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A regular weekly look-back at some offbeat or interesting stories that have appeared in the Ottawa Citizen over its 175-year history. Today, amazing acrobatics:
On Sept. 9, 1864, The Great Farini, one of the world’s most accomplished acrobats, amazed Ottawa and Hull residents as he crossed the dangerous Chaudière Falls on a tightrope, blindfolded, in a sack and with baskets on his feet.
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Signor Guillermo Farini was, in fact, 25-year-old Port Hope, Ont. native William Hunt, and two performances were scheduled for that Friday, at 3 and 9 p.m.
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A regular weekly look-back at some offbeat or interesting stories that have appeared in the Ottawa Citizen over its 175-year history. Today, a party town in winter:
Ottawa’s first winter carnival, held over six days beginning on Jan. 21, 1895, was the hottest cold-weather ticket going in the capital, with snowshoeing, skating, curling, hockey and ice-trotting only small parts of the overall festivities. Visitors from Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, New York and elsewhere filled the city’s hotels and rooming houses.
Harper’s Weekly magazine sent illustrator William Hurd Lawrence here to capture the hibernal hoopla with pen and ink.