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Five worth a drive at night

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Tempted to cocoon on week nights?  Totally understandable, especially during an endless winter like this one. Thing is, you’re missing out on chances to spice up your same old-same old life. Patrick Langston has found five fun Monday to Friday outings that won’t cut into your sleep schedule.

Monday: Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health

299 Montreal Road
A visual show-stopper on Montreal Road, the rippling glass-and-stone Wabano Centre designed by architect Douglas Cardinal is just as arresting inside. Find out how arresting at the free, everyone-welcome Culture Night each Monday, 6-8 p.m.  The Cultural Gathering Space, a rotunda with a mammoth tiled star blanket on the floor and a medicine wheel on the ceiling above, features an elder or other expert explaining an aspect of First Nations culture such as women’s role as keepers of water. Other activities include cultural workshops like drumming or crafts. Make sure you explore the building including the washrooms: if you’re a woman, that means the enveloping, strawberry-themed bathroom (the plant’s symbolic meanings include reconciliation); if you’re male, it’s a simpler one with photos and explanations of wampum belts.

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Opened in 2013, the centre offers health and other programs for the Aboriginal community.

What else you can do:
Early dinner at Bobby’s Table, 255 Montreal Rd.; the club sandwiches are terrific. Stroll through Vanier’s tiny, perfect Richelieu Forest with its unexpected urban sugar shack.

Information: 613-748-0657 ext. 222. wabano.com

In the Ottawa Little Theatre lobby.
In the Ottawa Little Theatre lobby.

Tuesday: Ottawa Little Theatre

400 King Edward Ave.
Currently in its 102nd season, OLT has long been a cornerstone of culture in the capital. Casual wear may have replaced the black ties and elegant dresses that once defined OLT audiences, but opening nights – always on a Tuesday – still have the buzz of anticipation that marks a new production. Other things have remained the same too: the wonderful photographs by Yousuf Karsh still hang in the lobby; the National Anthem still opens each show; sets still lean toward the realistic and detailed. None of which should suggest the multi award-winning community theatre company is old-fashioned. In fact, it’s making a conscious and successful effort to capture new, younger audiences with more contemporary shows like Canadian playwright Douglas Bowie’s comedy/drama Goodbye, Piccadilly opening March 24. The bar is open pre-show and at intermission. Showtime at OLT is 7:30 so you’re home at a reasonable hour.

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Travel tip:
Street parking in the area can be minimal: try the lower levels of the Loblaws heated parking garage at Rideau and Nelson streets.

Information: 613-233-8948, ottawalittletheatre.com

.The Laff
.The Laff Photo by Chris Mikula /The Ottawa Citizen

Wednesday: John Carroll

The Lafayette, 42 York St.
As an Ottawan you’ve doubtless heard of The Laff, the unassuming ByWard Market bar that, under various names, has been catering to our fondness for beer and conviviality since 1849. Question is, have you ever been there? If not, John Carroll, the blues-folk-rock guy with a deft touch on the guitar and a singular take on the world, is your reason for going. Carroll has played there every Wednesday night since 2004 and he’s a treat: wry, observant and with the kind of beat-up voice that you instinctively trust. Like any respectable tavern, and this one is Ottawa’s oldest, The Laff’s bar selection includes quarts, draught beer and more. Subs also available.

What else you can do:
A stroll through the ByWard Market is fine but usually uneventful. More interesting is a prowl through residential streets to the north, once the home of 19th century labourers. In clement weather, hike up to Major’s Hill Park with its views of Parliament Hill and the National Gallery, the Ottawa River, and Gatineau.

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Information: 613-241-4747, thelaff.ca

Detail from M.C. Escher¹s Relativity.
Detail from M.C. Escher¹s Relativity.

Thursday: Museums and the National Gallery

Canadian Museum of Nature, 240 McLeod St.; Canadian War Museum, 1 Vimy Place, Ottawa; Canadian History Museum, 100 Laurier St., Gatineau; National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Dr.

All these institutions have free admission on Thursday evenings. That not only gives you something to look forward to all day at work, it also means you the money you didn’t spend on tickets can go for a post-visit dinner or drink. The freebee deal starts at 4 or 5 p.m. depending on the musuem and runs till 8 p.m. in all cases. You will have to pay for special exhibits at the Museum of Nature ($4 for the current Arctic Voices, for example) and Imax films at the Museum of History ($7-$11). Otherwise, free admission gets you into everything including, at the National Gallery until May 3, the brain-boggling show M.C. Escher: The Mathemagician. Works by the Dutch-born graphic artist include Relativity, his lithograph in which staircases are connected in a dizzyingly impossible fashion.

Information: Nature: 613-566-4700, nature.ca; History: 819-776-7000, historymuseum.ca; War: 819-776-7000, warmuseum.ca; Gallery: 613-990-1985, gallery.ca

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Camp Fortune.
Camp Fortune. Photo by Cole Burston /Ottawa Citizen

Friday: Night skiing and sledding

Various locations
Need a shot of fresh air and exercise after the previous four nights of indoor entertainment? Evening skiing gets the blood pumping again.  Camp Fortune lights up 12 runs for skiing and snowboarding; $28.70 buys an adult lift ticket good from 4 to 10 p.m. Other hills offer night skiing as well; Mont Cascades, for example, has 15 runs and stays open until midnight on Fridays. In Ottawa, cross-country skiers can do their late-winter thing until 9 p.m. on lit trails at Mooney’s Bay Ski Centre. The $3 fee at the centre includes free parking and indoor waxing benches. Tobogganing enthusiasts should head to Conroy Pit, Green’s Creek and other sites for evening sledding.

What else is there to do?
Can’t get enough of the outdoor night life? If the Rideau Canal Skateway doesn’t appeal or is closed, try the Sens Rink of Dreams at City Hall; the outdoor, artificial rink is open until 11 p.m.

Information: Camp Fortune, 819-827-1717, campfortune.com; Mont Cascades, (819) 827-0301, montcascades.ca; Tobogganing, 613-239-5000, ncc-ccn.gc.ca; Mooney’s Bay & Sens Rink of Dreams, 613-247-4883, ottawa.ca

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