Niagara Falls And The Moon Landings

The present tension between the U.S. and Canada recurs periodically. The good news is that we soon get past it. Let's review when the American Falls were shut off, in 1969. It ruined the tourist season on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. I am sure that it was done in retaliation for Pierre Trudeau's incessant criticism of America's war in Vietnam.

In 1969 the American Falls, which are one of the two main falls at Niagara, were shut off by the construction of a temporary dam. This was possible because actually less than ten percent of the water flows over the American Falls because it's base is higher in elevation than that of the Horseshoe Falls. The purpose was announced as the testing of the rock strata to possibly prevent erosion of the cliff over which the water falls. There had been major rock falls the decade before, leaving a large amount of rock at the base of the falls.

The following image is from the Wikipedia article "American Falls".

There are numerous photos and videos of the nearly dry falls online. Just do a search for "Dry Niagara Falls 1969" or "dewatered Niagara Falls 1969" if you want to see more.

Remaining traces of the dam between Goat Island and the mainland, can be seen in the satellite imagery as it disturbs the water rushing over it toward the falls. It took well over a thousand truckloads of rock and soil, dumped into the river, to build the dam.

This put Niagara Falls in the news across the world. It was my first summer in America and the area around the falls were very crowded with people wanting to see the dry riverbed and the falls up close.

The Canadian side usually has the natural advantage in viewing the falls because most of the falls can be seen directly from there. The spectacle of turning off the falls made viewing from the U.S. side more popular, but harmed the tourist season overall because there was not much to be seen from the Canadian side but the bare wall of the gorge.

But why couldn't this have been done in the off-season? There was enough time between the end of the tourist season and the beginning of winter to accomplish whatever had to be done. Why tamper with the falls at all? The erosion of the base of the falls is part of the natural process, and the falls has worked it's way from it's beginning at the Niagara Escarpment at Lewiston-Queenston, at the end of the last ice age, to where it is now, by the natural process of the rushing water eroding the cliff face.

The geologists drilled holes in the riverbed, and tested the permeability of the rock layers with dye. After all of the testing was done, the decision was made that the best thing to do was to just leave the falls alone.

That is because, despite the announced purpose, this was never about the falls to begin with.

This was in no way a local idea, it originated with the U.S. Congress. The plan to shut off Niagara Falls was organized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the dam was built by a local construction company.

The shutting off of Niagara Falls in 1969 was actually an international power play by the new Richard Nixon administration. The falls were just the stage on which this play was acted out. The dam was built in the days leading up to the first attempt to land astronauts on the moon, Apollo 11. The dry riverbed was a terrestrial reflection of the surface of the moon, in this era of Cold War posturing and propaganda, for all of the tourists who came to Niagara to see what America could do.

The monument honoring Sir Isaac Brock, a hero of the Canadian side from the War of 1812, was built so that it can be clearly seen from the American side. The following image is from Google Street View.

As the Space Age was underway, Canada didn't launch any spacecraft but it did build the Skylon Tower overlooking the falls with Space Age architecture. It may have appeared that the Skylon was built in the same spirit as the Isaac Brock Monument. Showing what Canada can do as there was nothing comparable on the American side. Image from Google Street View.

Shortly after humans had walked on the hitherto inaccessible surface of the moon for the first time, a ladder down to a walkway was constructed so that visitors could walk on the hitherto inaccessible riverbed for the first time. They naturally waited to make sure that the moon mission would be a success first. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Apollo 11".

Just as tourists being able to walk on the dry riverbed of Niagara evoked the astronauts walking on the moon a few days before, the geologists examining the rock of the riverbed evoked the astronauts examining the rocks of the moon. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Apollo 11".

Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. In November of that year, astronauts landed on the moon again, in Apollo 12. This mission was also a great success. One surprise about the moon was the variation in it's surface gravity from one place to another. Because of this, Apollo 11 actually missed it's intended landing site by several km.

This was corrected in Apollo 12. More than two years before a robot spacecraft had been landed on the moon, Surveyor 3. In an amazing feat of precision, Apollo 12 landed right next to Surveyor, removed it's camera, and brought it back to earth. The following image, from the Wikipedia article "Apollo 12", is of one of the astronauts at the Surveyor craft, with their lunar module in the background.

This was also reflected at Niagara Falls. Just as humans had their first opportunity to walk on the riverbed of Niagara just after America's astronauts had first walked on the moon, the water of Niagara was turned back on by the removal of the dam immediately after the ensuing Apollo 12 had returned from it's successful mission by splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

The shutting off of the falls lasted from the time of Apollo 11 to the time of Apollo 12. The turning back on of the falls was also a major news event. Not only could we land men on the moon, and get them safely back, we could also turn the falls off and back on again.

Despite the expense of the project, nothing was done to change anything about the falls. That is because it was never about the falls in the first place. I think that this history makes Niagara Falls, NY more interesting.

What actually happened is that Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was incessantly critical of the conduct of America's Vietnam War. He even came to Niagara Falls to personally welcome American draft dodgers to refuge in Canada. The new U.S. administration of Richard Nixon didn't appreciate the criticism.

The announced purpose of turning off the falls was for examination of the underlying rock strata. But it had a devastating effect on the Canadian Niagara tourist season. Instead, it brought tourists to the American side to see the dry falls up close. 

This was around the same time that the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Sweden over it's criticism of the Vietnam War. 

But Nixon and Trudeau soon patched things up. In 1972, Richard Nixon visited Pierre Trudeau in Ottawa and famously predicted that Trudeau's then-infant son would someday be Canadian Prime Minister. 

This was at a time when America was engaged in the war in Vietnam and there was also racial uprisings going on in American cities. Does anyone remember the psychedelic rock song, from 1970, "American Woman", by the Canadian band the Guess Who? It is about an alluring, but no-good, American woman. She is spurned while being told "I don't need your war machines. I don't need your ghetto scenes".