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Corktown Footbridge

2006 establishments in OntarioBridges completed in 2006Bridges in OttawaIrish-Canadian culture in OntarioPedestrian bridges in Canada

The Corktown Footbridge (French: Passerelle Corktown) is a pedestrian footbridge over the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The 70-metre (230 ft) bridge is located about 400 m (1,300 ft) south of the Laurier Avenue Bridge and connects the University of Ottawa campus with the Golden Triangle neighbourhood. It was opened on 21 September 2006. The bridge also connects the eastern and western sides of the Rideau Canal Pathway and has links to Colonel By Drive on its eastern side and to Queen Elizabeth Driveway and Somerset Street on its western side. The bridge's name refers to a series of shanties built along the "Deep Cut" section of the Rideau Canal during its construction. Many of the labourers living in Corktown came from County Cork in Ireland, giving it its name. The idea of a bridge between the University of Ottawa and the Golden Triangle dates back to the 1980s. It went through many years of review and feasibility studies with no success. The university and its students were strong supporters of concept, saying that the bridge would provide students with easier access to retail on Elgin Street and would connect the Golden Triangle to uOttawa station. City councillors Diane Holmes and Clive Doucet also lobbied heavily for the construction of a bridge. Finally, in January 2005, city council narrowly approved a $5 million bridge project.In spring of 2007, a naming committee was struck by councillors Diane Holmes and Georges Bédard, composed of stakeholders from communities on both sides of the bridge. The committee presented its report to a public meeting on May 29, 2007, where members of the public had an opportunity to express their preferred name from three shortlisted names: Somerset Footbridge, Charlotte Whitton Footbridge, and Corktown Footbridge. Public support for the "Corktown" name was overwhelming. The name was also promoted by groups such as the Ottawa District Labour Council, the Bytown Museum, and an ad-hoc group called "Friends of Corktown Bridge", which organized a cèilidh in advance of the public meeting. The formal ceremony to name the Corktown Footbridge was held on 11 September 2007 led by Mayor Larry O'Brien.The Corktown Footbridge has numerous love locks attached to its railing. In 2014, Professor Murat Saatcioglu of the University of Ottawa determined that there was no risk of structural collapse from the weight of the love locks attached to the railing of the bridge. In 2019 numerous of the love locks were removed due to "the amount, placement and clumping of locks," and that city staff routinely inspect the locks and removed damaged ones.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Corktown Footbridge (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Corktown Footbridge
Somerset West Stairs, (Old) Ottawa Somerset

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N 45.420555555556 ° E -75.684416666667 °
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Corktown Footbridge

Somerset West Stairs
K1N 9A5 (Old) Ottawa, Somerset
Ontario, Canada
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University of Ottawa

The University of Ottawa (French: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on 42.5 hectares (105 acres) directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa across the Rideau Canal in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood. The University of Ottawa was first established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the first bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Ottawa, Joseph-Bruno Guigues. Placed under the direction of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, it was renamed the College of Ottawa in 1861 and received university status five years later through a royal charter. On 5 February 1889, the university was granted a pontifical charter by Pope Leo XIII, elevating the institution to a pontifical university. The university was reorganized on July 1, 1965, as a corporation, independent from any outside body or religious organization. As a result, the civil and pontifical charters were kept by the newly created Saint Paul University, federated with the university. The remaining civil faculties were retained by the reorganized university.The University of Ottawa is the largest English-French bilingual university in the world. The university offers a wide variety of academic programs, administered by ten faculties including the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine, the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, the Telfer School of Management, and the University of Ottawa Faculty of Social Sciences. The University of Ottawa Library includes 12 branches, holding a collection of over 4.5 million titles. The university is a member of the Canadian U15 group of research-intensive universities, with a research income of CA$420 million in 2022. The school is co-educational and enrolls over 35,000 undergraduate and over 6,000 post-graduate students. The school has approximately 7,000 international students from 150 countries, accounting for 17 per cent of the student population. The university has a network of more than 195,000 alumni. The university's athletic teams are known as the Gee-Gees and are members of U Sports.

Governor General's Foot Guards
Governor General's Foot Guards

The Governor General's Foot Guards (GGFG) is the senior reserve infantry regiment in the Canadian Army. Located in Ottawa at the Cartier Square Drill Hall, the regiment is a Primary Reserve infantry unit, and the members are part-time soldiers. The GGFG are infantry reserve soldiers who train part-time and full-time for domestic operations and international missions. This involves training for domestic operations where the unit deployed members to help during a natural disaster or public emergency such as it did during the 1998 Ice Storm, flooding in 2017 and 2019, and during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It also involves training for international operations and support to the Regular Force on operations in countries such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Latvia, and Ukraine where troops from the regiment have deployed in recent years. Members of the GGFG train part time between September and June, usually Tuesday evenings and one weekend a month. Between May and August, members can be employed full time in a variety of roles such as students or instructors on training courses, taking part in tasks such as the Ceremonial Guard, and attending field exercises. The regiment also runs supplementary training programs such as the marksmanship program to improve shooting skills, and the leadership development training program to prepare soldiers to attend leadership courses. Additionally the regiment runs sports and fitness programs. The GGFG are also affiliated with 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (1 RCR) for reserve integration training. The GGFG perpetuate the 2nd Canadian Battalion (Eastern Ontario Regiment), CEF, and 77th Battalion (Ottawa), CEF, from the First World War.