Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge. It lies on the border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls. It crosses the international border between the two countries and is also called the Canadian Falls. The smaller American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls are in the United States. For other uses, see Niagara Falls (disambiguation).

The falls are made by the Niagara River. The river carries water from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario. Together, the falls have the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America. They are the seventh largest in the world. During busy daytime hours, a huge amount of water pours over the top of the falls every minute. Goat Island sits between Bridal Veil Falls and Horseshoe Falls. Luna Island sits between Bridal Veil Falls and American Falls. Both islands are in New York. Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, measured by how much water flows over it.

People admire Niagara Falls for its beauty. The falls also provide hydroelectric power, which is electricity made from moving water. Many couples visit on their honeymoon, and families come on vacation from Canada and the United States. The falls often appear in movies and other media. Since the 1800s, the people who look after the falls have had to balance different needs, such as recreation, business, and industry.

Niagara Falls is 27 kilometres (17 miles) northwest of Buffalo, New York. It is 69 km (43 mi) southeast of Toronto. It sits between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York. The falls were formed when glaciers melted and pulled back at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation, which was part of the last ice age. Water from the newly formed Great Lakes then carved a path over and through the Niagara Escarpment on its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

Etymology

Experts have different ideas about where the name "Niagara" comes from. The most common idea is that it comes from Indigenous words for water. The Native American word Ongiara means thundering water. The New York Times used it this way in 1925. Fredrika Bremer also supported this idea. She said that Niagara is a shortened form of Oniaagarah or Ochniagarah, which First Nations Canadians knew as "the thunder of waters." Other ideas connect the name to a place. George R. Stewart says it comes from an Iroquois town called Onguiaahra, which means "point of land cut in two." In 1847, an Iroquois interpreter said the name came from Jaonniaka-re, which means "noisy point or portage."

Other names for the area also help explain the word. To the Mohawks, the name means "the neck," pronounced "onyara." This refers to the land between lakes Erie and Ontario. The modern Seneca name, Jo'sgöhsodö', means "the cliffs are standing." Etymonline supports the idea that the word comes from Iroquoian and means "a neck." It was first written down in 1841. Philip D. Mason wrote that "Onguiaahra" appears on maps as early as 1641. Some scholars think the name is an ethnonym, which means it was taken from a group of people. Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger says it comes from a branch of the Neutral Confederacy. On French maps from the late 1600s, this group was called the Niagagarega people.

Characteristics

Horseshoe Falls, on the Canadian side, is the bigger and taller of the two waterfalls. It is often used in famous tourist pictures. It stands about 57 m (187 ft) high. The American Falls drops between 21 and 30 metres (69 and 98 feet) because of huge boulders at its base. Horseshoe Falls is about 790 m (2,592 ft) wide, and the American Falls is 320 m (1,050 ft) wide. Ontario Hydro recorded the most water flowing over the falls at 6,370 cubic metres per second (225,000 cubic feet per second). The amount of water depends on the water level of Lake Erie, so it is usually highest in late spring or early summer. In summer, about 90% of the water goes over Horseshoe Falls. The rest is sent to power stations and then to the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. A weir called the International Control Dam controls this. It has movable gates upstream from Horseshoe Falls.

The water flow is cut in half at night and during the quiet winter months. It drops to a low of 1,400 cubic metres per second (49,000 cu ft/s). The Niagara River Treaty (1950) sets the rules for moving water away from the falls. The International Niagara Board of Control looks after these rules. The green color of the water comes from tiny bits of ground-up rock, called rock flour, carried by the Niagara River. The Niagara River is an important bird area for Bonaparte's gulls, ring-billed gulls, and herring gulls. About 100,000 gulls spend the winter in the region. Between November and January, often 20,000 to 30,000 can be seen each day. The river and falls attract these birds because they are on migration routes, have food, and rarely freeze over.

Geology

The falls were formed by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago. When the ice sheet melted and pulled back, it left a lot of meltwater. Some of this water formed lakes such as Lake Algonquin, Lake Chicago, Glacial Lake Iroquois, and Champlain Sea. The water filled the deep basins the glaciers had dug out, and these became the Great Lakes we know today. Scientists think an old valley, St David's Buried Gorge, is hidden under glacial drift near where the Welland Canal is now.

When the ice melted, water from the upper Great Lakes flowed into the Niagara River. The river followed the new land across the Niagara Escarpment. Over time, it cut a gorge through the steep cliff, which is called a cuesta. The rock layers were not all the same, so the riverbed did not erode evenly. The hard top layer is limestone and dolomite from the Lockport Formation (from the Middle Silurian period). It wears away more slowly. Below it is a softer layer called the Rochester Formation (from the Lower Silurian period). It is mostly shale, with some thin limestone and ancient fossils. The river wore away the soft layer under the hard one. The hard top then broke off in large chunks. This happened again and again, and slowly the falls were carved out.

Deep under the river is the Queenston Formation (from the Upper Ordovician period). It is made of shales and fine sandstones. About 10,900 years ago, the falls were between what is now Queenston, Ontario, and Lewiston, New York. Since then, erosion has moved them about 10.9 kilometres (6.8 mi) south. Horseshoe Falls has changed shape over time. It went from a small arch, to a horseshoe bend, to its current V-shape. Just upstream, Goat Island splits the river. It separates Horseshoe Falls from the American and Bridal Veil Falls.

People have built structures to slow erosion. Erosion now happens at about 30 centimetres (12 inches) per year. Before this, the average was 1 to 1.5 m (3.3 to 4.9 ft) per year, for at least the last 560 years. At the current rate, the falls would take about 50,000 years to erode the remaining 32 km (20 mi) to Lake Erie, and then they would no longer exist.

In the 1870s, visitors had limited access, and industry threatened Goat Island. In the U.S., a conservation movement called Free Niagara formed to protect the area. It was led by Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church, landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, and architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Church spoke with Lord Dufferin, the governor-general of Canada, about creating a public park. William Dorsheimer brought Olmsted to Buffalo in 1868. In 1883, New York Governor Grover Cleveland drafted a law to create a state reservation. Charles Eliot Norton and Olmsted led the public campaign for it, while New York Governor Alonzo Cornell was against it. On April 30, 1885, Governor David B. Hill signed the law that created the Niagara Reservation State Park, New York's first state park. That same year, Ontario set up the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park. The Niagara Parks Commission manages the land on the Canadian side. In 1887, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux made plans to restore and protect the falls' natural surroundings.

In 1906, the Sierra Club, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and others convinced the United States Congress to pass a law controlling the river's water. A treaty in 1909 limited how much water could be diverted from the falls. Erosion control has always been important. In 1969, a temporary dam redirected the river away from American Falls. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers strengthened the riverbed. A plan to remove a large mound of talus was dropped because it cost too much, and the temporary dam was later dynamited. Luna Island stayed closed to the public for many years because it was thought to be unsafe. In 2013, New York State began renovating Three Sisters Islands.

History

Explorer Samuel de Champlain heard about the falls from members of his group in 1604. He wrote about them in his journals. Belgian missionary Father Louis Hennepin is given credit for the first description of the falls in 1677, after he traveled with René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Earlier, French Jesuit missionary Paul Ragueneau likely saw the falls while working among the Huron First Nation. Jean de Brébeuf may have visited while spending time with the Neutral Nation. The Finland-Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm is given credit for the first scientific description of the falls. In 1762, Captain Thomas Davies, a British Army officer and artist, painted An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara. It was the first painting of the falls made by someone who had seen them.

Tourism became popular in the 1800s. By the middle of the century, it was the main industry in the area. Theodosia Burr Alston, the daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr, and her husband Joseph Alston were the first recorded couple to spend their honeymoon there, in 1801. In 1843, Frederick Douglass visited the falls while touring with the American Anti-Slavery Society. He wrote that "the power of description failed me." The falls were near the Canadian border, so they were on one of the routes of the Underground Railroad. Much of that history is remembered at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center. In about 1840, English chemist Hugh Lee Pattinson took the earliest known photograph of the falls. It is a daguerreotype held by Newcastle University.

Bridge crossings

Several bridges have crossed the Niagara River near the falls. The first, near the whirlpool, was a suspension bridge over the gorge. It opened to the public in July 1848 and was used until 1855. A second bridge near the Upper Falls opened in 1855. It had two levels, and one level was for the Great Western Railway. This Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge helped people escape slavery by reaching Canada. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway took control of the second level. Because so many trains and people used it, a new arch bridge was built around the old one. It opened in September 1897, and the old suspension bridge was taken down. The new bridge was renamed the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge in 1937, and it is still in use. In the Upper Niagara area, the first bridge opened in January 1869. A strong storm destroyed it in January 1889, and its replacement opened in May 1889. A steel bridge, later called the Honeymoon Bridge, opened in June 1897. In January 1938, ice piled up against it and bent its steel frame. It collapsed on January 27, 1938.

In 1883, Cornelius Vanderbilt had a cantilever bridge built for trains. It was about 60 metres (200 ft) south of the Railway Suspension Bridge. The Niagara Cantilever Bridge opened in December 1883. In 1923, the Michigan Central Railroad decided to build a new rail bridge. This was the Michigan Central Railway Bridge, which opened in February 1925 and was used into the early 21st century. The cantilever bridge was removed after the new one opened. Even so, it was given a place in the North America Railway Hall of Fame in 2006. After a long argument over who should build a replacement for the Upper Niagara arch bridge, work on the Rainbow Bridge began in February 1940. This steel bridge has two lanes for traffic, with a barrier between them. It opened in November 1941.

Industry and commerce

See also: List of Niagara Falls hydroelectric generating plants

People have long seen the power of Niagara Falls as a possible source of energy. The first known effort to use the water was in 1750. Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to run his sawmill. Later, the canal was made bigger to provide hydraulic power for a gristmill and a tannery. In 1881, under the leadership of Jacob F. Schoellkopf, the first hydroelectric power station on the Niagara River was built. It made direct current electricity that ran the machines in local mills and lit some village streets. In 1890, a group of scientists led by Sir William Thomson could not agree on the best plan for using more of the river's power. In 1893, Westinghouse Electric was hired to design a system that could make alternating current. Westinghouse had built the smaller Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado two years earlier. A large system was started on August 26, 1895. The Adams Power Plant Transformer House still stands as a landmark of that first system.

By 1896, money from J. P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV, and the Vanderbilts had paid for underground tunnels. These tunnels led to turbines that could make up to 75 megawatts (100,000 hp) of power. The Canadian government, the Government of Ontario, took over power transmission in 1906. In 1956, a landslide partly destroyed the region's largest hydropower station. This cut power production sharply. In 1957, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act. This let the New York Power Authority fully develop the United States' share of the river's power. Today, Niagara is still the largest electricity producer in New York state. Water is sent through tunnels to the Robert Moses power plant. In August 2005, Ontario Power Generation, which runs the Sir Adam Beck stations, began the Niagara Tunnel Project to add a new water tunnel. The tunnel opened in March 2013. It added 150 megawatts to the plant's nameplate capacity and provided hydroelectricity for about 160,000 homes. On February 27, 1950, Canada and the United States signed the Niagara River Treaty. It was made to protect the falls' beauty by limiting how much water the power plants could use. More water must flow over the falls during the day in the tourist season. Less water flows at night and in the off-season. The treaty is watched over by the International Joint Commission, with help from a NOAA gauging station. The treaty was signed for Canada by Louis St. Laurent and for the United States by Stephen Woodward. Ships can avoid the falls by using the Welland Canal. This canal became part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in the mid-1950s. The cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, in Canada, and Niagara Falls, New York, are linked by two international bridges. The Niagara Falls International Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport were named after the waterfall. So were Niagara University and an asteroid.

Over the falls

See also: List of people who have gone over Niagara Falls

The first stunt using the Falls was the wreck of the schooner Michigan in 1827. In October 1829, Sam Patch, who called himself "the Yankee Leapster," jumped from a high tower into the gorge below the falls and survived. After this, many daredevils tried to go over the falls. On October 24, 1901, 63-year-old Michigan school teacher Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over the falls in a barrel. She survived, but she was bleeding. Since then, more than a dozen people have gone over the falls on purpose, and some were badly hurt. Going over the falls is now illegal on both sides of the border. Charles Stephens, a 58-year-old barber from Bristol, England, went over the falls in a wooden barrel in July 1920. Bobby Leach went over Horseshoe Falls in a steel barrel in 1911. In 1985, Canadian Karel Soucek from Hamilton, Ontario was badly hurt while trying to re-create the Niagara drop at the Houston Astrodome. In August 1985, Steve Trotter, an aspiring stuntman from Rhode Island, went over the falls in a barrel. In 1989, Peter DeBernardi and Jeffery James Petkovich became the first "team" to go over the falls in a two-person barrel. In 1993, John "David" Munday of Caistor Centre, Ontario went over the falls a second time. In 2003, Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan became the first known person to survive a fall over Horseshoe Falls without a flotation device. He had only bruises, scrapes, and sore ribs. In 1960, the "Miracle at Niagara" happened when a seven-year-old boy was swept over Horseshoe Falls. He was rescued after he grabbed a life ring thrown to him by the crew of the Maid of the Mist boat. Experts also noted that hypothermia can be a serious danger in the cold river.

Tightrope walkers drew huge crowds to watch their stunts. Their wires ran across the gorge near the current Rainbow Bridge, not over the waterfall. Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet was the first to cross Niagara Gorge on June 30, 1859. His final crossing, on September 8, 1860, was watched by the Prince of Wales. Maria Spelterini, a 23-year-old from Italy, was the first and only woman to cross the Niagara River gorge on a tightrope, on July 8, 1876. Ontario's William Hunt, who called himself "The Great Farini," also performed these stunts. On June 15, 2012, high wire artist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk across the falls area in 116 years. He had special permission from both governments. Fish also go over the falls. River expert Wes Hill says that most of them survive.

Tourism

Niagara Falls welcomes over 20 million visitors each year, and summer is the busiest time. People visit during the day and in the evening. From the Canadian side, lights shine on both sides of the falls for several hours after dark.

The oldest and best-known attraction is the Maid of the Mist boat ride. It has taken passengers into the rapids below the falls since 1846. Boats leave from docks on both sides. The Maid of the Mist runs from the American side, and Hornblower Cruises runs from the Canadian side. It was called the Maid of the Mist until 2014.

From the American side, visitors can see American Falls from walkways in Prospect Point Park, which also has a viewing tower. Goat Island offers more views and can be reached on foot or by car over a bridge. Visitors can take an elevator to the Cave of the Winds and walk to a point beneath Bridal Veil Falls. The island also has a statue of Nikola Tesla. His work on the AC induction motor and other AC power devices helped make it possible to use the falls for power. Most of these sights are in the Niagara Falls State Park.

The Niagara Scenic Trolley offers guided trips, and helicopter tours give views of the falls from above. The Niagara Gorge Discovery Center shows the natural and local history of the falls and the gorge. The Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel was opened by the Seneca Indian tribe. It is the first new building to change the city's skyline since the United Office Building was finished in the 1920s.

On the Canadian side, Queen Victoria Park has gardens, viewing platforms, and underground walkways. These lead to rooms where it seems as though you are inside the falling water. The Niagara River Recreational Trail runs 56 km (35 mi) from Fort Erie to Fort George. It passes many historical sites from the War of 1812. The Skylon Tower has an observation deck with the highest view of the falls. From it, you can see as far as Toronto. The Whirlpool Aero Car was built in 1916 from a design by Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo. It is a cable car that carries passengers over the Niagara Whirlpool. The Journey Behind the Falls has an observation platform and tunnels near the bottom of Horseshoe Falls. Two casinos are on the Canadian side: the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara.

The New York Times describes helicopter tours over the falls, from both the American and Canadian sides, as still popular. Many rides are taken each day. These flights have been offered since the early 1960s.

Media

Niagara Falls has long been a popular place for tourists and a favorite spot for honeymooners. Visits rose sharply in 1953 after the movie Niagara, starring Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten, came out. The falls have appeared in many other films, including the 1956 cartoon Niagara Fools, where Woody Woodpecker tries to go over the falls in a barrel, and the 1980 movie Superman II. In 1990, magician David Copperfield performed a trick in which he seemed to travel over Horseshoe Falls.

Many writers and composers have also been inspired by the falls. In the H. G. Wells novel The War in the Air, the area is the base camp for a German invasion of the United States. Cuban poet José Maria Heredia wrote the poem "Niagara," and there are plaques on both sides of the falls that honor it. In 1893, Mark Twain wrote a funny sketch in which Adam and Eve live at the falls. In 1960, composer Ferde Grofé wrote the Niagara Falls Suite to celebrate the first stage of hydroelectric work at the falls. In 1997, composer Michael Daugherty wrote a piece for concert band inspired by the falls.

Fine art

Niagara Falls has inspired landscape artists for a very long time. According to John Howat, it was "the most popular, the most often treated, and the tritest single item of subject matter to appear in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European and American landscape painting". Author Ginger Strand says that "Every time there was an advance in picture-making, folks raced to the Falls to try it out." People used many new ways to make pictures there, including engravings, chromolithographs, photographs, panoramas, camera obscuras, early movies, Cinerama, and IMAX.

Panoramic views

Niagara Falls, c. 1921

A view of the Rainbow Bridge, the American, Bridal Veil, and Horseshoe Falls, seen from the Skylon Tower in 2016