Thunderstruck

I tried, but was unable to find any news mentions of the lightning strike that damaged the Bank Street "Lone Pine" in the summer of 1880, per the Ottawa Citizen article cited two posts back — "...With the exception of one limb, the one blasted by lightning last summer, the "lone pine" might have lived out the present generation." (April 19, 1881).

I did however notice this "stormy" paragraph which appeared, uncredited, in that same newspaper in the spring of the year in question.*

Monday, May 10 1880, Ottawa Citizen

We must assume that at the time of writing, most readers would have understood the phrase "at the juncture of the two bridges" without further explanation. The likeliest "juncture" would have been that of the Sappers' (1827) and Dufferin (1870) Bridges, now the northeast corner of Confederation Square Triangle. I've circled that vantage point on a Goad map from the late 1800s.

Both structures were demolished circa 1912, replaced by the present Plaza Bridge during the Chateau Laurier / Central Station construction.

Anyone familiar with our city's weather patterns knows how summer storms so often seem to follow the Ottawa River as they track eastward. The south end of Major's Hill Park at the top of the locks would have indeed offered a "transcendant" view of passing storms, a vista not then occluded by the Chateau Laurier or the Daly Building. Better than any fireworks show if you ask me.

The "Bierstadt" mentioned in the article was the German-born, American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) who specialized in dynamic views of clouds, mountains and bodies of water. For a man who painted so many clouds, many of them stormy, his work is oddly devoid of lightning. Did he feel that great bolts crashing from the heavens constituted overkill?

Bierstadt was "a guest at Rideau Hall" when the Marquess of Lorne and Princess Louisa, both lovers of the arts (if less so of each other) resided there. (Oscar Wilde is said to have tried, but failed, to snag an invite with the Lorne's when he visited Ottawa two years later.)

Bierstadt's attentions favoured American and European landscapes — Canadian depictions are scarce, and I find none overlooking the Ottawa River. By way of consolation, here is a view of Niagara Falls which he completed in 1869...  no storm but lots of thunder (I think this is from the Canadian side).

* I can't read this passage without hearing the voice of actor Simon Russell Beale, in character as the astonishing and delightful Ferdinand Lyle in Showtime's Penny Dreadful.