Saturday, October 16, 2010

Favorite Places - 2 - Niagara Falls

In our travels from one end of Canada to the other, we stopped a couple of times at Niagara Falls. Although very much commercialized and touristy, the sheer power and size of the falls makes you realize that all of the man made trappings surrounding it are minor compared to the power of nature.

I wasn't as much into documenting our every movement in photos back then so there's lots of things I remember from those trips to Niagara Falls that I have no photo memory of - things like going through the tunnel that comes out behind a part of the falls, and visiting the museum and seeing the mummys there, of Lloyd and the kids (except for the two smallest who gave me an excuse for avoiding it) riding on the tallest ferris wheel I've ever seen. Guess I'll just have to go back again just so I can get those 'missed' pictures :)

This first picture was taken in 1982 when we were moving from Saskatachewan to Nova Scotia and detoured to Niagara Falls. There's only six kids there because Emily wasn't born until 1986. With such a handful of young children, on that trip we had a buddy system whereby every child was assigned a buddy and never went off on their own. Mary, the youngest, couldn't say 'buddy' so instead called Jenny, the oldest girl, her 'bunny'. That term stuck around our family for a long, long time.

Rob, with 'buddy' Mike, Jenny with 'bunny' Mary, Sara and 'buddy' Amy.

Amazing power of the falls






Sara, Lloyd and Emily on Emily's 13th birthday, May 19, 1999


It was chilly and the mist from the falls obscured our view of the beautiful Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side of the river.





Lloyd and me - 1999

The Maid of the Mist and the smaller American falls.

Because it was Emily's birthday when we were in Niagara Falls, as a birthday gift she and I rode on the Maid of the Mist - a scary, exciting, and very wet experience. It was amazing to look up and see nothing but the millions of tons of water crashing down right beside us. We were all given raincoats as we boarded the boat but we still got quite wet.


Emily, in raincoat, on the Maid of the Mist




So that was my last trip to Niagara Falls. It was never our main destination - just a stop-over on our way home to Nova Scotia and back to home in Alberta - but it's sure worth the detour.












5 comments:

Sara_HB said...

you should've posted the one of all 6 of us (before Emily was born) too! We were so little!

Jane said...

Love the pictures! Hope you get back there soon!

Jane

Pat MacKenzie said...

Sara, I added the picture you referred to in your comment above.

Michael MacKenzie said...

I remember feeling very slighted when I wasn't allowed to go on the ferris wheel.

RoeH said...

I was there once ages ago. I'd love to go and do the mist ride.