US, Canada First Ladies Discuss Youth Wellness at Historic Curling Club

U.S. First Lady Jill Biden and Canadian First Lady Sophie Grégoire Trudeau visited a 134-year-old curling club in Ottawa on the morning of March 24 to meet with young people to discuss wellness and mental health.

The two met with a handful of curling players at the Rideau Curling Club. Curling is a popular sport in Canada where players slide stones in trying to get one to reach a target. Players sweep the sheet of ice in order to create friction for the stone to stop before it goes past the target, which consists of four concentric circles. The first ladies saw a demonstration of  how to throw a stone and sweep the ice.

Jill Biden @FLOTUS + Canada = Curling pic.twitter.com/fg3U0TMJbp

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) March 24, 2023

Biden and Trudeau then met with Louis Riel High School students Zoe Babb, Maya Charles, Daniel Cova, Ilyas Elharradji, Sophie Gouriou, Kervens Jean-Paul, Annika Lafreniere, and Creed Siryuyumusi for a listening session. The students are also curlers. The discussion was about mental health and wellness.

“Whenever you’re facing tough times or mental challenges, you know, … sports creates that bond in your life that you feel like when you’re on the ice … that as you probably walk onto it or just walking into the building, you just feel like a calm,” said Biden during the discussion. “… at least that’s how I feel when I go in to exercise … it just calms me down and creates balance for my day.”

In the afternoon, the first ladies visited the National Gallery of Canada’s exhibit commemorating Canadian female artists. It is called “Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment.” According to the museum, the exhibit, which has around 200 works of art, “celebrates a generation of extraordinary women painters, photographers, weavers, beadworkers and sculptors from a century ago. Together, they opened up new frontiers for women artists in Canada, as seen in this cross-country snapshot of female creativity during the dynamic interwar period.”

First Lady Jill Biden and Mrs. Grégoire Trudeau visit the National Gallery of Canada to see the exhibit “Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment” celebrating Canadian women artists. pic.twitter.com/VOq4WGJ4gT

— Vanessa Valdivia (@vvaldivia46) March 24, 2023

Biden and Trudeau were joined by Angela Cassie, interim director of the National Gallery of Canada; Sarah Milroy, exhibition curator and chief curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection at the gallery; and Michelle LaVallee, the gallery’s director of the department of indigenous ways and decolonization.

The first ladies toured the curling club and gallery as their husbands, President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, met at the Canadian Parliament. The meeting comes as the United States and Canada reached a deal to return illegal migrants crossing the U.S.-Canada border to where they crossed from amid an increase in illegal crossings at the northern border.

The two world leaders are scheduled to host a press conference followed by a gala dinner at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum. After the dinner, the Bidens will go to Delaware.