Niagara, where America and Canada collide

20 October 2015

Commamdo was, understandably, a little nervous about driving seventy two miles on Canadian roads. After all, that’s like driving from our house to London, which in England would be counted as a pretty long drive. Of course, in Canada it’s considered just down the road and we couldn’t come all this way without seeing one of the wonders of the natural world. Not wishing to get caught up in the morning rush hour, we had a leisurely breakfast and then took a slow wander down to the car park. The worst part turned out to be getting out of the city. Once we got onto the Gardiner Expressway the traffic eased a little. Now all we had to do was follow the sat nav, keep looking at the road signs and try to be in the right lane at the right time. Simple? Probably not but Commando managed it.

We saw the first signs for Niagara as we passed through Mississauga. Only one hundred and six kilometres to go then. Outside Oakville we got onto the 403 without incident and stayed on it until Burlington where we turned onto something called QEW. This turned out to be Canadian sign speak for the Queen Elizabeth Way which was obviously just too much to write on a sign. As we approached Hamilton we saw signs for the Skyway and wondered what it was, it sounded a little scary. It turned out to be a long bridge stretching across the bay. It really did feel like driving in the sky. Soon enough we were in Niagara and our next problem was finding somewhere to park. As it happened, we saw a sign for parking as we rounded a bend on Falls Avenue. With a name like that it couldn’t be too far to walk could it?

It was a relief to get out of the car and, at the bottom of the hill, we found a Starbucks sign. The falls could wait, we both needed a coffee and I, of course, needed the loo. The Starbucks turned out to be in the foyer of the Crowne Plaza Hotel so it was a rather swish toilet and a nice coffee and cake to fortify us. At this stage we still had no idea where we needed to go to see the famous waterfalls but, through the cafe window, I could see a sign for Rainbow Bridge which looked promising.

Rainbow Bridge was, in the end, a red herring of sorts. There are actually three waterfalls at Niagara and,  If we’d crossed the bridge, we could have visited the American falls and the Bridal Veil falls. To do this though we’d have needed to leave Canada and enter America. Commando didn’t have his passport with him and, although I did, memories of the last time I’d entered America would have made me reluctant anyway. So we walked along the street a little and pretty soon we had our first view of the falls. Sadly, the blue sky had not followed us from Toronto but a few rays of sunlight were doing their best to force their way through the cloud and a tremendous spray was billowing up from the falls. What a pity there was no sun or there have surely been rainbows.

We found our way through a small park to the narrow path that runs alongside the water and, looking back at the bridge we’d have had to walk across, I was quite glad we hadn’t bothered.
“I’m pretty sure we have a better view from over here anyway,” I told Commando.
To the untrained eye it’s difficult to seperate the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls, especially with all the clouds of misty spray but they are classed as two different falls. We stood for a while, trying to work it out and it seems the majority of the water belongs to the American Falls and, to the right of them after a small, rocky gap created by Luna Island, is the Bridal Veil Falls.

Between the bridge and the falls I spotted a small, interesting looking cave with a waterfall, or maybe a wier of some kind, tumbling out of it. At first I thought this might be the Cave of the Winds but I later discovered that is actually behind the Bridal Veil Falls. Whatever it was it was obviously overshadowed by the main falls but I, for one, thought it was intriguing.

The water seemed impossibly green. Later we discovered this was caused by dissolved salts and finely ground rock from the tons of water pounding away. Combined with the autumn leaves it made for a colourful spectacle even without blue sky and rainbows. We could see small boats setting off along the river and tiny dots of people in brightly coloured wet weather gear walking along walkways right into the mist. It looked like it might be a touch on the wet side to me.

As we walked on we saw the little boats with their cargo of tourists chugging past the huge piled boulders at the base of the American Falls towards the distant Horseshoe falls. The whole of the river seemed to be a boiling mass, churned up by the awesome power of the falls. It looked to me like it would be a rocky old ride. These tour boats have been operating from since 1846 and set off from both sides of the falls.
“We could take one if you like,” Commando suggested.
“Let’s see what time we have,” I replied.

The boats are called Maid of the Mist, after an ancient Ongiara Indian myth. Lelawala, a beautiful young Ongiara woman living by falls, was so distraught at the death of her husband she took her canoe and paddled out into the current towards certain death. As the canoe fell, Heno, the god of Thunder caught her in his arms and carried her to his home behind the falls. Heno and his sons cared for Lelawala until her heart mended and she married the youngest son. When Heno learned that a giant snake had come down the river to poison the water and kill Lelawala’s people he sent her to warn them. The tribe moved to safety and, when the snake came, Heno threw a thunderbolt which killed it. The lifeless body of the snake drifted down river and lodged, creating a massive semi circle  with the river cascading over it. The water poured into Heno’s home and destroyed it so he took his family to a new home in the clouds where his booming voice can still be heard.

Soon we came to a large building with a viewing platform decorated with curious brick maple leaves. This was Grand View, which also serves as a gift shop and, I think, ticket office for the boat tours. It was crowded so we passed it by. Besides, we had a pretty good view as it was, at least of the American falls. It was odd to think that we’d flown to Toronto from New York and now, after an hour and a half drive, here we were looking across the Niagara River into New York State at the majestic falls, more than a thousand feet wide, tumbling seventy odd feet onto the giant boulders below. More astonishing was the thought that more than one person had thought it a good idea to cross the falls on a tightrope. Even though the majority crossed the gorge close to Rainbow Bridge rather than over the falls. It didn’t really bear thinking about.

The first was Jean François “Blondin” Gravelet, in 1859. He started quite a craze and it would not be his last crossing. In fact he carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back three times. The only woman to ever complete the crossing was Maria Spelterini, an Italian, in 1876. She crossed four times. Sadly, not everyone made it across and, in 1896, a law was passed to stop such foolhardiness. No one else crossed on a tightrope until 2012 when Nik Wallenda gained special permission from the American and Canadian governments. Unlike the others, Wallenda crossed near the brink of Horseshoe falls. Purportedly,  it was the longest unsupported tightrope walk in history. He even carried his passport with him to present on the Canadian side. For video of the event click here.

The little Maid of the Mist boats moved up and down the river relentlessly and we walked on watching them. After a while we came to a curious stone building, almost pagoda like, framing stunning views of the American falls. People were lined up along the banks to look and take pictures but I thought the building itself and the way it encircled the water tumbling onto the rocks, was just as interesting. No one else was paying it the slightest attention.

Slowly but surely we were moving ever closer to the Horseshoe Falls. Looking down the gorge which seemed to be bursting with trees in every shade, I couldn’t help wondering what it might be like to walk down there amongst them next to the tumultuous water. From where we stood it seemed that the two sets of falls (three if you count the Bridal Veil) must come from two different rivers converging. In actual fact they both come from the same place, Lake Erie, as it spills its contents into the river Niagara and then on to Lake Ontario. The combined water flow is the highest of any waterfall in the world. The apparent division is caused by Goat Island, sitting on the brink of the abyss at the very edge of the American side of the border creating a barrier of some 3,409 feet between the falls.

Of course, with so much moving water it was only a matter of time before someone thought to make use of it and, in 1759, Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to power his sawmill. Then, in 1805, Ausustus and Peter Porter cunningly purchased the whole of the American Falls from the New York State Government and enlarged this canal to run their gristmill and tannery. Imagine owning the American falls! Almost fifty years on the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Mining Comany was formed and, by 1881, the first hydroelectric generating station was built. By the mid 1890’s, with finance from J P Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV and the Vanderbilts, giant conduits leading to turbines had been built and power was sent twenty miles away to Buffalo. Today Niagara is the largest electricity producer in New York State. The electricity I used to charge my phone in New York probably originated in the gushing waters of these falls.

Looking towards Horseshoe Falls the sky seemed to be getting darker and I felt pretty sure my plastic mac was going to come in useful whether we had time for a trip on the Maid of the Mist or not. Below we could see the boats getting closer and closer to the swirling mist below the falls, the passengers on the deck all swathed in bright blue waterproofs. Just how close would they get I wondered? Fairly soon we felt the first drops of rain in the air and we stopped under the almost shelter of a tree while I pulled on my fetching hat and Commando put on his cap.  Looking away from the river for a moment I noticed a squirrel digging away at the grass burying a nut, behind him the most wonderful backdrop of colourful autumn leaves. It seemed strange that something that would have drawn attention anywhere else should be completely unnoticed by all the tourists walking up and down the riverbank. I was probably the only person there who took a photo of it.

The rain ebbed and flowed in a very strange way and never came to more than a few spots here and there. Within five minutes we were looking over the low stone wall into the swirling cauldron at the bottom of Horseshoe Falls. Hundreds of seagulls dived right into the spray and foam and I wondered how they survived. In my photo they appear as tiny dark dots in the mist, hardly noticeable. We stopped to watch for a while and this was when we realised there was no rain at all, the spots we felt were spray from the falls caught on the wind. Even on a sunny day water would be falling out of the sky this close to Horseshoe Falls.

We took the obligatory photos as proof we’d actually been there then watched in awe as the small boats disappeared right into the mist. It seemed impossible they’d ever come out again but they did. Suddenly the idea of a boat trip lost its appeal. We walked on a little way and by this time the crowds we’d had to jostle with, lining every inch of the path had thinned to a trickle.
“Well, we’ve seen the falls, I suppose we should think about turning back and getting some lunch,” Commando said after a while.
He had to almost shout to be heard over the sound of four million cubic feet of falling water every minute. This is not a quiet, peaceful place at all. Despite the noise and the misty spray swirling around us, I was reluctant to leave.