// L I F E S T Y L E & C U L T U R E
For facts sake:
Niagara Falls trivia for inquiring minds. • Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that overlap the international borders of Canada and United States. • You are almost always guaranteed to see a rainbow if you’re on the Canadian side of the Falls. To capture this beautiful phenomenon be sure to grab your camera and visit from about noon until the sun sets. • Scientists believe that the Niagara Falls will be gone in 50,000 years due to the current rate of erosion. • The first person to see and describe Niagara Falls in depth was Father Louis Hennepin, a French priest who accompanied LaSalle on his expedition to the Niagara Region in 1678.
• Hundreds of years ago, the Niagara Escarpment split. The sediment from a vanished Lake Tonawanda formed Goat Island (after John Stedman whose goat herds froze to death in the winter of 1780). The water flow on the American Falls is much less forceful because of Goat Island. The Canadian Falls has no such obstacle. • After the water flows over the Falls into Lake Ontario, it travels to the St. Lawrence River, then out to the Atlantic Ocean. • The deepest part of Niagara River is 170ft, and it is located at the base of the Falls. • The speed of the Whirlpool Rapids can travel as fast as 30 feet per second.
• Niagara Falls is over 12,000 years old. The Falls were formed at the end of the last Ice Age, when the melting glaciers formed the Great Lakes, one of which (Erie), ran downhill towards another (Ontario). While the water rushed from one Lake to another, the Niagara River was carved out, and at one point had to rush over a large cliff (the Niagara Escarpment). As the falls eroded over time, the Niagara Gorge was formed. • The water that flows over Niagara Falls is greenish-blue, because of a combination of algae and crushed slate and shale sediment. Sometimes, after storms, which stir up dirt at the bottom of the river and the Great Lakes, the water briefly turns brown.
