His lordship arrived home early the other night (which doesn’t happen very often!) to take me on a surprise trip to see the RCMP Sunset Ceremony. That’s the Royal Canadian Military Police, or Mounties! Heaven!
He drives past their ‘training ground’ on his way into work and just happened to notice there was something ‘special’ going on (I think it was all the big tents, flags and in particular, the whacking great bandstand that gave it away). So once he got to work he checked it out on the web and found that the Sunset Ceremony was taking place that weekend. Apparently the display only takes place once a year, then they take it out on the road – or ‘rails’ depending on how far they’re going! They load the horses into their very own train carriages, and if you’ve ever seen ‘Due South’ with Paul Gross as the Mountie who’s gone down to Chicago and ends up staying there helping out the police, there’s an episode which uses the actual train WITH the real mounties all charging out of it on their horses to catch the villain. It’s brilliant! I can remember seeing it when I lived in the UK and that’s when I fell in love with them! (Sigh!!)
Anyway … Even though we got there really early, the traffic was queuing for miles to park because the event was only on for a few days and it seemed as though not one person in the whole of Ottawa wanted to miss it.
The only down side about the whole thing was the fact it was taking place in the dying light of the day. My little HP Photosmart is fantastic in every situation except darkness with moving objects! So the later it got the more blotchy and blurred my photos became!
First up was a dog display where dogs from different sections of the force and their handlers race round an obstacle course. Some dogs were better than others and one was the definite ‘clown’ preferring to jump over the fence into the audience and scare them half to death. He refused every single jump but got the biggest round of applause (I think out of sympathy for his poor handler who would probably have to buy the beers that night!).
Trying to get him back into the 'ring'!!!
He did (I think) come into his own when they brought out ‘the purse snatcher’. He got THAT bit right and mauled the poor bloke so badly it took 2 officers to peel him away. Even when the poor ‘purse snatcher’ had been read his rights, he was still being bitten to bits. He eventually made a run for it with the dog chasing him right out of the arena, leaving one officer still on his knees wondering what on earth had happened and his handler trailing along behind!
Got 'im!! 
Just when you think you're safe from harm ...
Next came the ‘rider training’ display, which was rather like watching a local gymkhana except that these guys used guns to SHOOT the balloons, and lances to STAB the flags! It was all pretty cool (and noisy) stuff.
Yes, that's a gun in his hand!
Next up (or down!) were the ‘Skyhawks’ parachute team. The display ground was right at the end of the Air Museum runway and I’d already photographed the ‘Skyhawks’ plane taking off earlier in the evening. The announcer directed our attention from the arena to the sky and down they came, three at a time. The first jumper had a massive Canadian Flag dangling and as he fell, the band played the Canadian national anthem.
They didn’t land in the arena and aimed primarily for a narrow strip of field near the car park. There was only one of them who seemed to land a little closer to the cars than the others. I have to admit that I missed the flair of the British Parachute Regiment’s ‘Red Devils’, and the fabulous ‘finale’ of the RAF ‘Falcons’, who always seem to managed to line up on the display ground as the Hercules C140 they’ve just jumped out of swoops across them. Mind you, they all jump at the same time and this arena was far too small for the ‘Skyhawks’ to land in.
The ‘Skyhawks’ did go one better though. Right at the end of the entire display – in the darkness, their aircraft (maybe with them all waving from the windows – who knows?) departed from the airport and with every available light switched on performed a ‘fly-past’ overhead (which WAS pretty cool!). It was like watching a UFO appearing out of the night sky (but I didn’t get any photos of that).
Going up...........
Coming down! The 'flag' is on the left. The parachute is smaller than the flag!
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One of the funniest races I’ve ever seen was the ‘Departmental Race’ where a ‘volunteer’ (Yeah! Right!) from every department of the RCMP raced two at a time, round the outside track where a load of obstacles had been placed. The traffic police sauntered round, stopping at the obstacles and giving them parking tickets; the SWAT guys got to the punch bag and simply blasted it off its stand; and the forensic girls stopped at just about every obstacle taking swabs and finger prints!
I felt so sorry for the SWAT blokes though. It was a really hot and humid evening and there they were in full riot gear complete with heavy bullet proof protection. I don’t think there was one bit of their body that wasn’t covered. They had their dogs with them and even THEY were wearing heavy bullet proof vests! The last obstacle was to carry a HUGE bag of sand 50 metres. When the forensic girls got there, all the hunky blokes from their team came rushing across the track and carried both them AND the bag of sand across the finish line! The dog handlers carried their dogs instead - including the heavy vests! In that heat! But I loved it! Mainly because I’d not seen anything like it before.
The 'hottest' bloke on parade!!!
THEN, my mounties arrived, in their red uniforms, carrying their lances (with the little flags on), and riding on their beautiful black horses. They performed the ‘Musical Ride’, a wonderful array of precision riding where a simple mistake could result in being stabbed with a lance, or knocked off your horse! It was very much like the RAF Regiment performing their ‘6 billion moves without a command’, but these guys travel on horse back and move so fast they're often a blur of red and black and you're wondering how on earth they don't collide with each other and end up in a heap of legs and tails. And of course it's all accompanied by music!
Taking the salute...
Going round and round in circles
'The Wedding'. Parading underneath the lances....
It was wonderful, definitely my idea of Mountie Heaven!
