A couple of years ago Canada had a fresh, new leader - an idiot - of a national political party by the name of Stockwell Day. A Westerner from Alberta, he visited Niagara Falls on a campaign to reach out to Ontario voters. Somehow he said that the Niagara River flows south. Oops! Egg had egg on the face. A man who proved in numerous incidents that he had no character whatever, rather than riding out the embarrassment with a touch of humour, it was reported that he lambasted his staff savagely. He’s now rarely heard from on the national stage.

The spot you chose is only part of Niagara Falls - called Horseshoe Falls. Niagara Falls is actually three falls named American Falls, “Bridal Veil Falls, & Horseshoe Falls. The American & Bridal Veil falls are just to the North-east a few hundred yards:

Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

…separated by Goat Island, I believe - named for the goats that used to live on it.

More info:
http://www.niagarafallslive.com/Facts_about_Niagara_Falls.htm

Some interesting things…

Zoom all the way in and you can see the shale riverbed in many parts … particularly upper river near fort erie (where the river starts). Some small dark patches in the water truly make me wonder if there are artifacts from the war of 1812 (boats, etc) or just dumped cars… we used to dive in the river many years ago near queenston and you could find all sorts of stuff down there from the old war. plates, cannon balls, etc… all protected by law so you can’t really haul the stuff out….

what’s more interesting however is what they don’t want us to see…

seems upriver (just before the falls) - the lands around hooker chemical are all blurred out. same for down river, near queenston lewiston bridge (it’s the last bridge over the river, past the whirlpool… where the river makes a 90 degree turn to right) is the US and CDN power generation stations - again, paranoidally blurred out. further downstream another littlespot is blurred out on the us side. no idea what that is !

other finds:

fort henry
fort niagara
(both are near lake ontario)

whirlpool golf course
skylon tower visible across from american falls
also visible is the new casino under construction (it opened late last yr)
it’s the construction site next to skylon

marineland (theme park) almost disappears from space - aside from the roadways, it’s hard to make out.

plus locating a million childhood memories…..

On the ground, tourists stumble down past the wax museums and heart-shaped beds of Clifton Hill, and push their way through crowds 50 people deep to reach the edge of the summit and stand in the rising mist. The Falls is visually stunning. The water looks clear and almost Bermudean blue, as clean as a swimming pool. None of us seem to notice the small team of researchers measuring the toxicity levels of the mist. (PCBs, Dioxin, etc.)

In Toronto, a young woman from rural Switzerland is a embarrassed by the rash that has developed on her cheek. She’s never had anything like it before.
“What happened? Where’ve you been?”
“Niagara Falls. I went on the Maid of the Mist!” she says excitedly. “We got soaked.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. When I was a kid, we used to swim in the river. And we used to drink from the natural springs in the region.

Niagara Falls *looks* gorgeous. Whether you’re on the ground, on the Maid of the Mist, in a movie theatre, peering out the window of a helicopter, or viewing a satellite photo - however you are seeing it, it looks spectacular. But I know someone who has seen a cancer map from an insurance company. And I know there are chemical plants all around the area on both sides of the border. And I know that a lot of chemicals were buried, and that the one of the characteristic features of the landscape is the predominance of shale. That is, in fact, one of the reasons the Falls exists. (Shale is highly porous and crumbly, ie. not a good container, ie. it leaks like a sieve.)

I also know that if you go upstream a few miles from the Falls on the Canadian side, you’ll see the chemical company formerly known as Hooker chemicals stretching up and down the river. It’s worth seeing at night, when it’s lit up like a Christmas tree with those tiny, clear bulbs. Ironically, it too is quite beautiful. Hooker was the company that brought the US side the Love Canal disaster. Remember that? (They built a subdivision on top of a toxic waste site. It leaked. It was evacuated. Houses are now back on the market.)

Niagara Falls is visually appealing and invisibly toxic. Niagara Falls presents a play between the visuality of a naturalistic tourist sight, and the invisible nature of toxic sites. The reason the water *looks* so clean is that it’s so dirty.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
- The Wizard Of Oz