Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

  Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, August 23, 2008

We arrived at Niagara Falls after a 7 hour trip and after having dropped Clare in Toronto (Clare was catching a flight two days later to Utah for a conference:  see next entry for Toronto).

We stopped on the Canadian side of the Falls.  The Canada/US border actually runs through the middle of the river that the falls are on.

The best views seem to be from the Canadian side and there are two sets of falls: the first smaller set on the left is the "American Falls" and the larger falls on the right are the "Canadian Horseshoe Falls".

Some interesting facts about the Falls are below:

Niagara Falls is the second largest falls on the globe next to Victoria Falls in southern Africa.

One fifth of all the fresh water in the world lies in the four Upper Great Lakes-Michigan, Huron,Superior and Erie. All the outflow empties into the Niagara river and eventually cascades over  the falls.

The flow of water was stopped completely over both falls on March 29th 1848 due to an ice jam in the upper river for several hours.  The Falls did not actually freeze  over, but the flow was stopped to the point where people actually walked out  and recovered artifacts from the riverbed! 

The flow over the American Falls was stopped completely for several months  in 1969. The idea was to determine the feasibility of removing the large  amount of loose rock from the base of the falls to enhance it's appearance.   In the end the final decision was that the expense would be too great.

 The word "Niagara" is derived from the Iroquois Indian word "Onguiaahra"   meaning "the strait" There is an international boundary between the United States and Canada. Before the invention of film, tourists would sketch pictures of the Falls.

In the past ten years, two daredevils lost their lives trying to conquer Niagara. 

In the evenings, intense spotlights bathe the falls with different shades of color.
 
The first  person to go over the Falls in a barrel and survive was a  63 year old  female schoolteacher who did it in 1901!.

High wire tightrope acts used to be performed across the river. Most notably  was "Blondin" who once actually carried his manager across on his back, stopping midway to rest !


We all enjoyed our stay at Niagara Falls and left the following morning for New Jersey/New York.