Interesting facts about Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls is stunning! When you check out some unique and interesting facts about Niagara Falls, you’ll wow your friends and learn more about this special area.
In fact, Niagara Falls are not alone –
it is a whole complex of waterfalls, which is on the border of the United States and Canada. Most people who visited him agree that the most impressive view opens up on the Canada side, not the American side.
Niagara Falls are moving slowly as the rocks that create the Niagara River bed are eroded.
In a relatively recent past, it was 7 miles downstream. Previously, it moved from 1 to 1.5 meters per year, but after the construction of a hydroelectric power plant upstream, its movement rate decreased to 30 to 50 cm per year.
Scientists established that the original waterfall appeared about 12,300 years ago
and was far from its current location. In around 50,000 years, it will disappear completely and its American part will disappear after 5,000 years.
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The maximum height of Niagara Falls is relatively small,
only 53 meters, i.e. some average residential skyscrapers in Moscow are taller than it. For comparison, the height of Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, located in Venezuela, reaches 1054 meters, and the height of the free fall of water is 807 meters.
On the Canada side of Niagara Falls,
rainbows can be seen every day. To do this, it is advisable to arrive between noon and sunset, neither sooner nor later.
A large number of fish falls through this waterfall.
However, fish sometimes even rise back! It sounds amazing, but the fact is you can see it with your own eyes.
The foam at the bottom of Niagara Falls forms a kind of pillow.
This will not save an animal or heavy person in the event of a fall, but this is enough for a fish, so that as a result of the fall, on average, only about 10% of all fish die.
Every second, the waterfall throws a huge amount of water,
whose flow reaches 5700 m³/s. And 5,700 cubic meters are 5.7 million liters! This is only slightly smaller than that of the Cascade of Iguassu Falls, the most crowded in the world – up to 6,000 m³ / s.
A man’s first descent through a waterfall,
in which this man remained alive, was performed in 1901, when American ballroom dance teacher Annie Taylor on her 63rd birthday fell into a common wooden barrel. She lost her job and livelihood and decided that if she attracted public attention with this risky act, she could change things. Ten years later, the restaurant’s owner, Bobby Leach, repeated his experiment, but instead of a barrel, he used a special metal structure.
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Today, going down Niagara Falls anyway is forbidden,
as there are plenty of extreme sports enthusiasts, but the chances of surviving this event are low. Offenders are fined $10,000 if they, of course, survive.
In 1960, 7-year-old American Roger Woodward was taken by a creek into a river
and fell into a waterfall, from which he in fact fell, wearing only a life jacket. He remained safe and sound, and journalists called this event a “Miracle of Niagara.”
Before World War I, Niagara Falls were not a popular tourist attraction
due to poor infrastructure. After the war, however, there were more and more cars, and tourists flocked here.
The lookouts on the Canadian side are covered by a dense layer of fog
due to the fact that Canadians have built very tall buildings nearby. The air currents, which pass through them, swirl and sink into the downstream river, causing swirls, which in turn are the cause of persistent fog.
In 1969, the Americans carried out large-scale work to strengthen the Niagara Canal in the area of the falls.
To do so, they diverted the entire flow of water to the side, to a temporary channel, and the American part of the waterfall remained dry for several months.
There are many U.S. and Canadian hydroelectric power plants operating above and below Niagara Falls,
which provide electricity to all surrounding areas. Its total power is 4.4 Gigawatts. Dream view of the American side of Niagara Falls from below, from the river level
The noise of Niagara Falls can be easily heard for several kilometers.
And the fall of huge bodies of water makes the air in the area so saturated with moisture that you can get wet if you stand next to this place.
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The main falls of Niagara falls are the Canadian “Horseshoe”
with 792 meters wide and the American part 323 meters wide. But the apparent height of the American part is only 21 meters due to the pile of stones below.
Niagara Falls is not one of the ten or even one hundred of the tallest in the world.
There are over 500 tallest waterfalls on Earth, but Niagara Falls are still famous around the world due to their combination of height, huge width and high water flow.
This impressive location has served as a film set several times.
In particular, it was here that some episodes of the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean: At the End of the World” were filmed.
Hundreds of colorful spotlights are installed here.
At night, they are turned on and illuminate the currents of water that fall in different colors. The lighting is very impressive.
Niagara Falls are visited by more than 15 million tourists annually,
mainly Americans and Canadians. Although due to the global pandemic of COVID-19, this site, like many others, has been closed to the public for a long time.
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Niagara waters are distinguished by a greenish hue.
This is due to the fact that they are saturated with several Sais, which give them an emerald color. Sounds pretty good too.
Ancient peoples lived in the Niagara Falls area,
according to archaeologists, about 11,000 years ago. However, at that time he himself was in a completely different place.
The first modern settlements appeared here after the end of the American War of Independence.
They were founded by supporters, supporters of Britain, who were defeated and decided, as a precaution, to move somewhere far away, for example, to Canada.
Before the arrival of the Americans in the Niagara Falls area,
local indigenous tribes lived here. The colonialists mercilessly drove them out of the land on which they lived for centuries, and sometimes even exterminated them.
For the first time, people began using the energy of Niagara Falls in the late 1790s.
So, American entrepreneurs Auguste and Peter Porter built here a flour mill, whose grindstones were powered by the energy of the fall of the water.
Both on the American and Canadian sides,
there are cities near the falls that thrive in tourism. Interestingly, both cities have the same name – Niagara Falls.
Contrary to popular belief, Niagara Falls are not on the periphery of civilization.
It is located in the state of New York, whose capital is the city of the same name, one of the most famous on Earth.
Niagara Falls is vital for the US.
It is through him that about 20% of all drinking water consumed by Americans in all fifty states enters this country.
The foam at the foot of the waterfall is not white, but brown.
This is not a consequence of pollution, but of the fact that the water stream falls into the clay bed of the river, so that clay particles make the foam brown.