Ottawa Is a Paradise

Despite its clean image and desire to remain the most boring town in Canada, Ottawa is actually wonderfully scummy. Partly due to its reputation as a boring government town and its history of Irish immigrants, Ottawans are known to let loose and forget about their papercuts on Fridays and Saturdays. It all goes down on Elgin or any of the pubs and clubs north of Rideau, and strangely, unlike other cities where people start going out at 12, Ottawans are hammered by 10, in the club by 10:15 and tossed to the curb by 12.

Not unlike the Friday night rush of Appalachian coal workers to a local bar after a week of mining, Canadian federal bureaucrats join hockey players, "puck bunnies," supposed gangsters, underagers, and anyone brave enough to face the night swill in the area known as the Byward Market, every single weekend.

So if you want to see who deals with your taxes at the CRA get into a punch-up with a 19-year-old junior hockey player who thinks he's destined for the show—the downtown of Canada's capital city on a weekend is where dreams are made.

That's why we asked our pal and Ottawa-based photographer Rémi Thériault to spend a week shooting pics around town. This is what he witnessed.

If you want to see more of Rémi's work, look here.