Short Stuff: Niagara Falls Dewatered

we stopped and turned around and looked again. It's a It's really definitely a site to see, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess we should point that out for people like me who have never been to Niagara Falls, that there are a few falls. If you're American and you don't want to leave the country, you can see the American side, right if you want to see something that, to my eye on images online looks better. The Canadian

Horseshoe Falls look pretty nice. H They're better, right, I don't want to say better because I'm an American, but they are much larger, there's much a much larger volume of water. It's much more graceful, and they're separated by a Goat Island, and then there's cute little bridal Veilfall

separated from the American Fall by Luna Island. Yeah, so there's technically three falls with Niagara Falls, and um, what's surprising to me, Chuck, is is um in researching this, like that set up where you've got the American Falls, bridle Veil Falls, and then the Horseshoe Falls in the Canadian side. That's only like five eight hundred years old. Yeah, that seems old, but uh, I believe that. I don't

know why that sounds reasonable to me. Okay, well, that's like I can't keep my socks on every time I

hear that. Yeah, because you think of something like a geological feature like a waterfall, it's got to be ancient, right, But the idea that it's only been that way for five hundred eight hundred years kind surprising, until, of course, then you look into a little further and you see, oh, well, this this waterfall is just eroding the earth beneath it so quick that Yeah, it's it's of course it's not

always been this way. It just totally makes sense. Yeah, and that erosion, you know, the the bottom of the falls is pretty uh, intimidating. It's very rocky and uh jagged, big boulders. That's why going over a barrel. We did a podcast, I guess if you want to call it, that may many years ago in our early days, about going over the falls in a barrel. Then it's incredibly dangerous. Yeah, it is very dangerous. And those rocks, though, haven't always

been there. There were two rock falls in the nineteen thirties and the nineteen fifties, specifically under the American Falls, and that left a lot of bowlers underneath. And some people said, well that is just unsightly, and frankly, it's probably not very patriotic to let the Canadians best us with their much more beautiful waterfall. Now, so we've got to figure out what to do about us, because we can't just let the American Falls go away, that's right.

And who do you call when you need something like this done? You know that you call the Army Corps of Engineers. And they said, well, really, the only way to find out what's going on is to dry up this waterfall. And everyone at the table spit out their coffee and they said, you're crazy. It's it's nineteen nine. What are you talking about? And they said, you know,

it's really not that hard. Yeah, it really isn't. So they hired a construction company and they built a Coffer dam, which I believe we talked about in the Hoover Dam episode. It's just like a mound of earth that is holding water back, um, that's not normally there. And they built that at the point like the fork where the American Falls began, and they diverted the Niagara River mostly over to the Horseshoe Falls, a little bit to the Bridle Falls.

But then that was it. Like the water stopped flowing over the Niagara the American Fall and it virtually ride everything up. It was kind of easy if you if you think about it. I mean, it was a massive, huge project, but it wasn't technically that hard. Yeah. It was close to twenty eight thousand tons of phil So that's a lot of a lot of dirt and rock

and fills. It's a lot of fills. Um. But when you think about the fact that the Horseshoe Fall accounts for of the dump anyway, like they couldn't damn a Porshoe fall. There's no way, right, I I don't believe so no, I don't think the American Fall could take it. The other thing I wonder too, is if when they did this, if he could tell a difference at Horseshoe Fall. Yes, I read that you could really most decidedly cooler. Right, I'm teen percent more inspired. I love it. Yeah, the

rainbows around it were ten percent brighter. It was just you could really tell. Well, should we take a little break? Well, sure, man, all right, let's take a break and find out exactly what they did once they had these dry falls right

after this, so again, chuck there. They dried up Niagara Fall because they wanted to figure out how to keep it from roading and possibly how to clean it up, like clean up all those boulders that talus at the bottom from those rock falls, because they were worried about it looking ug basically, that's right. But here's the thing, uh that, And you should look up pictures of this if you're not driving your car, because it's pretty remarkable, it really is to see this thing, uh dried up

like that. I mean, it just looks like a you know, really flat mountain basically like a cliff, which is what it is. But they couldn't keep it all dry that face they had to keep wet because it had never been dried out and exposed to the sun and the wind, and they were rightfully worried about what might happen, so they had to keep spray in that face kind of

continually from what like June to November. Yeah, they installed the sprinkler system to do it, and they didn't have just a bunch of people right to standing there like this is the worst summer job of all time, that's right. But then they had to clean out the riverbed, so they sam blasted out um a bunch of stuff, and they get the moss off, and they sprayed all these rocks clean and got all the loose gravel out of there.

And they really wanted to see what was going on, you know, geologically, so they injected blue dye uh into the They drilled down into the riverbed injected blue dye, and they were like, let's let's see what happens. Let's sit back and have have a t and see where this blue comes out. And then some of the more excited workmen among them and be like, oh, there it is there, it is something. When the blue die started

to emerge and they clap him point and laugh. That's right. Um. They also installed something called extensive meters, which are pretty interesting. They're little sounds so made up there it does. It also sounds like something a mad villain would would use, but it measures the movement of the rock in the foundation or the bed or the riverbed of the American Falls to to basically look out for any movement greater than one one h of an inch. This is pretty specific,

very specific. And they also installed little metal posts called monuments which they can use in the future and have used in the future, um to survey the area and see if they've moved at all, if the riverbed has moved at all, in the hopes that they will be able to catch a rock fall from happening or erosion from happening before it happens. That's right. And they did find a place where they thought it was pretty susceptible

in the future to occur, and that was a prospect point. Uh. This had already been a place where they had a rock fall in the nine, which is the one that kind of kick started this whole plan to begin with. So prospect point is a problem quite frankly, yes, although this was uh the last time it happened. It has happened since. No, it hasn't. And I think some people might be a little surprised because this is nineteen sixty nine, where they're like, uh, this is probably where it's going

to happen next again, and it just still hasn't. It was a summer of love, it was. That's so funny. Look I haven't written down here the summer of Love underneathing. Did you get that email? Yeah? Yeah, apparently we've been saying summer of Love is at anything but nineteen sixty seven, then that is officially the summer of Love. I did not know that, so I always thought it was sixty eight For some reason, I always thought it was sixty nine.

All right? Well, uh in show correction short stuff style. Yes, So back to the dry bed. You would think who would want to come see a dried up Niagara Falls, And it turns out a lot of people would you not? Well, I mean, I haven't been this. I would want to. I don't know if that would want that to be

my first trip right right? Or you would definitely want to go back a second time when it's in full swing first, or maybe actually that would be the time to go because you could see that and Horseshoe Falls and get the best of both worlds. Yeah. So so some people were thinking like that and thought like this

is amazing. There was one weekend in mid July where nine people streamed through there um to see, you know, because this is this is kind of a once in a lifetime thing to see Niagara Falls dried up or the American Falls at least. But overall that tourist season was pretty pretty lame because a lot of people were like, well, I guess it's under construction. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pay for that road trip to go see a

Lamo fall. Yeah. And the original plan was there, like let's try this thing out and invite people out to walk around and do stuff. They kind of were like, it's a little too wet still, and it's probably still kind of dangerous. So it was in August finally that they deemed it dry enough for people to go out safely. I think that they never allowed people up on the cliff,

did they. Well, they built a fence on the brink, so I think I don't know how close to the brink they were loued to be, but I get the impression that all throughout the summer, whether they were allowed out there or not, people would go run out on the riverbed and just like hang out, and then they would be chased off by the army corps, like we might not have guns, but we have sextants. Another thing they did, and I just consider this very bad luck,

people would go out and collect wish coins. I just didn't that bad luck. I don't know, those are people's wishes. We've seen the good eats. Yeah, yeah, but the wishes have come and gone. I mean, come on, if it's not if they hadn't been granted by now, they're not going to be granted. You know, let's give those coins another shot. I guess. So it just seems I don't know,

it doesn't seem right. That's like that one part in the Simpsons, the beer baron episode where they're driving through the cemetery and bar goes, Dad, it's bad luck to run over gravestones, and Homer goes, really, I heard good, it's good luck. Um. One thing they did find, and it's kind of amazing they didn't find more dead bodies, but they did find too. One of them was a pretty recent one that they were actually looking for this guy.

They saw this guy dive into the river about a week before, so they knew he would be in there. But what they didn't know is that they would find a very creepy find woman in a red striped dress who had been down there for a long time. It says, lodged head first into the talus. Didn't that's so ghoulish. And she had a gold ring inscribed with forget me not. Yeah, and then the irony of that is that she's never been identified. Yeah, that seems remarkable to me. It doesn't. Man.

I looked. I was like, I don't know how else to word the search, but I didn't find anything about that woman being identified ever. Um, so I don't. And I'm also not sure that the guy who jumped the week before they turned the water off was ever identified as well. It was, but they they yeah, he was mistaken for a worker by some people who's um initially jump in and then they were like, oh wait, that

that guy. That's not good. Yeah, but but yeah, a lot of people are surprised that they didn't find more bodies because there's a lot of people who die by suicide or just do something dumb and and go over the you know, falls in a barrel or whatever, like it's it's a well known place to do that. And only two bodies is kind of strange. Yeah, they found one deer carcass, which that's kind of surprising. I just

thought it would be littered with carcasses. I think that's kind of what they were half expecting to It was probably a good you know, they were delighted by that. I'm sure they were. Yeah. So by November they're like, Okay, we've figured out everything we can figure out. We've kind of shorted up as best we can. Um, from what I read the the waterfall naturally eroded at like five ft a year, and now they've got it down to one because of this stuff they did in nineteen nine

and later nine two. But um, they said, okay, it's time to turn the wall are back on, and they did on get this November nine, which I believe was fifty years and two days ago. Oh wow, isn't that neat anniversary? Happy water Day, Reintroduction of water to Fall Day. Uh. Yeah. And of course they had to do it slowly throughout the course of a day. They couldn't just make some big magnificent scene and say watch this everybody. I'm sure

they wanted to, but hang on to your duff's. Yeah, I'm sure they did some math to figure out just kind of how slow they needed to go with it. But it was still probably pretty cool to see it all. Bet it was, for sure. Um. And so what was kind of heartening to me is they said, Okay, we learned a lot. Actually we can probably keep this thing

from a roading, but should we? And this joint task force to kind of preserve Niagara Falls, but a joint commission between Canada and the US said, well, what are the residents around here? Thinks? So they sent out little mailers and asked, like two thousand residents in Canada and on the U. S side, what do you guys think we should do? And the majority of people said, Hey, it's a natural formation. Just leave it to nature. Leave it be. So they did. I thought that was kind

of neat. I like it. They ask locally too, right, They they asked local locally and acted locally. There you go. Oh yeah. They were going to turn it off all more time in two thousand nineteen to fix some bridges, and I believe time has basically run out on that project, so it might happen in let's cross our fingers, maybe we can do a podcast live from the brink. That's a really great idea, Chuck, Well, I guess that's the end of short stuff Chuck, which means short stuff out.

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