Facts about niagara falls

Facts about niagara falls Niagara: It Has It All

While the sensational details of Blondin’s theatrics are always cited in Niagara books, they have never been explained. ...
06/10/2023

While the sensational details of Blondin’s theatrics are always cited in Niagara books, they have never been explained. Why did the aerialist cross the River wearing an iron collar, chains, handcuffs and shackles? In pursuit of an answer, Strand uncovers Niagara’s undeniably thrilling history as a crossing point for fugitive slaves fleeing America for Canada, often led by the black Moses, Harriet Tubman, across John Roebling’s Railway Suspension Bridge. Strand’s reading incidentally provides a new set of associations for the bridge, which emerges as a resonant symbol of not just engineering prowess but also of black rights and freedom.

It’s not the first time that writers have pointed out the false opposition between nature and culture and it will not be...
06/10/2023

It’s not the first time that writers have pointed out the false opposition between nature and culture and it will not be the last. But few are prepared to dig so deep to prove it. Strand has, as she candidly admits, “a bit of a problem dropping things,” [Strand, 11] which manifests itself in an ability to pick away at the well-worn myths of Niagara and pull out something fresh, as she does by tracking down the origins of the “Maid of the Mist” legend or by taking a long hard look at the symbolism of the Blondin’s tightrope crossings in 1859 and 1860.

Strand’s own position falls between the two thematic threads: she traces how the recent experience of Niagara Falls’ sub...
06/10/2023

Strand’s own position falls between the two thematic threads: she traces how the recent experience of Niagara Falls’ sublimity and beauty has come to us courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, among others, and she treats the opposition of the natural and manmade as a culturally significant illusion, a sleight of hand that detracts from Niagara’s “real history.” [Strand, 110]

Some scholars, notably Elizabeth McKinsey, focus on the cataracts themselves as the most potent symbol of the American s...
06/10/2023

Some scholars, notably Elizabeth McKinsey, focus on the cataracts themselves as the most potent symbol of the American sublime; others, such as William Irwin and David Nye, discuss Niagara’s bridges, factories and hydroelectric plants as symbols of American technological prowess. 1

To be original about Niagara is no small thing. Since the 1980s, there has been a wave of scholarly writing about Niagar...
06/10/2023

To be original about Niagara is no small thing. Since the 1980s, there has been a wave of scholarly writing about Niagara. Art historians, literary critics, cultural studies and cultural geographers all agree that it lies at the heart of the “imaginary geography” of America, crucial to attempts at national self-definition and nationalistic myth-making.

Inventing Niagara [Simon and Schuster, 2008] is a work of creative non-fiction, and Strand herself is the opposite of th...
04/10/2023

Inventing Niagara [Simon and Schuster, 2008] is a work of creative non-fiction, and Strand herself is the opposite of the objective observer (a type that still tends to dominate academic writing). Here we are everywhere aware of Strand’s personality, of her obsessiveness and her good-natured but long-suffering college boyfriend, Bob. Of her views on nature, she confesses: “I never know what kind of tree or bird I’m looking at, woods and their denizens make me nervous, and I don’t like being cold, damp, tired or too far from a person with a cocktail shaker.”

And at Niagara, at least, you could reasonably conclude that man wins; but the victory is pyrrhic. After passing miles o...
04/10/2023

And at Niagara, at least, you could reasonably conclude that man wins; but the victory is pyrrhic. After passing miles of vacant motels, empty factories and desolate downtowns, today’s tourist comes away wondering if anyone now cares about Niagara at all.

But then, Niagara has always been a site of extreme contrasts, where the sublime and magnificent cozies up to the ta**ry...
04/10/2023

But then, Niagara has always been a site of extreme contrasts, where the sublime and magnificent cozies up to the ta**ry and brutal. Since its European “discovery” in the 17th century, Niagara Falls has been not only one of the most famous natural wonders in the world, but also one of the most exploited, the preeminent staging ground for the ur-battle of American culture: the battle of human against nature, of the power of nature versus man’s ability to harness it.

It’s a clear winner, particularly in the context of early 1980s Niagara, a place which really did have it all, but in al...
04/10/2023

It’s a clear winner, particularly in the context of early 1980s Niagara, a place which really did have it all, but in all the wrong ways. Heart-shaped luv tubs, wax museums, a failing tourist industry, disastrous urban renewal, Love Canal, high unemployment and prostitutes, who, as everyone knew (even my mother), waited on Bridge Street on the Canadian side to catch the cross-border traffic — realities so grim that even the genteel strips of emerald parkland at the Falls couldn’t fully make up for them.

A memory. I am twelve years old and win my local newspaper’s writing contest, along with the $100 prize. I planned my pi...
04/10/2023

A memory. I am twelve years old and win my local newspaper’s writing contest, along with the $100 prize. I planned my piece carefully and, with the day’s most boosterish tourist slogans in mind, chose my headline: “Niagara: It has it all.”

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