A Guide to Ottawa's Natural Escapes 🌿

Canada's capital sits where three rivers meet — the Ottawa, the Rideau and the Gatineau — and the landscape shows it. Within half an hour of Parliament Hill you can walk the towpath of a UNESCO World Heritage canal, cross the river into the Gatineau Hills, stand above a 7,000-year-old peat bog on a floating boardwalk, or watch the Rideau River pour over a limestone ledge in the middle of the city. Few capitals anywhere keep this much wild country within a bus ride of downtown.

🍁 Gatineau Park – The Capital's Mountain Wilderness

Just across the river in Quebec, Gatineau Park spreads over 361 square kilometres of Canadian Shield hills, hardwood forest and lakes, with more than 165 kilometres of trails. Pink Lake is the showpiece — a rare meromictic lake whose layers of water never mix, leaving the depths without oxygen and holding a relict population of stickleback stranded there since the Champlain Sea. The Champlain Lookout opens onto the whole Ottawa Valley from the crest of the Eardley Escarpment, and the autumn colour here pulls visitors from across the country.

• 361 km²
• 165 km of Trails
• Pink Lake
• Fall Colours

Source: National Capital Commission

🌾 Mer Bleue Bog – A Piece of the Subarctic

Mer Bleue is a sphagnum bog roughly 7,700 years old, lying in an abandoned channel of the Ottawa River inside the Greenbelt. A 1.2-kilometre floating boardwalk carries you out over the peat past black spruce and tamarack, Labrador tea and insect-eating pitcher plants — a plant community that properly belongs hundreds of kilometres further north. It is recognised as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, and it is among the best birding ground in the region.

• 7,700 Years Old
• Floating Boardwalk
• Ramsar Wetland
• Accessible Trail

Source: National Capital Commission

🛶 Rideau Canal – A World Heritage Waterway

Opened in 1832 and running 202 kilometres from Ottawa to Kingston, the Rideau is the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pathways follow both banks straight through the middle of the city, shaded by mature trees and passing the flight of eight locks that lifts boats from the Ottawa River up to the downtown core. In winter a long central stretch freezes into the Rideau Canal Skateway, and people commute to work on skates.

• UNESCO Site
• 202 km
• Opened 1832
• Winter Skateway

Source: Parks Canada

💦 Hog's Back Falls – Where the Rideau Splits

Known also as Prince of Wales Falls, this is the point where the Rideau River divides — part of it dropping through a gorge of tilted limestone and shale while the rest is diverted into the canal. The exposed, upended bedrock is some of the most dramatic in the city, and the falls run hard through the spring melt. Hog's Back Park wraps around the gorge with picnic lawns and short walking trails, linking north to Vincent Massey Park and the wider Rideau River pathway system.

• Prince of Wales Falls
• Upended Bedrock
• Spring Melt
• Riverside Trails

Source: National Capital Commission