Horseshoe falls, barrels and miracles

20 October 2015

“Let’s just go a little further,” I said to Commando. “I’d like to have a look from the river above the falls if we can get that far, to see what would have possessed someone to stand there with a barrel and think about going over the side.”
Looking down into the churning waters was like looking into a boiling saucepan. It seemed unbelievable that anyone would consider jumping in but many people have and some have even survived. Why did they do it though? Walking across on a tightrope is madness enough but a vertical drop of over one hundred and sixty five feet hardly screams ‘jumping in would be a pretty good idea,’ even without eighty five thousand cubic feet of water falling every second.

The answer it seems is fame and fortune, at least that was what sixty three year old school teacher Annie Edson Taylor was hoping for on 24 October 1901 when she became the first person to go over Horseshoe Falls in a barrel. A few days before a cat called Iagara was thrown over in the barrel to test its strength. Iagara survived so, presumably, Annie thought she would too. She did, although she was bleeding and bruised. After climbing out of her barrel, Annie said “No one ought ever do that again.” Sadly, fame came but not the fortune and she died a pauper.

Despite Annie’s warning it caught on and fourteen other people have intentionally gone over the falls. Some, like Bobby Leach who took the plunge in a steel barrel in 1911 survived. Ironically, Bobby later died on a tour of New Zealand when he slipped on an orange peel and got gangrene. Then, in 1928 rubber balls became fashionable when ‘Smiling Jean’ Lussier jumped in one and didn’t die. Another rubber ball called the Plunge-O-Sphere took the first African American, Nathan Boya, over the edge in 1961, he too was lucky and lived. In 1984 the first Canadian jumper was Karel Soucek, he also survived but wasn’t so lucky when he tried to recreate the event from a platform inside the Houston Astrodome. A year later Steve Trotters from Rhode Island was fined $5,503.00 after sucessfully going over the falls in a barrel wrapped in inner tubes. The first duo to survive the falls were Niagara locals Peter De Bernardi and James Petkovich who jumped together in 1989. Then, in 1995, Steve Trotters had another go with partner Lori Martin and both lived to tell the tale. Canadian Dave Munday also beat the falls twice once in 1985 and again in 1993.

When we finally looked out at the falls from above the foolishness of even thinking of going over became even more apparent. The water roared past at such a rate and with such a clamour it seemed impossible that anyone had ever considered it, never mind survived. A photograph can’t possibly convey the power and noise so I took a couple of videos. To really appreciate the enormity of it you should click the links below, you won’t regret it.

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Unsurprisingly, many who thought jumping was a good idea died. Notably, Englishman Charles G Stephens who, in 1920, thought an anvil would make good ballast. It didn’t. He tied himself to it and all that was left of him was his right arm. In 1930 Greek waiter George Statakis suffocated when his barrel got trapped behind the falls for fourteen hours. Robert Overcracker decided to do without the barrel and rode a jetski over the edge. He did have a parachute but it didn’t open. His body was never recovered. Kirk Jones from Michigan went a step further in 2003. He jumped with just the clothes on his back. Unbelievably he survived and swam unaided to shore with just a few minor bruises. Both Kirk and the friend who was supposed to video the stunt had been drinking heavily beforehand and the friend was too drunk to work the camcorder so it was all to no avail. Kirk was fined $2,300.00 and banned from Canada for life.

Believe it or not, Kirk is not the only person to have survived an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls. Back in1960 a seven year old American boy, Roger Woodward, and his seventeen year old sister, Deanne, fell into the river near Goat Island, just above the falls. Deanne was rescued just twenty feet from the edge but Roger went over. By some miracle the lad survived and was pulled from the roiling waters below by the crew of the Maid of the Mist. In 2009 and unnamed man intentionally jumped into the water and was swept over the falls. He too was rescued suffering from a head wound and hypothermia. Finally, on  21 May 2012 a man in his early forties attempted suicide by climbing over a railing and jumping into the Niagara River. Although he went over the falls his suicide attempt failed. It seems, whatever the reasons and method, the falls decide who lives and who dies.

Talking about the jumpers and the fallers we’d walked beyond the edge of the falls. The wind was blowing downstream and the rain of spray had stopped falling on us. There was no one about but the gulls wheeling overhead, although their cries were drowned out by the sound of the roaring water. One young gull sat on the stone post of the fence and watched us pass. Behind him the spray rose up and the water churned. We thought we’d come about as far as we could.

As we were about to turn back I spotted a curious looking tree a little way ahead. It looked a little like a cave with a door like opening between its hanging branches.
“Lets go and have a look,” I said.
Commando went inside and I followed. We found ourselves in a leafy shelter and we were obviously not the first visitors to this tree cave. The trunk was covered with carved initials. It felt like a magical place. Sadly, we had nothing to carve our initials with.

Now we were completely behind the falls, looking down through the mist and spray towards Rainbow Bridge. We could see the line of the weirs that divert water from the Canadian hydroelectric facilities. We also saw what looked like the wreckage of a ship sitting in the raging flow.
“I wonder what happened there?” I said. “Imagine being stuck in that ship. There’d be no way off and if you jumped or fell in you’d go over the falls.”

Later Googling told me this was the wreck of a barge, known as a Niagara Scrow. In 1918 it had been dredging upriver tethered to a tugboat when the rope broke. The barge drifted out of control towards Horseshoe Falls and the two crew members, Gustave Loftberg and Frank Harris, could do nothing to stop it. What must they have felt as they were swept towards the rising mist and roar of the falls? By some miracle the Scrow hit a rock shoal and was grounded but the men’s ordeal was far from over. The alarm had been raised and hundreds of men rushed to the Canadian shore. Lines were fired by the Niagara fire department but they fell short. Eventually the crew of the Life Saving Station in Youngstown arrived and got a guide rope to the boat. By the time Loftberg and Harris had pulled a heavier rope across on the first it was dark. Searchlights were set up and a breeches boy sent to rescue the exhausted men but it became snarled half way across. In desperation Red Hill Sr. crawled along the rope and untangled the buoy. It took him hours in the cold current. It was ten o’clock before the men were finally pulled ashore. Their ordeal had lasted nineteen hours.

Now we really did turn back. We walked back towards the tall buildings of Niagara Falls and the CN Tower like Skylon observation tower, through the parks. We had lunch in the restaurant and a browse in the gift shop. Then it was time to go back to the car. When we left the restaurant come gift shop the wind had got up. The canvas structure of the outdoor eating area was flapping and swaying so much I thought it might take off.

We struggled against the wind, still looking back at the falls from time to time, half reluctant to leave them. The mist and spray swirled around us in the squall, dashing water at us until we couldn’t tell what was rain and what was river water. Down on the river the Maid of the Mist boats carried on regardless and I wondered if there’d ever been any disasters down there in the cauldron of the falls. Remarkably, it seems they have an impeccable safety record, although they’ve pulled a few people out of the river over the years. Perhaps if it hadn’t got so windy…

Soon it was time to turn back towards the road. We were close to the place where we’d started out and, with one last look back, we climbed the steps into the Oakes Garden Theatre Park. From one of the pretty pavilions we got our last view of the tumbling water. On a sunny day it might have been a nice place to linger, with pretty stone bridges over a dry stream and interesting plants and trees. As it was the rain was falling for real. It was time to head back towards the road.

All that was left was the long climb back up the hill to the car. It hadn’t seemed so steep on the way down but we had the old cars of Planet Hollywood to look at and the rain seemed to be easing up. The visit to Niagara Falls would be our last real adventure in Canada and it was one of the highlights of the whole trip. The rainbows I’d been hoping for had not materialised and the falls might not feature as one of the seven wonders of the world but, in my opinion, they should be up there with the Great Pyramid of Gisa and the rest.

Of course, one day Niagara Falls might not be there. Every year the power of the water erodes about one foot of the rock that makes up the falls. At that rate, in around fifty thousand years the twenty miles between Lake Erie and Niagara will have disappeared into the churning water. Go and see it now, while you can!