My present, to understand my meaning of the past, for the future

My task now is to work towards understanding my present and sense of place. In an effort to organize my thinking, I asked myself this pointed questions about how I know about the past of place: How does one experience historic places? What does it mean when a site is ‘historical’? How does knowledge of the ‘history’ of a site change its meaning?

For this specific project, I was asked to look at the Rideau Canal in Ontario. Before I started any of my research, and even re-visited the site with the 'historical' element of it in mind, I start with a short narrative of how I presently understand the Rideau Canal as a 'place':

I have lived in Ottawa, Canada’s capital for over two years now. I originally moved into an apartment off of Sussex drive, where I walked passed and over the last segments of the Rideau Canal almost daily. It became a part of my habitus, something that within my own sense of space, but this was very much in a frame of the present, with little attention to the consciousness of the past. I walked my dog on Major’s hill at least twice a day, letting him run freely amongst the ruins of Colonel John By’s house. 

Walkway on Major's Hill Park

It was always windy up there, but the view was breath-taking, the open expanse of the Ottawa river and the controlled geography of the canal itself with the grand architecture of the Chateau Laurier on one side, and the East bloc of Parliament on the other. I interacted with the canal as if it was eternal. It was not something I thought about: why it was built, who built it (the labourers, the foremen, the engineers, and Colonel By of course), how it was built, what it has meant to the ‘founding of Canada’ as a nation state as it appears today. Or even what historically had to happen to make this space 'the canal' as I experience it now. I was simply part of the cityscape where I lived. 
In the winter I would wait, like all Ottawans, for the ice on the canal to be solid enough for the customary skate on the canal - it was not an engineering feat, it was "the world's largest skating rink" (National capital commission). It was where I had my first beavertail, where you could watch all the kids learning to skate, and all of the couples holding hands and gliding for kilometers to Dow's Lake. 

Rideau Canal: Winter and Summer

In the summer, and warmer seasons, it was a nice walk along the waterway, seeing all of the boats, and the main walkway to Parliament for Canada Day fireworks.  

Even within my own description, when I start to see how my own present conception of place relates to pasts, I can see how the Rideau Canal is integral to understanding the Capital as a place, Ottawa as a place, and an environment of national belonging. 

My description is also infused with the concept of tradition, which is in itself something that is very much linked to a legacy of the past. The tradition of skating in the winter, boats and long strolls in the summer, Canada Day celebrations, which are founded in a concept of the past, and preservation and continuation of the past into the present. It also very much speaks to Anderson's (2006) conceptions of nationalism and imagined communities. It reveals how place can act as physical manifestation of community. People from Ottawa, from Canada, come together at the canal, in all seasons.

References
Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections of the origin and spread of nationalism. Revided ed. London: Verso. Retrieved from http://www.nationalismproject.org/what.htm

National Capital Commission. Rideau canal skateway. Retrieved from http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/places-to-visit/rideau-canal-skateway