The organizers of the Outdoor and Adventure Travel Show at Ottawa's CE Centre say they want to inspire people to get outside for activities.
They likely didn't anticipate them being able to do so in the middle of March.
Unseasonably high temperatures had people thinking about getting some fresh air at the trade show on Saturday.
"We put the show together, we set a mission for it and that was to inspire people to get outdoors more often," said Jake Naylor with the show. "We wanted to bring them to the show to begin thinking about the spring and summer."
Bicycle retailers said they're certainly seeing that interest from their customers.
"We sold 15 bikes yesterday and we're showcasing a lot of new bikes today," said Dave Morton of Bushtukah. "People are really anxious for spring, I think."
An adventure rafting company said they don't open until the long weekend in May but the water is almost ready.
"We're getting a lot more phone calls than earlier on, if it was still snowy out we don't really have the phone ringing like this," said Dan Kirvan of Owl Rafting.
"Normally all the lakes would still be frozen solid, a lot of times in May when we go up to start opening our base, the lake in front of us is solid ice . . . there are parts of it that are starting to crack open."
Outside of the CE Centre, golf course Raceview at Falcon Ridge is open the earliest it's ever been.
"The course is exceptionally dry this year, which is great," said Steve Spratt. Our nine (hole course) is open and our 18 should be open by next week."
"If this is global warming than I guess I'm enjoying it," said a laughing golfer.
Forecasts for the next four days are showing high temperatures in the 20s, with a high of 26 C forecasted for Wednesday.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Karen Soloman
