North America’s most famous falls are best appreciated from a distance.
OVER THE FALLS IN A BARREL
Some people come to the biggest falls in North America to marvel at their beauty and enormity. Other people come and think, “I should go over those falls in a barrel.” In 1901, Annie Taylor was the first to experience the falls via barrel. She was able to create pressure in her airtight barrel by having air pumped in with a bicycle pump. After going down the falls, Annie emerged bruised and battered but alive. In 1911, Bobby Leach plummeted over the falls inside of a steel barrel. He broke both kneecaps and his jaw. (Years later he died from gangrene, which he got after slipping on a banana peel.) In 1920, Charles Stephens tied himself to an anvil, climbed into his barrel, and headed over the falls. Afterward, the only thing found in the barrel was his left arm. In 1930, a Greek waiter named George L. Statakis suffocated to death after his barrel became trapped behind the falls for more than 14 hours.
TAKING THE PLUNGE
A Canadian mechanic nicknamed “Super Dave” Munday plunged over the falls in a barrel in 1985. He loved it so much he repeated it in 1993. In 1995, Robert Overcracker drove his jet ski directly over the falls in a campaign to promote homelessness awareness. He planned to open a parachute as he went over the falls, but the shoot did not open. His body was never found. Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan, holds the distinction of having gone over the falls in nothing but the clothes on his back. On October 22, 2003, he crossed into Canada, swam out into the current, and dropped 53.3 meters (175 feet). He passed the Maid of the Mist tour boat as he swam to shore. He had a friend videotape the whole thing, but his friend wasn’t working the camera correctly and nothing was recorded. The authorities picked him up and fined him $2,300. He was banned from entering Canada for the rest of his life.
AN AMAZING TALE OF SURVIVAL
Niagara Falls is actually a collection of falls that includes Canada’s Horseshoe Falls. On June 9, 1960, Jim Honeycutt took family friends Deanna and Roger Woodward on a small boat past the hydro dam. Roger was just seven years old, and his sister Deanna was 17. The dam was considered the point of no return for all small boats, and Honeycutt and his passengers swiftly realized they were in trouble. They tried to drive the boat to Goat Island, a small island in the Niagara River. Unfortunately, the boat overturned. Deanna, who had on a life jacket, was able to swim close enough to shore for two tourists to pull her out about 20 feet before the drop, but Roger and James went over the falls. Roger, who was also wearing a life jacket, miraculously survived the drop to the bottom. Jim Honeycutt, who was not wearing a life jacket, died. His body was found four days later downriver. Roger Woodward literally went down in history as the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls wearing only a life jacket. He was rescued by the crew aboard the Maid of the Mist tour boat. Moments after being rescued he asked about his sister. Relieved to hear of her rescue, he then asked for a glass of water. “I had probably drank half the Niagara River, but I was pretty thirsty,” Roger said.
Regina, Saskatchewan, started as a settlement called Pile of Bones.
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THESE CHANGING TIMES
Sandford Fleming did a lot of things. In 1851, at age 24, he designed Canada’s first postage stamp (it had a beaver on it), and he invented the world’s first pair of inline skates. But his “day job” was as a surveyor for railroads, and later as an engineer. Perhaps Fleming’s most lasting contribution, however, is that of the 24-hour international clock. On a visit to Ireland, Fleming missed a train because the schedule mixed up the AM and PM sections. Frustrated, but seeing an opportunity for a more logical, systematic approach to timekeeping, he came up with the idea of a worldwide clock, divided into time zones based on Greenwich as the median. He introduced his idea at the International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C., in 1884—a gathering he also helped spearhead. The idea was adopted, though left up to individual countries to implement. By 1929 most all the world was on board.
Humorist Thomas Chandler Haliburton popularized the phrase “raining cats and dogs” Other Haliburton phrases: “quick as a wink” and “facts are stranger than fiction.”