‘A real Ottawa thing’: city begins annual ice blasting along Rideau River

Ottawa has begun blasting away the ice on the Rideau River, one of the first signs of spring in the capital. CTV’s Kimberly Johnson reports.

In a sure sign of spring, the City of Ottawa is undertaking it’s “Blasting Day” along the Rideau River.

The City of Ottawa and the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority come together for the annual “Rideau River Flood Control Program,” which serves to break up ice in the Rideau River and allow it to flow unrestricted into the Ottawa River.

“It’s amazing. A force of nature, for sure,” says Marie Studer who came out to see the ice blasting for the first time on Saturday.

City workers use explosives to break up ice and help it move through the Rideau River and the Rideau Falls, into the Ottawa River.

Bryden Denyes is the area roads manager for the city and he says it’s taken three weeks of preparation to get here.

“It’s a very unique operation where it comes back to our teams being very specialized, highly trained in the use of explosives and the tools we use,” he told CTV News.

Studer says she has been watching the preparations and wanted to see the action in real time.

“Oh my gosh. It’s amazing,” she says. “I think I could do this all day, just going up stream with the guys and watching it blow! It’s pretty cool.”

The operation is undertaken to avoid spring flooding, which Denyes says could affect about 900 homes in the area. The work will run from the falls up to Billings Bridge, and Denyes says after a long winter there’s “slightly above average” ice accumulation.

“We’re working with about 20 inches of ice through the corridor,” he said.

Denyes says there are 16 highly trained staff members have spent three weeks preparing the ice. It gets removed when water flow is at its peak.

“That’s the only way we can move it in manageable pieces and also control the flow,” he explains. “We don’t want to set a whole bunch of ice at one time, because what will happen there is we will have an ice damming issue, which we would have to alleviate that. And we want to try and avoid that as possible.”

It’s important work – but also, a spectacle for those who came out to see it Sunday.

“Kicking off my birthday with a long time tradition of watching the ice get blown up and go over the falls,” laughs Devon Miles. “It’s wicked just to look at explosions happen. It’s just so satisfying.”

“We grab a coffee, we come out and enjoy it. Like there’s a lot of people come up to it.”

Stephen Perkins says he’s lived in the area for 30 years and comes out as often as he can.

“It’s a real Ottawa thing to do. You go skating on the canal when it’s cold. When it warms up, you blow it up,” Perkins says.

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