OTTAWA --
Taking time to head outdoors can be a big mood-booster. With the arrival of spring, and with plenty of sunshine in the forecast, discovering the capital’s Greenbelt, a protected network of forest trails, can be the perfect nature escape close to home.
At the Mer Bleue Bog, a protected nature reserve, visitors can see stunted spruce trees, blueberry bushes and plenty of cotton grass along the 1.2 km boardwalk that rests above the acidic water of the bog. Wildlife is abundant: birds, beavers and muskrat, even turtles if you keep your eye out.
For Jeanne Chan and her sons Gavin and Blake, there is serenity here.