The Parks Of Niagara

A lot of people will be going to parks in the Niagara area, both vacationers and locals now that it is almost summer, and there are parks with features that I think are really of special interest. I would like to credit the photo collection of the Niagara Falls, Canada Public Library for the links to their photos.

First, let's have a general look at Niagara Falls, starting at the edge of the falls, known as Prospect Point, on the U.S. side.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click on the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0859863,-79.0685026,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-XBcVlfJXOtA%2FVZS0FAEyeiI%2FAAAAAAAAGW0%2FFsP2TObWjbsgf7Eg-k-_oImDEL8YdWQ4w!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-XBcVlfJXOtA%2FVZS0FAEyeiI%2FAAAAAAAAGW0%2FFsP2TObWjbsgf7Eg-k-_oImDEL8YdWQ4w%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i10240!8i5120

THE STONE BLOCKS ALONG THE EDGE OF THE GORGE

Here is a Niagara story that does not get told very often. Following are two images in which you can see the large stone blocks, which have been fitted with railings at the edge of the Niagara Gorge on the Canadian side near the falls. Where do you suppose that these stone blocks came from?

The photo can be enlarged by pressing the "+" symbol several times, or by using your fingers.

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=361903&b=1 

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=361901&b=1

A short distance upstream from the falls is the former Rankine Power Station, which appears to have it's structure built of the same kind of stone blocks.

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=311392&b=1

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=311391&b=1

These are actually the blocks of stone that were removed from below ground during the excavation of the tunnels through which water would flow to generate electricity. All hydroelectric power generating plants at Niagara Falls used this same technique of turbines turned by the force of water falling from the upper level of the river to the lower level. Something had to be done with the stone that was excavated, block by block. I am more certain that the railing mounts along the edge of the gorge are these blocks, but the Rankine building also appears to be made from the same blocks.

THE REMNANT OF THE HONEYMOON BRIDGE

The Clifton Memorial Arch in this photo has long since been removed. But the small building on the other side of it is still there. It used to be where drinks and food were sold.

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=380332&b=1

Notice how, in this view of the Honeymoon Bridge from the U.S. side, that there is a small building just to the left (south) of the Canadian side of the bridge:

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/data/2/5/92625-507713.jpg

It seems to me that this building is perfectly located to have been some kind of office from the former Honeymoon (or Fallsview) Bridge, which collapsed into the river in 1938 after a mass of ice passing through the river severely damaged it's foundation. In Google Street View, I see that part of the foundation for this former bridge is still visible, right at the edge of the water on the Canadian side.

Image from Google Street View

The Rainbow Bridge was built to replace the destroyed bridge, further downstream from the falls and with it's foundation placed higher. Those were the days before the Ice Boom was installed at the entrance to the Niagara River at Lake Erie, which is to block such destructive masses of ice from entering the river.

THE RED ROCK OF NIAGARA

There is a very important symbol of the natural history of the Niagara area that has not yet been referred to as such. This symbol should have a name, and I would like to christen it "The Red Rock Of Niagara".

In F.H. Leslie Park, in Niagara Falls, Canada, there is a large boulder with a plaque on it next to the flag pole and in front of the entrance to the swimming pool. The plaque states how a postcard publisher named F.H. Leslie procured the land for the pool and park, which was dedicated on October 17, 1965,. I used to live nearby, as a boy in the late 1960s. The park opened just before I moved there. I learned to swim in the pool, and would sled down the nearby slope in the winter.

Here is a photo of the boulder, with the plaque, at the dedication of the park www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=99553&b=1 .

The nature and texture of this rock does not match the stone common to this area at all. It is made of hard igneous rock. It looks like granite, and is definitely not the usual sedimentary limestone of the Niagara area.

Moving glacial ice, during the ice ages, can move such boulders hundreds of km. When the ice age ends, and the glaciers melt, the rock will remain in a location far from it's origin and will probably not match the local rock. Such a boulder is known as a glacial erratic, there is one such example off Goat Island on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls.

Whenever you see a rock that does not match the native rock, this is probably how it got to where it is. In the same way when smooth or rounded rocks are found, it must mean that they have been exposed to waves or flowing water for a considerable period of time.

In the posting "Glaciation And Building Construction" on the glacier blog, www.markmeek.blogspot.com , we saw how a lot can be determined about the ice age history of an area simply by looking at traditional building construction. If small stones, suitable for building, are common, it usually means that such stones were broken off exposed stone or mountains somewhere else, and then carried along by glaciers.

The glaciers in ice ages begin to form when the temperature gets cold enough that the snow of one winter has not completely melted when the following winter begins. Snow piles up year after year, decade after decade, and century after century. The snow below is compressed into ice by the weight of the snow above, the height that this can reach is limited only by the altitude of the clouds from which the snow falls. Eventually we have a vast sheet of ice, hundreds of km in extent and maybe 2 km in altitude.

When an object is large enough, such as a vast sheet of ice, it is affected by the rotation of the earth. The sheet of glacial ice is pulled southward by the centrifugal force of rotation, and also somewhat eastward by the momentum of the rotation. These moving glaciers carry vast amounts of debris with them, which remain after the ice age ends as glacial moraines.

The glaciers also break off and carry boulders, such as the Red Rock of Niagara, which must have been transported to Niagara Falls from much further north around the beginning of the last ice age about 20,000 years ago. Sure enough such granite is common in the Canadian Shield, the layer of dense rock that underlies approximately the eastern half of Canada.

I once climbed on top of the rock as a child. It is easy to see on the Red Rock Of Niagara how large pieces seem to have been sliced away from it. This was other pieces being broken off by the extreme pressure of the glacial ice, before the entire boulder was broken off and carried to Niagara Falls.

The Red Rock Of Niagara provides an excellent illustration of how the ice age glaciation, which is so important to the natural history of the area, operates. My guess is that it must have been found nearby and, being an attractive rock, was deemed suitable to hold the plaque dedicating the park. This may have been when the stream that used to run nearby, Muddy Run, was diverted underground and Valley Way was built on the former stream bed.

KING'S BRIDGE PARK AT CHIPPAWA

Here is something really amazing for those familiar with King's Bridge Park at Chippawa, Ontario, just south of Niagara Falls.

This is not about natural history, but about human history. The Welland River, sometimes known as Chippawa Creek, originally flowed into the Niagara River but had it's flow reversed to provide water for the electric generating plant. Have you ever wondered what happened to all the debris that was excavated when digging the hydraulic canal to the distant Adam Beck Generating Plant, and also that from the digging of the Welland Canal?

Take a look at this photo, which was probably taken in the 1920s: www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=94026&b=1 . The photo was taken from the east bank of the Welland River, in the village of Chippawa, looking westward in the direction of the falls. There are three large willow trees, seen on the distant bank, which are still there today.

Image from Google Street View

On the opposite side of the river, in King's Bridge Park the entire section of the park, toward the Niagara River to the north, is all artificial fill. The artificial island in the old photos is the beginning of that fill.

In this aerial photo, the diamond-shaped section of land in the right foreground is the portion of King's Bridge Park that was built from artificial fill: http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=362539&b=1 .

In this aerial photo, the arrow-shaped segment of land is the artificial fill: http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=98081&b=1 .

There is a small bay in the river, on the western side of the river in King's Bridge Park where it used to be safe for children to swim, away from the current in the Welland River. This bay can be easily seen in both photos, and is where the former shore of the Niagara River used to be. The three large willow trees in the photo are those where the Welland River meets the bay. Just continue the line of the southern shore of the bay across the park, and that is where the shore of the Niagara River used to be.

Image from Google Earth

This does have a practical purpose, that can be seen in the satellite imagery, in that it extends the shore in order to divert water from the Niagara into the Welland River so that it will go to generate electricity.

Image from Google Earth

The U.S. side also had a lot of debris from digging the underground tunnel to, and building, the power project in Lewiston. The result is that the I-190 highway is elevated on a bank of earth, and there is also an artificial extension of the escarpment in Lewismton near where Artpark is located.

THE FORMER MACKLEM FOUNDRY

As a youth walking through King's Bridge Park, in Chippawa, I remember that there was part of the foundation of a building that could still be seen. This foundation was in the southernmost part of the park, between Macklem and the river, just north of the Weightman Bridge. I also remembered once seeing an old photo of buildings which were in what is now King's Bridge Park, but I did not know what those buildings were.

I searched through this database of photos until I found an explanation. It turns out that there was an industry, called the Macklem Foundry, on this site until it was destroyed by a fire in 1887:

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=403393&b=1

BURNING SPRING

The native Indians in the Niagara area used to know of a place called the Burning Spring, near Dufferin Islands. Some kind of natural gas was leaking from the ground and if a candle was brought to it, flame would appear in the spring. There used to be a museum on the high ground right above the falls called The Burning Spring Wax Museum:

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=95663&b=1

The posting on the Niagara natural history blog, www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com , "The Niagara Valley" offers a simple explanation fir this phenomenon. What I define as the Niagara Valley is a broad valley caused by the pressure of the tectonic collision to the south which formed the Appalachian Mountains to the south, which caused a break and shift in the Niagara Escarpment. The Lower Niagara River, between the falls and the lower rapids, flows along the bottom of the Niagara Valley. The Niagara Valley can be seen in how the land on the U.S. side near the falls gets lower as we move west, but Thorold Stone Road on the Canadian side gets lower as we move east.

Such a break in the underlying rock strata may create underground gaps, in which natural gas or oil may collect over millions of years. Burning Spring was located right at the southeastern corner of the Niagara Valley and there was a place at the edge of the break in the rock strata, possibly opened up by glacial movement during the last ice age, where natural gas escaped to the surface.

ONEIDA SILVER BUILDING

Does anyone local remember the Oneida Silver building, where Casino Niagara is now located? I remember it, but then I went past one day and it was gone. In these two photos, it is the stately-looking building in the background:

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=93817&b=1

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=97278&b=1

U.S. SIDE

Image how much different the city of Niagara Falls, NY must have looked with the four towering stacks of the ALCOA company that can be seen in the background of the following photo. The U.S. side of Niagara Falls was where aluminum production really became large-scale.

The reason is that, while aluminum is a plentiful metal, it cannot be separated from it's ores by smelting like other common metals. The refining of aluminum is done by electrolysis, which requires the inexpensive electricity that was available at Niagara Falls.

The ALCOA plant was located around where the aquarium is now. Of course, the nearby electric generating plant which powered this massive refining operation, the Schoelkopf Power Plant, collapsed into the river in 1956: http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=93066&b=1

THE OLD SCOW

It is almost the 100 year anniversary of the Old Scow of Niagara. This refers to a barge from the U.S. side. A barge is a utility boat, with a flat bottom so that it can operate in shallow water. A barge doesn't have a keel.

In 1918, two men were in the barge when it apparently broke loose and drifted toward the falls. In the Upper Rapids, the water is very shallow in many places but the current is extremely fast. Just before they went over the falls, they managed to open a hole in the wooden bottom of the barge. This caused the barge to sink in the very shallow water, so that they would not plunge over the falls. But they were still a long way from shore.

A rocket, with a line attached, was fired from the Canadian side, and eventually the two were rescued. The barge remained where it is, and became known to generations of tourists as "The Old Scow of Niagara". It is immediately adjacent to the old stone Toronto Power Station building. Using the satellite imagery, I measure it as 215 m (710 feet) off the Canadian shore and 878 m (2,880 feet) upstream from the falls.

98 years later, I have the feeling that the barge is deteriorating and will not last indefinitely. Let's not forget the 100th anniversary, coming up in 2018. You can see in the following satellite image that only one side of the barge still remains standing. The barge is seen as the diagonal line in the center of the image:

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0731822,-79.071169,133m/data=!3m1!1e3

OLD NEIGHBOURHOOD

Do you want to see the area not far from the falls where I used to live? This was the place described in the posting on this blog, "Remembering The Old Neighbourhood", as well as Chapter 2 of my autobiography. The taller section of the building of Valley Way School. as seen directly in a straight line through the open gate in the first of the following scenes, is the room that served as a gym and auditorium at the school.

It was in this room that I first read the Bible. Unlike in the U.S., it wasn't illegal to teach the Bible in school. We used to bring Bibles to school and read Psalms in that room. Psalms are simple stories and songs that are easy for children to read. Years later, when I began to really read the Bible, I still had the 23rd Psalm, the well-known Shepherd's Psalm memorized:

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.1020288,-79.0830354,3a,75y,90h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXvRwlKjVvcW7nc2BbusXjA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DXvRwlKjVvcW7nc2BbusXjA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D163.55769%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

There is a posting explaining my findings in natural history. The posting is "Niagara Natural History Summary" June 2019. There is also a visit to Niagara Falls on this blog in "The Walkway And Highway Of Niagara" December 2016.