Ottawa is sometimes known as the less-fun counterpart to other major Canadian cities such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, but an online community led by young influencers wants to challenge that idea.
Carla Salazar, who’s behind @ottawaisnotboring on Instagram, says her content creation career began as part of an online communications class with the University of Toronto, when she was tasked with starting a blog from scratch.
“At that time, I had been living in Ottawa for two years and I loved the city from the moment I came. It was natural to start blogging about Ottawa and the things I love about this city,” the native of Lima, Peru says.
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In 2021, she started to focus on posting to her Instagram page as a break from the lengthy blog posts she’d been publishing. She started to cover events in the city and watched her numbers soar. In February 2022, she had about 2,000 followers. By the end of that summer, she had reached nearly 30,000 followers.
“So many newcomers, especially those who moved in the middle of the pandemic, really thought that Ottawa was a dead city, because that was what it looked like. So when all the events were coming back, I thought, well, I want to show these people, these newcomers, what they can find in Ottawa,” Salazar says.
Similarly, when Maddy Hadfield, who goes by @theottawadiaries on Instagram and TikTok, moved to Ottawa in 2014 to attend Carleton University’s journalism program, she couldn’t understand why people thought the city was boring.
“When I moved here, I just thought it was a city that was full of life and there was a ton of stuff happening. So I found it confusing that it had this reputation of being boring,” she tells OBJ.
Originally from the southwestern Ontario city of Cambridge, Hadfield credits her journalism education for forming the basis of her content creation career.
“It gave me the necessary tools to be a good content creator. I remember in journalism school, trying to find events to report on. I would look on Facebook and Eventbrite and search ‘what events are happening in my area?’” Hadfield says.
Hadfield says many people simply don’t know where to look when it comes to things to do. That is what inspired to start her social media pages in June 2018, showing people all the fun things Ottawa has to offer.
That’s what also inspired Elser Mitchell, known online as @elsermoira, to start making content about the nation’s capital.
Mitchell was born in Australia, then went to the U.K. for high school and university before deciding to move to Vancouver and then Ottawa. Mitchell says she was intrigued by Ottawa’s dull reputation and was determined to prove the naysayers wrong.
“When I moved to Ottawa, I felt like there was a gap in the market. There are so many amazing influencers out there, but particularly on TikTok, I didn’t see as many (talking about Ottawa). I’m a very type-A person where, every time I move to a city, I have this massive spreadsheet of all the things I want to do. So I thought I’d share my spreadsheet and that’s how I started,” Mitchell says, adding that she particularly enjoys sharing her experience of living in the city as a newcomer.
Jessica Traina, or @jessicaexploring as she’s known on Instagram and TikTok, wanted to keep chasing the feeling of travelling when she moved to Ottawa from Hamilton in 2019.
She began following accounts, much like the ones she runs now, to help her keep the novelty of the city alive. After some time, she decided to start her own account, with the hopes that it would get her out of the house and exploring the nation’s capital.
“I thought that there’s probably so many other people in the same boat as me. So I originally shared my page, kind of exploring Ottawa from the perspective of a newbie, and, you know, it led me to want to create resources for people that were like me to discover things that I thought were cool about Ottawa,” Traina says.
When choosing what to cover next, Hadfield, Salazar, Mitchell and Traina do a lot of their own research for their accounts.
Traina says she likes to put the spotlight on smaller businesses that may be lesser known and the events and places that bring her the most joy.
Hadfield recalls seeing the impact of influencer marketing in real time when she posted about Orange Monkey, a pool hall in Little Italy. “They usually have a slow season in the summer, but I did a post for them and they said it was the busiest off-season they’ve ever had,” she says.
Salazar had a similar experience when covering the Ooh Festival in the ByWard Market. She posted about the event and an artisan she talked about reached out to thank her for the exposure she had given the business.
“She asked those coming up to the booth how they found out about her and they said, ‘Because Ottawa Is Not Boring posted about it,’” Salazar says.
Mitchell, who does content creation full time, says brands often reach out to her to promote their business.
“They’ll present an idea, but then I’m giving the concept. I need to conceptualize how I’ll show it to my audience in a way that’s engaging and creative,” she says. “The aim is long-term partnerships since this is my full-time job. It’s cheaper for them to hire me than to hire a production company and make an ad.”
All four Ottawa influencers say their line of work results in one-on-one relationships with their audiences, including people who have lived here their whole lives to those who have been here for only two months. Their audiences reach out with questions about the best places to eat on date night, the best activities for families and even the best neighbourhood to live in. The creators say they are able to offer more targeted suggestions to send audiences about local businesses that best fit their needs.
Earlier this year, the City of Ottawa hired Montrealer Mathieu Grondin as “nightlife commissioner” in a bid to revitalize the city’s nightlife.
Traina and Hadfield both say Grondin should listen to the people who run the businesses that are most affected by the nightlife industry to figure out next steps in his nightlife economy plan.
Mitchell says safety should be at the forefront of improving Ottawa’s nightlife by making areas more walkable. She also recommends having options in the suburbs and outside of the culture of alcohol to enjoy nightlife in the city.
“Younger generations are not drinking as much. There is stuff like at the Wise Town Cafe on Elgin. They’re open really late and they do paint nights. Or even Kichesippi brewing that do events like mom’s night or trivia. I think having spaces which aren’t bars but rather community spaces is so important,” Mitchell says.
Finally, when asked how they felt about Ottawa’s rep as a boring city, the content creators made their pitch for why the opposite is true.
Mitchell says that statement is “a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“If you don’t go out and have fun then, of course, you’re going to perceive the city as not fun,” Mitchell says. “I hope I can broaden people’s horizons on what there is to do in the city.”
Hadfield says that while Ottawa is “not the sexiest city,” it can still be fun if you know where to look. “It’s not Toronto, it’s not Montreal, but it’s not trying to be that either. I like that we’re kind of an underdog city, we’re quieter about things, but that’s why content creation is so important in getting the word out about these places,” she says.
Salazar says what she and the other influencers do to promote exciting things in Ottawa is a win-win-win.
“The city, because it’s getting rid of this boring tag and helping tourism. It brings more attention to the business owners that participate in these events and to the newcomers, the immigrants, because it can be difficult to come to a new city. Knowing what’s happening in the city, they can begin to enjoy their life here,” she says.
During Salazar’s online course in 2020, she had to set a goal for her blog. She started as wanting to be seen as an advocate for Ottawa, but she says now her fans “say that I’m more of an ambassador.”
They share what they love most about the nation’s capital:
Carla Salazar: “I love many things of Ottawa, its beauty, the fact that it’s so close to nature, that it has vast green areas everywhere, but what I like the most and which I consider a luxury for all its residents is that in Ottawa you can find peaceful spots to relax in the middle of the city and feel like you are in the countryside!”
Maddy Hadfield: “The thing I love most about Ottawa is the sense of community here. The way people come together for events and to support local businesses is really special.”
Elser Mitchell: “I love that Ottawa is surrounded by nature, from the Greenbelt, lakes and the canal, to Gatineau Park. There’s always green space nearby!”
Jessica Traina: “I love being in a city that embraces all four seasons. I always grew up knowing keeping cool in the summer and hibernating in the winter. Ottawa is like the exact opposite. I realized this with the first big snowfall I experienced and someone cross-country skied to the grocery store.”
