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028 - Niagara Falls

It is an amazing spectacle of God’s imagination; it is an unparalleled work of art.  Everyone says the Canadian side is best.  Heck I even said this time, recalling the great time I had on the Canadian side my only other time in 1984.  But I’m no longer so sure since we enjoyed the USA side the most this go around.  Maybe it was the hordes of tourist in Canada, or the crowd control, or the crazy pricing, or the commercialization but we seemed to experience the power of the water more from America where you could walk right up to the waters edge and even touch it in a few places.  It was amazingly open but getting so close was an entirely different perspective than the overview shots from Canada.

My favorite view was the water flowing down the main river to the American side of the horseshoe that disappeared over an edge with the backdrop of the sheet of falling water from the Canadian side of the horseshoe and the blue sky above.  It was unparalleled beauty and an awesome display of mesmerizing power.  It made me cry and the pictures don’t do it justice.  It’s a must see.





Interesting geology note, the rock formation that makes the falls runs continuously some 200 miles to Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula.  On the western side of Georgia Bay they have the same cliffs that make Niagara Falls.  We tried to climb an area called The Grotto where the face is riddled with caves from below the water up to the cliff top.  Sadly, a guy died the day before and it was closed but it wouldn’t have mattered, the wind was blowing hard and the anchorage looked too angry for us to drop the hook.  Now we have something else to explore.

Comments

  1. TirebiterSeptember 23, 2019 at 12:37 AM

    I experienced similar awe when I was in Argentina last year seeing Iguazzu Falls. It’s hard to comprehend the volume of water and the force of power. Even more amazing was hearing that the falls actually dried up during a severe drought. Can’t imagine that has ever happened at Niagra.

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  2. UnknownSeptember 27, 2019 at 8:38 AM

    Well, it's cheating a bit, but the falls have run dry twice in known history. The first time, according to PLANSPONSOR, the falls were blocked during a particularly nasty winter in 1848, where an ice-buildup at the exit of Lake Erie was frozen shut temporarily. Also, in both 1953 and 1969, the Army Corps of Engineers stopped the flow of water over the American Falls in a futile attempt to man-shape this natural wonder.

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