Did you know?

The falls

Niagara Falls is made up of three separate waterfalls: the Horsehoe Falls, the Bridal Veil Falls and the American Falls. They were created about 11,000 years ago when glaciers receded at the end of the last ice age. About 10,900 years ago, the falls were located between present-day Queenston, Ontario and Lewiston, New York. They have since retreated 10.9 (6.8 miles) kilometres south from that location.

The current erosion rate is approximately 30 centimetres (one foot) per year, down from a historical average of 91 centimetres (three feet) per year. In roughly 50,000 years, the falls will have eroded the remaining 32 kilometres (20 miles) to Lake Erie and cease to exist.

Early depictions of Niagara Falls

The earliest depiction of the falls was captured by Captain Thomas Davies, a British Army officer and artist, who surveyed the area around the falls in 1762. His watercolour painting, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, was the first eyewitness account of the falls to be documented.

Nearly 80 years later, English industrial chemist Hugh Lee Pattinson travelled to Canada, stopping at Niagara Falls long enough to make the earliest known photograph of the falls, a daguerreotype.

The Niagara River

The Niagara River is technically a strait, not a river. A strait is a naturally formed waterway that connects two larger bodies of water. In the case of the Niagara River, it connects Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The river’s brilliant turquoise colour is a by-product of the dissolved salts and finely ground rock generated by the erosive force of the Niagara River itself.

The Niagara River supplies drinking water for millions of citizens of Ontario. In the Niagara Region alone, approximately 130,000 people rely on the Niagara River and Lake Ontario for their drinking water.

Hydropower in Niagara

The first known effort to harness the waters if the Niagara River was in 1759 when Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to power his sawmill. In 1881, Niagara’s first hydroelectric generating station was built on the American side of the river. It generated direct current electricity, running the machinery of local mills and providing light to a few streets

Before this power station was constructed, the current of the Niagara River flowed at a speed of 10 to 12 feet per second. After a weir was placed out in the river, the fast-moving current slowed to a speed of six feet per second as water was pulled into the power station’s forebay for power generation.