While on his early morning run or travelling across the city, Mayor
Mark Sutcliffe
calls it a personal mission to take a new photo of the city landscape and to share it on social media as Ottawans wake up each day.
“Good morning Ottawa. Bonjour Ottawa,” says the caption on his daily posts.
Often, the posts get a few dozen likes as people scroll past and continue on with their lives. That is, until one particular dreary day when Sutcliffe’s running route took him past Fisher Park.
Good morning Ottawa.
Bonjour Ottawa. pic.twitter.com/yX9rMxhWzT
— Mark Sutcliffe (@_MarkSutcliffe) March 22, 2026
Melting snow spread across an empty field as puddles flooded an outdoor rink. Discarded Christmas trees sat in the foreground while grey sky loomed above.
As Sutcliffe ran by, he recalled thinking to himself that the scene was a welcome reminder that this part of the world was beginning to thaw and spring was on its way. He knew he had his photo for the day.
“To me, that showed, hey, the melting is happening. This is what’s going on in our city right now,” he told the
Ottawa Citizen
in an interview. “I took a quick shot and I shared it, and I didn’t think it was going to get that much of a reaction.”
Then Sutcliffe’s daily tradition took a bit of a different turn — the post garnered more than 900,000 views on the social media platform X as critics flooded the comments section to share their thoughts on the photo.
“What is that hellscape?” one commenter wrote.
“Welcome to Ottawa, where we put the barren in ‘Barren Wasteland,’” another wrote.
While many of Sutcliffe’s photos showcase the more picturesque parts of Ottawa, with shots including the Canadian Tulip Festival, Dow’s Lake or even scenic sunrises, he says that’s not always the reality of what Ottawa looks like.
“These pictures are meant to be a snapshot of a moment in time,” he said. “It’s going to match whatever’s going on in the city, and, in the transition from winter to spring, there’s a lot of melting, there’s a lot of puddles and it can look a little grey sometimes, but that’s just what’s going on.”
When it came to the reaction to the post, he wasn’t taking it negatively and actually enjoyed following the conversations around it.
“Some of the comments were pretty funny,” he said with a chuckle.
“You never know what’s going to happen on Twitter (X) and when some people seize on something and it takes off and turns into a thing.”
The dreary Fisher Park photo aside, Sutcliffe said the reaction to his “Good morning Ottawa” posts had been generally positive over the years.
“Almost every single day, someone will say they really like seeing the posts and they appreciate them, and it’s one of the things that I do that I get the most feedback about,” he said.
Good morning Ottawa.
Bonjour Ottawa. pic.twitter.com/d1irFYdIRZ
— Mark Sutcliffe (@_MarkSutcliffe) March 11, 2026
Every photo he posts is one he’s taken himself. While photos aren’t always taken the same day he posts them, they’re often no more than a week old.
He’ll do just about anything to snap a photo to greet Ottawa residents each morning — sometimes, he says, that means taking a step or two into a snowbank in his running shoes or crouching at strange angles as he peers down at his phone camera.
Sometimes it even has him chasing sunrises.
“There have been times where I’m up early enough that the sun is rising and I’m running and running and trying to find a spot where I can take a picture of the sunrise, and then, by the time I get there, it’s too late to capture the colours,” he said.
While the recent viral post has certainly caused him to take notice, he said it was not prompting him to change anything about his approach, planning to continue with the series for as long as he enjoys doing it.
“I’m doing it because it’s fun and I like taking pictures. I think there’s room for a little positive energy in the world right now,” he said.
Good morning Ottawa.
Bonjour Ottawa. pic.twitter.com/buHSOVNkDU
— Mark Sutcliffe (@_MarkSutcliffe) October 18, 2025
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