to cope with winter . This section will feature items like snowshoes alongside excerpts from the travel diaries of explorers and merchants who recorded ways of coping with snow and learning to adapt to a snowy climate. These diaries illustrate pioneering ways of living with snow, innovations that form the basis of the middle section of the exhibit. “It’s really about transportation and snow clearing, and all of the different things that have been put forward, or adapted, or modified, by Canadians,” Gendreau said. Once Canadians learned to live with the snow, they also learned to have fun with it. The exhibit has a section on how Canadian Olympic athletes show their passion for winter. From passion comes inspiration, which is the theme of the third section, about some of Canada’s foremost artists and the work they have done on snow. Snow is also essential for Canadian agriculture, tourism and the economy. Chris Maxwell and Melissa Mourez, both fine arts students at the University of Ottawa, spent part of Tuesday rolling snowballs and tossing them to each other. Chris Maxwell talks about the exhibit. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41691394/Snow_Chris%20on%20Exhibit.mp3 “It would be interesting to see because our winters are a little different from the winters of some of the settlers that might’ve come over here at first,” Maxwell said. “To see the transition of how they would’ve adapted and gotten into the whole concept of snow – how they would’ve utilized it or how it would’ve treated them or how they would’ve seen it.” Chris Maxwell talks about how much he loves snow. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41691394/Snow_Chris.mp3 Melissa Mourez talks how snow makes her nervous. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41691394/Snow_Melissa2.mp3 The exhibit will run at the museum from Dec. 6, 2013 to Sept. 28,...
Ottawa food bank hopes holiday donations last through winter
By Brett Throop and Jordanna Tennebaum It’s the busiest time of year at the Ottawa Food Bank’s warehouse in Gloucester. As shelves fill, volunteers cross their fingers that the food being collected will last after the season of giving has passed. “The challenge is that we feed people every month, 12 months of the year,” said Michael Maidment, executive director of the Ottawa Food Bank. “It’s definitely more difficult to collect food after Christmas.” Ottawa Food Bank event coordinator Maggie Rose said those who work at the food bank joke about waiting for the snow to fall for donations to start flooding in. Luckily the snow came early this year, and donations came with it. Maidment said the holiday season is a big spur for people to donate. “People are feeling very charitable and they’re starting to get into that holiday spirit,” he said. Many families and corporations make collecting food and money donations part of their holiday events, Maidment said. But this still might not be enough food to last the winter. The Ottawa Food Bank estimates that it receives almost half of its annual donations during the holidays. Maidment expects the food being collected now will last until about mid-February. Donations plummet in January and February, “so we need to make sure that the inventory that we have in the warehouse can sustain families into that time as well,” Maidment said. Adding their share to stock the food bank’s shelves on Tuesday were eight members of the local charity GoodGuysTri, who unloaded 1300 kilograms of donated goods collected during a month-long food drive. “At this time of year the Ottawa Food Bank is on a number of people’s minds, because it is the holiday season, whether it be Eid, Hannukah, Christmas or whatnot,” said Mike Herzog, founder of GoodGuysTri. Heightened awareness doesn’t necessarily result in the donation of healthy, balanced foods, however. For that reason, the Ottawa Food Bank is asking for donations from a list of healthy items they currently lack. Maidment said canned meat and fish, peanut butter, rice and whole wheat breakfast cereals are most needed right now. The food bank also fundraises money for perishable foods like fresh fruits and vegetables that food drives aren’t able to collect. In fact, the food bank’s activities reach well beyond the traditional food drive. It runs a breakfast and after school snack program for children, a baby supply cupboard and donation programs for chicken, vegetables and other perishable goods. Ottawa Public Health bolsters the food bank’s programs by helping those who access the donated goods meet their nutritional needs. “The reality for those who access food...
First taste of winter for Tibetans starting a new life in Ottawa
By Shannon Lough Volunteers held bags full of winter jackets as ten Tibetans arrived in Ottawa airport last Friday night to begin their new lives in Canada. As the newcomers came down the escalator, a group of volunteers were there to welcome and prepare them for the bitter –16 C temperature outside. On a night that felt more like the chill of mid-January than November, people came prepared to equip the new Canadians with winter coats. Tashi Wangdi, the retired home minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, had garbage bags full of puffy jackets for the newcomers. Tenzin Tsangyang, one of the new arrivals, had traveled for more than 24 hours from New Delhi, India. “I’m exhausted but at the same time very excited,” Tsangyang said. He did some research on the internet to prepare for life and winter in Ottawa. “I heard it’s a very cold place. Other than that I heard that it’s one of the capital cities.” Champa Tenzin, a Tibetan who moved to Canada six months ago, was one of the volunteers handing out jackets. A smiling Tenzin said that Wangdi recruited him to bring the jackets. He said he is excited to experience his first winter. “I haven’t seen a lot of snow and some of my friends are telling me the middle of winter is very cold. I want to experience it,” Tenzin said. The ten newcomers to Ottawa are part of the Tibetan Resettlement Project, a special immigration plan organized by the Canadian government and a volunteer organization. In 2007, there was an agreement between the Dalai Lama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to bring in 1000 Tibetans from Arunachal Pradesh, a refugee community in Northern India. After years of organization, the process is finally underway. Over the next two years, 90 Tibetans will make their way to Ottawa and this first group will have the opportunity to get settled during Canadian winter. Other Tibetans who were at the airport to welcome the new arrivals reflected on their first Canadian winter. Wangmo Konchok moved to Ottawa two years ago with her mother. She was sponsored to live here by her sister and her sister’s husband, David McDowell. “When they came two years ago it was the absolute mildest winter we ever had and she thought it was cold,” McDowell said. He said he remembers later during that winter his wife and newly arrived sister-in-law “went for a walk and she’s chanting ‘Very cold, going to die.’” He laughs at the memory. In spite of the cold, Konchok has attempted some winter activities since she came to Ottawa. “I tried to learn to skate but...
Road salt use in Ottawa still climbing
By Micki Cowan and Allison McNeely City hall initiatives to reduce salt use on Ottawa’s snowy roads seem to have melted away. Ottawa has a salt management plan which aims to reduce salt use over the long term. The 2014 transportation budget allocates new funding to support salt reduction techniques such as wetting the salt in advance so that it can be spread in liquid form. Another innovation uses GPS to track where trucks are spreading to avoid duplication. But the city’s program manager for operational research, Maxwell Miner, said the city isn’t actually using less salt than in previous years and there are no new initiatives proposed to directly reduce salt use. “City council approved a pretty rich set of quality standards. It calls for a lot of salting, meaning a lot of the road networks need to be bare or centre-bare,” Miner said. This means it is difficult to meet salt reduction goals. The city’s road salt usage varies depending on the amount of snowfall, but more than 181,0oo tonnes of salt were used on Ottawa’s roads in 2012, according to data provided by the city. That’s roughly the weight of 30,000 elephants who, if lined end to end, would reach from here to Montreal. That amount is also the highest the city has seen since 2008. A report on salt use says the city aims to clear snow down to bare pavement within four hours on high priority roads, most arterials, and most major collector roads near schools, transit or bike lanes. But clearer roads mean more salt. Coun. David Chernushenko said while he doesn’t know of any new initiatives to reduce road salt, the increased funding in the budget for ongoing salt reduction programs means the city is already more economical with its salt use. “In some cases we want to just carry on what we’re doing,” said Chernushenko. In 2011, the city agreed to do a pilot project with Earth Innovations, a company that makes an environmentally friendly salt alternative called EcoTraction. But Earth Innovations CEO Mark Watson said the pilot project never went forward. “We’re absolutely interested in doing a pilot project. We always have been,” Watson said. “To this day I still don’t understand why they cancelled the initiative.” Chernushenko said the city cancelled the project because the product is more expensive than the salt currently used in Ottawa. Environment Canada developed a risk management plan for handling road salts in 2001, after finding it is toxic and harms groundwater, soil and plants. The city voluntarily signed on to the proposal and it forms the basis of its salt management plans. This...
Year’s first snowstorm may be followed by colder than normal winter
By Kyle Duggan and Brett Throop Ottawa will be whomped by the first snowstorm of the year Tuesday night, the first in a year that’s expected to be colder than usual, according to the national weather service. The weather service issued the winter storm warning for Tuesday night and Wednesday. Dave Phillips, Environment Canada’s chief climatologist, said there could be a significant amount of snow in the Ottawa area and there could be rain or freezing rain. “The morning commute might be a little bit on the messy side, with some blowing snow – that kind of a situation,” he said. The warning calls for 10-15 centimetres of snow Tuesday night, followed by another 5-10 Wednesday. “You haven’t had much of a winter. London’s had 60 or 70 centimetres of snow and Ottawa has had traces of snow, about six centimetres total,” Phillips said. He said this is nothing surprising. “It probably won’t be the biggest storm of the winter. There’ll still be lots of time for that.” Phillips said after the system passes through Ottawa and heads toward Quebec and the Maritimes, Ottawa should see “some very nice sunshine and temperatures a little on the cool side.” The weather warning cautioned driving conditions are expected to rapidly worsen tonight and tomorrow. City police reported over 50 accidents in an hour on Saturday after Ottawa’s first snowfall of the year. Look ahead Environment Canada is preparing its winter outlook and expects to issue it within the next week or so. But this year their crystal ball is a little cloudier than normal. Phillips said the water temperatures in the Pacific that normally control the winter aren’t warm or cold right now, making it hard to forecast. “There’s not a lot of skill in a forecast where the water temperature is rather neutral. It’s more for curiosity’s sake. I don’t think anybody should invest any money in it, or make any plans on it, or cancel your Florida trip,” he said. But Phillips said it’s clearly going to be more of a winter than it was two years ago, “when we almost cancelled winter.” That was one of the warmest Ottawa winters on record with about half the usual snowfall. Last winter, he said, was slightly warmer than normal, with about 12 per cent more snowfall than usual. “My sense is this year we may be colder than last year but we may not see as much snow,” he said. But Phillips said he wouldn’t bet the family farm on it. “There’s no guarantees with weather in Canada, that’s for sure,” he said. Ready for winter Carleton University students waiting...