Serving Ottawa's Westboro Beach Community
Mark your calendars for December 1 and get ready to kick off the holiday season with us! Santa will be spreading holiday cheer and collecting food and cash donations for the Westboro Food Bank. Check the poster for details.
We are holding our AGM on Tuesday, November 26th from 7:00 p.m to 8:45 p.m. We would love if you could join us that evening. We have a great line up of speakers and topics.
Our guest speaker is Alex Cullen, past president of the Federation of Citizen’s Associations (FCA). The FCA is an association of local Ottawa citizens associations. Member associations share information about issues facing their communities and, when appropriate take joint action. There is power in numbers. Alex will be joining us to chat about pace and scope of change from all three levels of government (municipal, provincial and federal), what it means to local communities and how communities can effect change when working together.
We also have Bill Baggs joining us to introduce the Island Park Traffic Coalition. Bill will take about 10 minutes to talk about the recently-formed group that is a coalition of local community associations which is focused on Island Park Drive traffic issues and how they impact the local community.
Finally, and definitely never least, our Councilor Jeff Leiper joining us to give his perspective of the last year, what to expect in 2025 and to answer your questions and we’re sure there will be many.
Our AGM is open to everyone. Our signup form allows you to specific whether you live in our catchment area and are entitled to vote on WBCA matters or whether you don’t, and will be there to listen and ask questions.
Make sure to signup/register soon. We will send out the meeting video link to everyone who signs up. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, November 25th at 7 p.m.
It’s hard to believe but it has been 5 long years since we did our last beach BBQ. The pandemic then followed by smoke and air quality had stopped us. But NOT this year! The weather was great. The food delicious and everyone had fun. Thanks to the many volunteers who made it possible and to the 200+ people who came out to celebrate the end of school, have some fun and just enjoy the beach.
We met a lot of new people from outside our community which made the day even better. The grills were hot and our cooks worked extra hard that day. We had a mix of meat and veggie burgers/hot dogs along with lots of free watermelon and treats.
Our face painters were very busy that day and our new addition of bubbles for the kids (and adults) was a hit.
We have already started planning for our end of summer evening event in September and yes, we’re even starting to think about our big winter carnival next January. For the moment though, we’re all going to enjoy the sun and a great Canada Day weekend. A special thanks to the Rotary Club Of West Ottawa for providing extra volunteer help.
It is time to clean out your attic and basement. The annual Kitchissippi Garage sale is less than two weeks away on Saturday, June 1st starting at 8 a.m. (Rain date is June 2nd).
The nine community associations, including the WBCA are coordinating with Councilor Jeff Leiper’s office to hold a community garage sale across the entire ward.
Do you want to make sure your yard sale is noticed? Jeff’s office has created a map of all the yard sale locations. Add your yard sale to the google map by emailing jeff.leiper@ottawa.ca. The map is updated daily. The map makes it easy for people to plan their shopping day and makes it easy for them to find you!
1935 – 2024
The Westboro Beach Community has lost a stalwart and beloved resident whose legacy in protecting our community will live on. Shortly after receiving his Ph. D. in organic chemistry from Northwestern University in 1961, Don left the USA and moved to Canada. He quickly became an internationally respected scientist at Innovations, Science and Economic Development Branch at Industry Canada, a career he loved so much that he continued to work there until well into his 80’s. As his family grew, he and his first wife, Yvette, and their two children, Alexia and Jan, moved to their house on Lochaber Ave. In those days, Westboro Beach Community was still a little rough around the edges, but Don soon fell in love with the Ottawa River and most especially, Westboro Beach itself. He shared his knowledge, expertise and passion for many decades to ensure its vitality and safety.
Don became actively involved with the beach in the early 1980s when the Westboro Community Study of the late 70s showed a need to make broader use of Westboro Beach as a recreational resource. As a response, Dovercourt Recreation Centre was created and the goal for the beach was to use the centre as a means for creating a choice of activities more than for just supervised swimming and a poor learn to swim program. It was probably 1981 when a group of community volunteers led by Counsellor Tripp Kennedy started constructing a hard top patio one Saturday morning in early Spring with Don being one of the first to sink his shovel into the ground in helping to set up a refreshment centre for Sunday cyclists, florist displays and recreational opportunities like beach volleyball, paddling and winter skating and skiing. Things flourished in the 1980s but Dovercourt had to withdraw their beach staff when the City would not give up their poorly operated aquatic program and the accompanying funding that went with it which would have enabled Dovercourt to maintain their beach supervisor. By the 1990s the beach had returned to being poorly managed with lots of vandalism, litter and numerous no swimming days because of supposed polluted water. Don and John Almstedt organized a team of volunteers to fight back. Don, with his chemistry background, led a program to monitor water quality and identify sources of pollution. This directly reduced the number of beach closures and played a major role in the founding of Ottawa Riverkeeper. By 2000, the beach was revitalized once again. Don played a major role in helping Moe Attalah reorganize and upgrade the kitchen. Don was an ardent supporter of the beach cafe up until his last days.
In late 1990’s, there was a push to widen the Champlain Bridge. As part of that thrust, the NCC pushed the City of Ottawa very hard to open Churchill Ave. to the Ottawa River Parkway, a move that would have bisected the Westboro Beach Community and turned Churchill Ave. into a major feeder route for Quebec bound cars. Around the same time, another big issue was the development of the greenspace between Selby Avenue and the parkway. The NCC was beginning to quietly sell off big chunks of its greenspace to pay for its operating costs when the federal government cut their budget. Don decided to make an access to information request to find out what was going on. It became horrifyingly clear that the NCC was planning development in the area. They even had the drawings which included streets. The WBCA quickly renamed the land the Selby Plains and the Atlantis Woods to give it a real place name. Don, along with the rest of the newly formed community association, was opposed to losing this space. For a start, it was a flood plain that absorbed water from the rest of the neighbourhood. Don never gave up this fight. He made an access request every week to keep on top of this file. He phoned them constantly and asked them just to cc him on the e-mails to save time and expense. At the end of the day, the NCC relented and took this greenspace off the real estate market. When you now enjoy skiing and walking in this area, please take a moment to remember Don. He kept it safe for future generations.
Don leaves behind his partner, Susan Barker, his children and grandchild.
We will miss this gentleman, scientist and community builder.
A celebration of life for Don will be held on July 27 from 12 to 4pm at the First Unitarian Church, 30 Cleary Ave.
In cooperation with the Kich Sibi Winter Trail and the NCC, a shared project has been started to build habitat for bats in our neighbourhood. Not only do bats eat mosquitoes and other annoying bugs but they are essential pollinators and a critical part of our natural environment.
Bat houses have now been installed on the south facing wall of the storage containers where the snow grooming equipment is kept.
Fingers crossed that this refuge is spotted by our furry friends and these creatures consider the Westboro Beach area home during the summer months.
For more information, please contact Dave Adams, Manager of the Kichi Sibi Winter Trail (manager@wintertrail.ca)
We are batty for these bat houses!
Our new neighbour…hopefully!
Cleaning the Capital is a citywide cleanup that occurs in the spring and fall of every year, bringing Ottawa residents together as a community to help clean litter from our public spaces. Join your neighbours from April 18 to May 3 and help make the Westboro Beach Community a little bit cleaner.
Check out the schedule, instructions and sign up.
It took many neighbours to put together our winter carnival. A big thank you to all of our volunteers – the chili makers, the ice block makers, the set up and tear down team, the fire pit managers, the snow soccer coaches, the hot chocolate and cookie makers and the marshmallow support team. This year we had 8 volunteers from the west end Rotary Club join us. We loved the spirit of community and positive energy they brought to our event. We had over 200 visitors from not only our neighbourhood but from Gatineau and Orleans.
The carnival included our traditional snow block wall and spray bottles for kids to paint, the fire pit to roast marshmallows (we went through 150 skewers and many bags of marshmallows), hot chocolate (5 large pots came and went) and homemade cookies. We added a couple new activities this year that were a great hit. We sold homemade chili, we borrowed a large warming fire pit and we had a snow soccer pitch! The kids were busy and the we all had a chance to connect and socialize.
A special shoutout to our very own Dave Adams, head groomer for the Kichi Sibi Winter Trail who helped out by grooming the area, transporting supplies and providing the large fire pit warming area. We were also very pleased to welcome our City Councillor, Jeff Leiper. Check out our chat with Jeff below.
We are already starting to plan our 2025 Winter Carnival, making it bigger and more fun next year. In the meantime, start planning ahead and mark your calendars for June 27th, 2024 for our End of School Beach BBQ! Let us know if you have any suggestions, we love hearing from you!
It’s time for our annual Winter Carnival! It’s looking like we’ll have lots of snow and fun. We will be gathering at Selby Plain near the corner of Selby Ave & Atlantis Ave (Google map link) on Saturday, February 10th from 12:30 to 3:30 pm.
Come for an afternoon of Winter fun. Warm your fingers and toes by the bonfire, roast marshmallows, enjoy some free homemade treats and a cup of hot chocolate (please bring a mug). We will also have delicious chili (vegetarian) for sale. Build a snow fort with our ice blocks or a snowperson. We’ll be partnering with Dave/Kichi Sibi Wikan Winter Trail for even more fun this year
Everyone is welcome but please be generous and make a donation to our association so we can keep doing fun things all year long for the community.
We have a sign-up form which will help us plan for the event and make sure we have lots of hot chocolate and treats for everyone who joins us
We want to start with a big thanks to all the volunteers from the neighbourhood (aka, hard working elves) who organized and participated in our fourth annual Holiday Parade and Food Drive. We collected over $600 and 500 pounds of food which was delivered to the Westboro Region Food Bank on Monday.
The parade had decorated floats, both big and small elves, bike riders, walkers, festive dogs (closest we could get to reindeer) and of course, Santa himself. Groomer Dave joined us again this year with his personal wish for snow. We will watch the weather to see if Dave is on Santa’s naughty or nice list.
The parade which started at Island Park Drive and ended at Westboro beach, meandered through our neighbourhood spreading holiday cheer and of course, handing out candy canes to everyone who came out to greet them.
We wish you, your family and friends a Merry Christmas/Happy Holiday and are looking forward to seeing you at our Winter Carnival on January 27th, 2024.
Westboro Beach Community Association 