Skating on the Rideau Canal Skateway was always a family affair for the Owenses.
Every February, parents Stephen Owens and Leslie Owens would drive more than four hours from Caledon, Ont. to visit their son Tyler. The couple, their sister and their two sons would spend Family Day on the icy canal.
“That’s been a tradition since I arrived (in Ottawa),” Tyler Owens said. “It was one of the things that we all did as a family.”
A decade later, the couple has poured their love for the skateway into Can I Skate?, an app tracking the canal’s ice conditions.
The couple, now Alta Vista residents for three years, worked together as software developers for over 30 years.
“We’ve been doing a wide range of projects together,” said Stephen Owens, pointing to their work developing pinball games, HTML editors and hospital software.
“This was sort of (our) fun, passion project,” he said.
The couple decided to create Can I Skate? after noticing information about the canal’s general and specific ice conditions, as well as its amenities, were all separate on the National Capital Commission’s website.
“The first inspiration was just, hey, this is all great. I’d like to put this in one place and make it a little more accessible,” Owens said.
They hoped the app would make the canal “a lot more present” in people’s days, Owens said, whether through a widget on their phone or their watch, or asking virtual assistant Siri about the ice conditions.
“My hope is always that people get out and skate more, that people appreciate the amazing resource that we have in Ottawa,” he added.
To develop the app, the couple spent three weeks in early 2022 learning about various iOS Apple technologies. They gathered raw, publicly available data about the canal’s ice conditions from the NCC, building the first version of the app in three months as the 2022 skating season ended.
Tyler Owens said he was one of the app’s first testers and full users. His tests helped identify issues with the app and potential new features, he said.
“I think it’s fun that I got to be one of the first users and I think there’s somewhere close to 1,000 total downloads now,” the younger Owens said. “It shows that people really do love the canal.”
He still tests the new features his parents develop for the app, he added. Tyler and his father recently spent a Wednesday skating, trying out a new workout tracking feature.
“My hope is always that people get out and skate more, that people appreciate the amazing resource that we have in Ottawa.”
— Stephen Owens, co-creator of Can I Skate? app
“I think that’s a great process to get out and enjoy it,” he said. “We’ve had a rough two years for the canal, so who knows how many more good years it’s got left.”
In the winter of 2023, history was made when the canal didn’t open for skating at all. Last winter, it was available for skating for only a handful of days. But this year, the skateway has been open for many weeks throughout January and February.
Although the canal closed for several days in late February following a good run during Winterlude, it was reopened for skating on March 2.
Kathy Dickson, a resident of Old Ottawa East and friend of the Owens for 30 years, has also tested new features for the app.
“I’m glad that it’s getting a little broader attention,” Dickson said. “The new features are going to be really useful.”
As a retiree, Dickson said she likes having the app on her phone’s homepage.
“It’s just the ease of knowing immediately, with little effort, what the conditions are like today,” she said.
Glennys Eagan, a Little Italy resident, also said she appreciates having information about the ice conditions “just one click away.”
“As a new mom … I need to find things to fill my day with,” she said. “But I also need to play it by ear because (my four-month-old son) runs how things will go. So I found it really useful to just be able to do a quick check on what the conditions look like.”
Eagan said she is grateful to the app’s creators.
“It’s really neat to see people make a tool that makes something like the canal that is good for our health and the culture of the city a little bit more accessible for everybody,” she said.
As the Owens work to add more features to the app, including location tracking and a full GPS-style map, Stephen Owens said his favourite part of the creation process has been getting the app into Ottawans’ hands.
“Seeing that it’s having an impact, that (people are) getting some value out of something you created is a really good feeling,” he said.