Glebe Report

This September marks the 100th anniversary of the Glebe Collegiate Institute (GCI). The school has been home to more than 40,000 students and 3,000 teachers since it first opened in September 1922. It is a fixture of the Glebe community.

There is more change afoot in the Glebe Annex, with yet another proposed development. While most of the development has been at the south end of the neighbourhood, this one is planned for the north, close to the Queensway at the north end of Bell Street South.

We are excited to announce the re-launch of the Glebe Art In Our Gardens and Studio Tour! This popular annual Glebe tradition will be held on the weekend of July 9 and 10. With 25 artists at 17 sites conveniently located for easy walking or cycling, there will be art to suit a wide range of interests.

FACES is a group of volunteers from three churches – St Matthews, St Giles and Glebe-St James – and from the wider community who have supported more than 75 newcomers to Canada. FACES “met” Mustafa in late 2015 when he was assisting FACES in Turkey coordinating other sponsored families. FACES applied to sponsor him for resettlement in Canada in June 2016. Three years later he arrived in Ottawa.

Long-time Glebe residents Oresta Korbutiak and I, along with Laryssa Korbutiak, all first-generation Canadians of Ukrainian descent, came together and raised more than $90,000 to help Ukraine fight for freedom, while celebrating the richness and cultural beauty of our ancestral homeland.

An opportunity to help others awaits at Fourth Avenue Baptist Church on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Bank Street in the heart of the Glebe. Volunteers are needed to provide breakfast to youth aged 16 to 24 years at Haven Too, an overnight shelter. A second opportunity awaits at 415 MacLaren Street in the form of the Community Fridge and Pantry called Public Foods.

The Glebe Report’s Poetry Quarter asked poets to send in their poems on freedom in all its dimensions, from the personal to the global, the practical to the spiritual. Here is a selection of the many excellent submissions received.

The Glebe Parents’ Day Care (GPDC) began in 1972 and by August of that year was incorporated. In May 1973 GPDC found a permanent home in the basement of the Glebe Community Centre. Daycare alum Maggie Kerkoff remembers: “I worked for 13 years at a hip and happening place called Glebe Parents’ Daycare. It was the 70s. Wide-legged jeans, broomstick skirts, cotton tops and dresses from India were all staples in the daycare worker’s wardrobe.”

The GCA had a busy May. The May long weekend was a challenging time for our city because of the devastating storm. But we were pleased to host the first candidates’ debate for Ottawa Centre for the provincial election.

As many residents in Capital Ward will recall, I was a candidate for City Council in the 2018 municipal election. I met many of you along the way – at your front door, at a local event, during the all-candidates debates or waving you to work in the morning. Being a candidate is an experience I cherish. Learning more about the needs of our community, bringing people together, amplifying voices and promoting new ideas was the honour of my life.

Like many of you, my family and I experienced days without power after the storm last month. Many areas in our ward were severely affected by the storm, and I spent the following days on the impacted streets, seeing who was still without power and providing information and assistance as I could.

Built 150 years ago in 1872, in the gothic revival style, Abbotsford House was named by its builder and first owner, Alexander Mutchmor. He named it Abbotsford House, after Sir Walter Scott’s home in Scotland.

Have any of you been thinking of moving from your family home, seeking less labour-intensive residences, looking into “senior housing?” If the answer is yes, you may be interested in a homey, community-based concept being examined for the Ottawa South/Glebe neighbourhoods.

After a hiatus of six years, Puppets Up! International Puppet Festival returns to Almonte from August 12 to 14, and this Glebe writer plays a part in it. Students from Almonte schools under Jenny Sheffield’s direction will present my story The Magnolia Thief.

For thousands of Ottawa residents, no summer calendar is complete without a visit to the Classic Theatre Festival. That journey just got easier with the festival’s highly anticipated re-launch this August at Arts Court Theatre following a successful decade in Perth.

It does not happen to many people to step into the guarded private monastic space of cloistered nuns, women who closed the doors to the distraction of the external world to follow their call to a life of prayer, contemplation and study of the scriptures. I was gifted that opportunity a few weeks ago during my first trip “back home” in Italy since the beginning of the pandemic.

The Northman’s director Robert Eggers, whose credits include The VVitch: A New England Folktale (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019), is reputed to be one of the most important directors of his generation. His directorial credits, while not numerous, clearly point to his high-art cinematic roots.

My Neighbor Totoro is a 1988 Japanese animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The film tells the simple story of sisters Mei (Chika Sakamoto) and Satsuki (Noriko Hidaka) as they move to the countryside with their father to live closer to their hospitalized mother. In this new home, the sisters witness forest spirits that only they can see.

A sure sign of summer is the arrival of the TD Summer Reading Club, and this year the Ottawa Public Library is ramping up in-person programming in library branches. There will also be some exciting online programming.

The Aberdeen Pavilion is a one-of-a-kind structure that dates back to 1898, when it was built to welcome the Central Canada Agricultural Exhibition. In the following years, it served as a meeting point for soldiers heading to combat in the Boer War and the First World War. It also had an ice pad where the original Ottawa Senators won the Stanley Cup in 1904.

Among the things I remember most vividly from school is the following grammar rule: you cannot start a sentence with because, because because is a conjunction. A neat rule; simple and easy to understand. Unfortunately, like a few other things I was taught in school (Pluto will always be a planet!), it turns out this was never quite true.

These days, if weather permits, I often find myself sitting on our small front porch at three o’clock, drinking a glass of red wine – mostly old vines as it’s called – and munching on a handful of Miss Vickie’s. Three o’clock; you can pretty much set your watch by it.

Just like Goldilocks’ three bears, the jugs were big, middle and baby-sized. And like the three bears, they were as much a part of my childhood as any fairy tale.