Dad’s Dreamy Day

You make the plan, prep the food, spread the blanket and provide the kids’ entertainment. Your handsome, hard-working hubbie nibbles on treats in the warm sun as he watches his well-behaved children frolic across the grass under your capable supervision.
Ah, parenting the way he imagined it would be! If you’re looking to deliver that dream to him this year for Father’s Day (and all the best to you if you do), we have a few hot picnic spots you might want to start with.

Bate Island, along the Ottawa River underneath the Champlain Bridge, offers soothing river views and the sound of rushing water together with restrooms, parking, picnic tables and garbage cans. This is an ideal spot for the bird-watching or fly-fishing dad, so bring binoculars or a tackle box if that’s his thing. If yours is an energetic, cycling dad, remember you can easily get here by bicycle via the recreational path on the Ottawa parkway.

The Rideau Hall grounds at 1 Sussex Drive are an ideal picnic destination for the heritage-loving Dad. Here you can take an optional guided tour, or take yourselves on a self-guided tour from either entrance, following interpretive panels. There are more than 10,000 trees here for shade as well as an inuksuk, a totem pole, a play structure, water fountains and benches. The grounds are open daily from 8 am to an hour before sunset.