A visit to Three Sisters Island

Today, my friend Joanna and I went to Niagara Falls, just to be there. To experience the might and power of the falls. It is truly an amazing sight. The water rushing over the three separate waterfalls is incredible. Those waterfalls are the American falls, the Bridal Veil falls, and the Horseshoe falls. The best views of Niagara Falls are in Canada but that will have to wait because someone with more power than sense decided that Covid-19 was a hoax, leading to a tepid response to the pandemic. It wasn't a hoax. Canada got the pandemic under control. The United States didn't. Hence, the border closure. Essential travel only.

Looking at Niagara Falls is fun, but not essential, sad to say. Instead, we went to Three Sisters Island, where you can see the rapids up close and almost personal. Three Sisters Island is located off of Goat Island and is accessible by footbridge. It is the closest view of the rapids possible. Hence the up close and almost personal concept.

I googled Niagara Falls and found this site (link to fun facts about Niagara Falls) that has a whole collection of facts about Niagara Falls and about the park in Niagara Falls, NY, that Joanna and I visited.

Here are a few of them:

Niagara Falls State Park is the oldest state park in the United States. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed Delaware Park in Buffalo and Central Park in New York City. Frederick Law Olmsted was a landscape architect and an artist who believed that the layout of a park should affect the emotions of the visitor.

He combined the concepts of pastoral and picturesque parks to build his creations.

His parks and parkways and park systems are still wonderful places to visit. They still offer calming effects or excitement, depending on which park you're visiting.

This is how Niagara Falls appears
from Three Sisters Island

Sometimes, people get a little bit too much excitement when visiting Niagara Falls. One person who was affected in such a dramatic was was Annie Edson Taylor, who wanted a very experiential visit to Niagara Falls. On October 24th, 1901, the 63-year-old schoolteacher became the first person to survive a trip over the falls in a barrel. She was very fortunate. A month earlier, a lady named Maud Willard went over the falls in a barrel with her dog. The dog put its nose into the barrel's only air hole. Maud Willard died of suffocation, but the dog survived. 

Unfortunately for Annie Edson Taylor, her fame did not lead to fortune. In 1921, she died, penniless and blind.

And speaking about people who live to tell the tale of the power of Niagara Falls, there was Maria Spelterini, who, in 1876, became the first woman to cross the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope. For more information about daredevils, check out this link.

I'm not pruning that shrubbery!

Niagara Falls was born 12,000 years ago, during the last glacial age. Four of the five Great Lakes feed into Niagara Falls. They are Lakes Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. The water than drains into the easternmose of the Great Lakes, Lake Ontario.

Unlike humans, fish don't need barrels when going over Niagara Falls. Most of them survive the incredible drop because they know how to go with the flow.

A circus? What a quaked idea!!

Oh, and did you know that, at one time, PT Barnum wanted to turn Goat Island into a circus grounds? There could have been even more tightrope walkers over Niagara Falls! You never know!