Ottawa became Canada’s capital in 1857 largely because Queen Victoria, asked to settle a bitter rivalry between Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, and Kingston, chose a comparatively small lumber town instead, a decision partly motivated by Ottawa’s relatively defensible inland position, safely distant from the American border, and partly as a genuinely practical way to avoid favouring any of the larger, more politically contentious cities already competing for the honour. That compromise choice has proven remarkably durable, Ottawa has remained the undisputed capital for well over 150 years since.
The Rideau Canal, running directly through the city centre, was originally built in the 1830s for military purposes, providing an alternate supply route avoiding the heavily contested St. Lawrence River near the American border, and now serves a considerably more peaceful function, freezing each winter into the world’s largest naturally maintained skating rink, a UNESCO World Heritage Site used daily by commuters skating to work rather than merely as a tourist novelty.
A Parliament Building Rebuilt After Fire
Ottawa’s Parliament Buildings, including the iconic Peace Tower, were substantially rebuilt after a devastating 1916 fire destroyed much of the original Centre Block, an accident whose cause was never definitively established, though wartime sabotage was widely suspected at the time given Canada’s active involvement in the First World War. The rebuilt Gothic Revival structure, completed in the 1920s, remains one of the most recognisable government buildings in North America, its library, one of the only sections to survive the original fire largely intact thanks to a fire door closed just in time.
Ottawa’s bilingual character, reflecting Canada’s official English and French languages, is woven directly into daily civic life, government signage, services, and institutions operating in both languages as standard practice rather than exception.
Painting a Canal Frozen Into a Rink
The Rideau Canal winding past Ottawa’s Gothic Parliament buildings gives a watercolourist a genuinely distinctive urban composition to work with. We’ve captured that character in our own Ottawa Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of Canada for a wall at home.
Chosen specifically to end an argument between larger, more obvious rivals, Ottawa remains a capital whose entire existence traces back to a genuinely practical royal compromise.