Niagara Falls, New York
June 1969
The walk is called the Cave of the Winds, but there is no cave anymore, and on this day no winds. No water either. Had my sisters and I been here a few weeks ago, the spray from the falls would have lashed our yellow rain slickers with gale force. Today, we face dry cliffs and tumbled rock. Niagara’s American Falls has been turned off.
The much larger Canadian Falls that has carved a horseshoe-shaped curve across the Niagara River between the Canadian shore and New York’s Goat Island still plunges into a curtain of mist, as grand as always. But on the U.S. side, massive rockfalls over the past few decades have reduced the vertical drop of the American Falls.
To determine if the rockfalls could be cleared out and perhaps the relentless erosion of the falls forestalled, a plan was created to dewater the American Falls for five months. The Army Corps of Engineers built a 600-foot-long cofferdam across the branch of the Niagara River that flows along the New York shore. On June 12, 1969, the final boulders were dumped into place, and the American Falls diminished to a trickle. We are among the throngs of visitors who have come to see Niagara stilled and silenced.
Earlier today, we walked out onto the dry rocks of the river above the falls, where raging rapids would have swept us downriver and over the brink, like the two people whose bodies were discovered among the rocks. In the final analysis, engineering and public opinion will hold that nature should be left to carve its own course. The rockfalls will remain in place and the dam dismantled. But for now, we can experience Niagara Falls as never before.
Picture Perfect is a series of occasional short posts, each focused on a single image that captures a memory from travels past.
David Romanowski, 2021
Bike Walk Drive 