Niagara's Dangerous River

I would like to express sympathy that there has been another drowning in the Welland River, on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. In the following image from Google Earth the direction of flow of the Welland River has been reversed, so that it brings in water from the Niagara River. The water goes to generate electricity and it has the same strong current as the Niagara River.

The arrow-shaped piece of land is King's Bridge Park. It was formed from artificial fill from the power project to "catch" water from the Niagara River and divert it to generate electricity. The bridge at right is the Weightman Bridge, which kids used to jump off. The park used to be popular in summer but the current is dangerous, and there were often waves from motorboats going by. One day they pulled a victim from the river. It looked like they were trying to surround the body so the children wouldn't see a dead body. 

King's Bridge Park was very important to our family. We started going there when we lived on the Canadian side and continued going after moving to the U.S. side. I did a lot of swimming and jumping off the bridge. I had a diver's mask and explored all around underwater. We still used to go there after the body was pulled out, which happened when I was 14, but a lot of people stopped swimming there after that. 

Don't swim against a current. Go either with the current or across it. If you get into trouble in water just inflate your lungs and relax. You can't drown because your body will be lighter than water. If you do swim where there is a current the best thing is to wear fins, or flippers. They will multiply your swimming power.

The following pic is of me, at right, as a young boy at King's Bridge Park with the Welland River in the background. There was a bay, separated from the rest of the river by a sandbar, where children could swim because there was no current.