Hello From Ottawa – The Canadian Tulip Festival Features The Flotilla

For a period of almost three weeks, the Canadian Tulip Festival offers a wide range of special events and festivities, and the Flotilla on the Rideau Canal is certainly one of the highlights. This morning I made my way down to Dow’s Lake through the leafy historic neighbourhoods of Ottawa. I parked my car about 20 minutes away from Commissioner’s Park which gave me the opportunity of a nice morning stroll through some of the gorgeous residential areas in Ottawa. Queen Elizabeth Driveway had been blocked off to road traffic, but yesterday I had the opportunity to drive right next to the Rideau Canal - it simply has to be one of the most scenic areas in Ottawa and one of the most serene public spaces in any of the big world cities that I have visited.

People were lining up beside Dow’s Lake and no one was quite sure if the weather was going to hold up or not, so there were many umbrellas to be seen in the crowd. But that didn’t deter a large number of loyal onlookers from gathering on the shores of Ottawa’s urban lake, ready to take in the beautiful images of the Flotilla. Ottawa’s parade on the water is one of the highlights of the Tulip Festival and this year more than 40 especially decorated boats participated.

The Flotilla Weekend features a variety of events, including Music on the Lake on a floating stage; there is a remote-control model boat exhibition and historic blacksmithing demonstration. The main event, the Flotilla started at 1:00 pm at Dows Lake and decorated boats of varying types and sizes paraded along the Rideau Canal all the way up to the Rideau Street Bridge. Along the route there is entertainment, refreshments and bilingual commentary introducing the participants.

Always curious, I made my way towards the announcer right next to the Dows Lake Pavilion who was dispatching and describing each floating participant in the parade. Right next to the announcer I found one of the key people behind the Canadian Tulip Festival: Benoît Hubert, the Executive Director of this non-profit organization who sat down with me to give me a better background of Ottawa’s largest festival.

The Canadian Tulip Festival got its start in 1953 and has very interesting historical roots: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands (1909 – 2004) went into exile to Canada during the Second World War and her daughter, Princess Margriet, was born at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. Canadian soldiers also played an integral role in liberating the Netherlands from Nazi occupation at the end of World War II. As a gesture of appreciation Princess Juliana sent 100,000 tulips to Canada in the fall of 1945 and this tradition has continued every year since then with an annual shipment of tulips from Holland.

The Tulip Festival has become a symbol of international friendship and over the last 53 years has evolved into the World’s biggest tulip festival. World-wide interest in this festival was stoked early when internationally renowned photographer Malak Karsh presented his stunning tulip pictures which appeared in newspapers all across the nation. Today more than two million flowers grace Ottawa during the festival, and the National Capital Commission, a federal agency with a mandate to beautify the National Capital Region, is in charge of the hundreds of flower beds and gardens that adorn the city.

Benoît mentioned that this year is a very special year since Ottawa is hosting the World Flower Council, an organization that promotes peace through the shared joy of flowers. The conference is introducing an international flavour to this year’s Tulip Festival and even the Flotilla had participants from the Netherlands, Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan, and France. He went on to explain that during the Kid’s World events, more than 3000 children come every day from different schools to learn about the history of the tulip.

The historical background of the tulip is surprisingly interesting: as a flower it is native to southern Europe, northern Africa and Asia, all the way from Anatolia and Iran east to northeast China and Japan. The tulip is the national flower of Iran and Turkey, and Persian and Turkish folk art prominently feature tulip motifs. Over the centuries tulips became more popular and moved westwards where Holland became the world’s primary tulip producer.

During the 1600s Holland was gripped by a regular “tulip mania” which makes the stock market crash of 1929 pale in terms of its speculatory excesses. At the peak of this crazy historic period, enormous prices were charged for a single tulip bulb. Today the term “tulip mania” has come to mean any large economic bubble. The historic appeal of the tulip has continued, evidenced by the fact that the Tulip Festival is Ottawa’s biggest festival, and incidentally the largest festival of its kind in the world. It attracts somewhere between 600,000 and 650,000 visitors in 19 days and generates C$ 70 million in revenue for the National Capital Region.

It is interesting to note that the Canadian Tulip Festival is a non-profit organization that only has three full-time employees year round. Leading up to the festival staff levels grow to 45 full-time employees and more than 1200 volunteers who play an integral part of this special event. The Canadian Tulip Festival enjoys the generous support of major sponsors such as the Casino du Lac-Leamy and the Hilton Lac Leamy, CTV, the Ottawa Citizen and Sun Life Financial.

Government Partners include the City of Ottawa, the Federal Government (Human Resources Development, Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions and Heritage Canada), Ontario’s tourism marketing agency ("Ontario - More To Discover"), the National Capital Commission (who is the “official gardener “of Canada’s Capital) as well as the City of Gatineau. From corporate sponsors, to public sector partners to private individuals, the Canadian Tulip Festival is a magnificent collaborative effort that mobilizes the entire National Capital Region on the Ontario and Quebec side and attracts visitors from all over the world.

The Tulip Festival has four official sites, all lavishly decked out with flower beds featuring different varieties of the coveted tulip. Parliament Hill, Majors Hill Park, Commissioners Park next to Dow’s Lake and the Casino du Lac-Leamy are all official Tulip Festival sites and host a variety of events, concerts and displays during an almost three week period.

The Capital Infocentre on Parliament Hill provides all the necessary information for visitors of the Tulip Festival and the Parliament Buildings are adorned by thousands of these iconic spring flowers. Commissioner’s Park showcases more than 350,000 tulips planted by the National Capital Commission. The Casino du Lac-Leamy in Gatineau on the other side of the Ottawa River has been hosting the “Tulip Explosion” for the last three years. This event encompasses floral shows, dress and hair design competitions as well as floral design competitions. Seven different schools compete for the top prize in floral design. Major’s Hill Park plays host to the Tulip Friendship Village, the Artisans Marketplace, to the Family Zone entertainment area as well as the Get Out! Ottawa Citizen Concert Series.

Benoît also informed me of the 16 attraction sites that are part of the Tulip Festival: all of Ottawa’s and Hull / Gatineau’s major attractions are part of this spring festival. Some of the attractions on this long list include the Canadian Agriculture Museum, the Dows Lake Pavilion, the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Rideau Centre, the National Gallery of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mint, the Canadian War Museum, Little Italy and many more.

There is no doubt that the Canadian Tulip Festival with all its attractions, special events, concerts and displays is a major tourist draw. Even the couple from Rochester that I met at the Auberge McGee said that the Tulip Festival was the main draw for them to come to Ottawa and it’s a wonderful way to get to know the City of Ottawa and its neighbour Gatineau across the River. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate the arrival of spring and the international friendships that are symbolized by the Canadian Tulip Festival.