Niagara Falls - Canada side

We decided to go to Niagara Falls on probably the hottest day we have had up here so far. We were hoping that the water would cool things down a bit.

We have visited the Falls a few times, mostly the US side. However back in 1986 we took my mother to the Canadian side and the overall view is better from the north. Here are the American Falls.

The Horseshoe Falls.

The Maid of the Mist. If you have never been to the falls, be sure to do this. You don't appreciate the power and scale of the falls until you don the blue slicker and go out on the boat.

Boats go from both sides.

Since it was a Monday, it wasn't too crowded. We were warned not to go on a weekend. 

The tower. No doubt there is a good view but I would never compare that to getting up close to the water.

A Maid of the the Mist fairly close to the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls. It sits there in the one place for a few minutes, engines going full bore, making sure that everybody gets wet. As you can see, the boats were full. This close to the falls, the mist is everywhere even up where we were on top of the cliff and my camera lens got wet.

Imagine this is your job operating the weed wacker.

We hadn't done the Journey Behind the Falls, so this was our big chance.

You walk though a long tunnel that goes behind the falls and there are a couple of portals where you can see the water thundering past. The second is supposedly about a third the way across the falls.

A short video for those with fast internet connections.

After you have done the portals you come back to a viewing platform at the base of the falls. It was quite wet here and you really needed the slicker.

The view down stream.

Madam is looking particularly elegant in her yellow outfit today.

Another short video of the power of the falls.

The Maid of the Mist struggling against the force of the water.

The cliff.

I think the horns look a bit better on the moose than they would on Marianne.

Finally we got back up to where the water falls over the cliff. It has to be a couple of feet deep there and the water is moving quite quickly.

I had forgotten much of what the falls looked like from this side over the intervening 25 years since we were here last, but this view I had not forgotten. However, it is not the same view because of the erosion rate of about one foot per year. 25 years means 25 feet of erosion.

Going up the inclined plane to the main part of the city.

From the inclined plane.

The Falls may be world famous but so is the tackiness of the town of Niagara Falls.

This photo is for Robin. By the way, we have been disappointed in the availability of Canadian bacon. It seems most of what is available in the supermarket is the streaky American style.

After lunch (not the Baconator) we proceeded down stream and here we have the whirlpool a few miles from the falls.

There is a cable car that crosses the whirlpool. I could probably muster up the courage to do it if I had to, but I didn't have to.

It's quite a contraption.

In the distance you can see where the river feeds into Lake Ontario. This photo was taken from the Niagara Escarpment and the original set of falls would have been here. Gradually they moved up stream as the water wore away the rock.

Finally we are down at Niagara on the Lake where the river enters Lake Ontario.