Past the Falls
A trip from Chippawa to Queenston along the Niagara Parkway
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One of the most scenic and well-travelled routes in Southwest Ontario, this trip takes you along the Niagara Parkway from Chippawa to Queenston past the magnificent Niagara Falls. The Falls has a legend about the Maid of the Mist. It comes from the Neutral people who lived here before the Iroquois massacred them in the 1600s. In much simplified form, it goes as follows: There was a time when people were dying and all the usual sacrifices of fruit and game were having no affect. So the daughter of the chief decided that she must sacrifice herself for the good of the people. She climbed into a canoe and propelled herself over the Falls. However, the god of the Falls, Hino, had a son who desired her and, as she came over the Falls, he caught her. She agreed to live with him under the Falls if he told her why her people were dying. He explained that a giant water snake lived under the Falls and, while the people slept, it swam to their villages and poisoned the water. Hino allowed her to return to the village as a spirit to tell the people about the water snake and to advise them how to kill it. The people followed the instructions but only wounded the water snake, which managed to return to the Falls but got caught with its head on one side of the Falls and its tail on the other. And there it is to this day, writhing in the form of a horseshoe. There have been many other devices crossing the river besides a water snake. The first bridge happened because of the foresight of William Hamilton Merritt, who had the idea of a bridge across the river when he was picnicking with his family on the bank of the river. That led to Ellet's suspension bridge and a host of other bridges. Before that, there were ferries. The first ferry was set up by William Forsyth, who, in his bull-headed way, just did it. And did it without permission because he crossed government land and established his ferry on somebody else's property. He eventually got his comeuppance. There were other ferries. One was at Waterloo (Fort Erie) and another was at West Landing (Queenston). These too have been replaced by bridges. Starting the trip-ChippawaFrom the north end of the bridge across the Welland River, turn right onto Macklem Street. On the right side of the road, there is now parkland but in the early 1800s it was the location of James Macklem's iron foundry. Drive down to the end of the road and turn right into King's Bridge Park, named after the first bridge built over the river here. Here also was old Fort Chippawa. Both bridge and fort were built in the 1790s. Take a few minutes to get out of the car, read the plaques, and walk over to the river. Here you may be able to see that the river flows the wrong way. Instead of flowing right to left toward the mouth of the river, it now flows left to right, supplying water for the channel to the power generating stations further up the Niagara River.
Return to the car and continue along the Parkway. You are now following the original route of the Portage Road before it was realigned to its present route to be further away from the Americans. The Parkway runs along the former Chain Reserve, a strip of land one chain (66 feet or 20m) wide running along the riverbank and reserved for the military. The land to the left of the Parkway was part of John Burch's grant. Later it was owned by Thomas Clark, who swapped his land, which the government wanted to use for the realignment of the Portage Road, for the land along the Chain Reserve. In the river on the right are the control structures for the Niagara River. Regulations set up by Canada and the United States control the level of water in the Niagara River. The regulations were put in place to preserve the Falls from becoming dry through the diversion of too much water for use in generating electricity. The control structures are really water gates that open or close as required. During the night, these gates divert water from the river into a gigantic reservoir; during the day, the water is returned, passing through the power generators to generate extra power as it returns to the river. The level can be lower during the night than during the day because there are no tourists around to see how low the river has become. Continue along the Parkway. Turn left at sign for the Dufferin Islands. Just after you turn, look for a historical marker on the right. This marker is on the location of the Bridgewater Mills. These were built by Benjamin Canby and John McGill in 1793, breaking the monopoly of John Burch. The mills were burned during the War of 1812 and were never rebuilt. It was while the builders were digging here that they encountered a spring that had a peculiar smell. When lit, it continued to flame. Samuel Street Jr., never slow to find ways to make money, decided that this would make a fine tourist attraction. Eventually this became the source of lighting for the small community of Bridgewater that grew up around the mills.
At the fork in the road, keep right. The original Portage Road followed the left fork up the ridge along Burning Springs Hill. The right fork continues around the Dufferin Islands. These once belonged to Thomas Clark Street, the son of Samuel Street Jr. He named them the Cynthia Islands after his sister but they were later renamed after a governor-general, the Earl of Dufferin. As you drive around the islands, look to your left and see how steep the hillside is. Just before you reach the Parkway, you may be able to see Oak Hall perched on the top of the ridge overlooking the Parkway. When he built the original house on this site, Thomas Clark would have been able to see the mill that he and his partner, Samuel Street Jr., owned. At the junction with the Parkway, turn left. As you approach the old Ontario Generating Building with its many columns, look for a historical marker among the trees on the right. This marker shows the location of Burch's Mills. Here John Burch built his original mill, the first mill to harness the power of the Niagara River. The mill was later bought by Clark and Street, burned by the Americans in the War of 1812, and rebuilt by Clark and Street after the war. The owners had houses nearby. Burch had a house on the other side of the Parkway and this house was taken over by Street. Clark wanted something grander, so he built Clark Hill on the top of the ridge where Oak Hall is now located.
Further along, on the brink of the Falls, is a small island, once called Long Island, then Swayze's Island, and finally Cedar Island. This island belonged to Isaac Swayze, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. He sat in five of the first seven Parliaments of Upper Canada. He later sold the island to John Hardy, the owner of a tannery, for five shillings. It later came into the possession of TC Street, who built on it a small tower, referred to as the Pagoda. The Falls themselves seem so permanent, so indestructible, that it is hard to imagine that, since 1764, the edge of the Horseshoe Falls has receded more than 800 feet (260m). Paintings and drawings from the early 1800s show a much flatter frontage. In 1833, there was a tower, the Terrapin Tower, on the group of rocks off the Horseshoe Falls side of Goat Island. To reach the tower, people had to walk across a narrow bridge running from Goat Island to the tower. Many stunts have been pulled around the Falls. Most involve going over the Falls in some device or other, usually a barrel. However, the first stunt was hatched by William Forsyth, who, in collusion with the owner of a hotel across the river, decided to send a ship, the ancient schooner Michigan, over the Falls. This was to be filled with wild animals, and people would be charged for viewing the so-called spectacle. In the end, they managed to put a couple of bears on the old ship and duly sent it over the Falls, making a lot of money as a result. The bears managed to escape by swimming to Goat Island when the ship broke up on the lip of the Falls. At the corner where the river goes over the edge of the Falls is Table Rock, or what's left of it. It once stuck out over the edge and provided a dramatic view of the Falls. Now, as a result of erosion, disintegration, and deliberate destruction for reasons of safety, the rock is only a tiny fraction of its former self. There is an illustration from the early 1800s showing a big chunk of Table Rock breaking off, carrying with it a coach, with the driver frantically scurrying to reach safety. Continue along the Parkway. On the left past the Falls is Queen Victoria Park with a family restaurant set back from the road. This park was formerly the estate of Samuel Zimmerman, one of the great industrialists of the mid-1800s. He made his money as a contractor on the Welland Canal and used some of it to create what was to be a great estate on the front at Niagara Falls. Unfortunately, in 1857 he was killed in a rail crash at Desjardins Canal near Dundas before the house was finished. With his death, the estate was taken over by the Bank of Upper Canada. The bank later went bankrupt and a sharp US Senator, John T Bush of Buffalo, bought the property for a song. He completed the mansion and he and his family lived here for the next fifty years. The mansion was eventually torn down in 1937. At the traffic lights at the corner of Clifton Hill, continue along the Parkway, here called River Road. The Oakes Gardens on the corner was the site of the Clifton House Hotel. The first Clifton House Hotel was built by Harmanus (Monty) Crysler in 1833. The hotel was the finest in Niagara for over sixty years until it burned down in 1898. It was rebuilt in a V-shape in 1905, with the point of the V located at the corner of Clifton Hill and River Road. This hotel did not last as long as the first, for it burned down in 1932. Harry Oakes bought the property and traded it to the Niagara Parks Commission for a small parcel of land nearby. The site was then used for the Oakes Garden Theatre, constructed between 1935 and 1937 and still here. Drive under the Rainbow Bridge. This is the fourth bridge on this site. The first bridge, a suspension bridge, blew down. The second, also a suspension bridge, was replaced. The third, an arch bridge, was brought down by ice,
Continue along the Parkway past Hiram, John, and Philip Streets. These were named after Philip Bender's three sons. You are now driving through what was the village of Clifton. The village was planned by Captain Ogden Creighton after he bought the land from the Bender family in 1832. He died before he could do anything about it and it was not until Samuel Zimmerman bought the land and built a railway across it that it took off. This is the start of B&B territory. A few years back, the houses that line River Road were tourist hotels but now they are bed-and-breakfast accommodations. Just across the river on the American side is the Niagara Gorge Discovery Center, formerly the Schoellkopf Geological Museum, built on the site of the disaster that took place on June 7 1956. Here was the Schoellkopf Hydro Electric Generating Station, the brainchild of Jacob Schoellkopf, a German tanner who emigrated to North America to make his fortune. After creating the biggest tanning company in the US, he ventured into milling. Earlier, the Porter family had made their fortune by building a canal to harness the Niagara River and allow mills to use the water in the canal for power. When Schoellkopf took over, he realised the potential for generating electricity by using the water from the canal to turn generators. So he built the generating station. Water from the top of the cliff was directed down tubes to turbines at the bottom of the cliff. Unfortunately, water from the canal had been seeping into the rock of the cliffside for a century and in 1956 the whole rock face came down, crushing the generator at the bottom and killing a maintenance foreman, Richard Draper. The museum was opened in 1971 and has been constructed to look like a water turbine. Continue past the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge. Near here, a young lad, Homan Walsh, won a competition to fly a kite over the Niagara River. As a result, a cable was eventually fed across the river and the first bridge was built. This area was once the village of Elgin, which arose after the original bridge here was built in 1848. It was from here that Captain Matthew Webb, a famous English swimmer and conqueror of the English Channel, set out on his last swim. He jumped into the river from a boat with the intention of swimming past the whirlpool. He was seen a couple of times before he reached the whirlpool, then disappeared until his body was found later in the river on the other side of the whirlpool.
Stop at the parking lot for the Spanish Aerocar and take a look at the Whirlpool. The whirlpool is caused by the sharp bend in the river here. The bend occurs because the river switches from following the path of an ancient river that once made its way through St David's but whose valley is now filled with the rubble of the ages. After following the ancient route, the river then turns a right-angle and follows a relatively newer route through the narrow gorge down to the lake. The river is still gouging out the old river bed as the whirlpool circles round and round. Continue along the Parkway and drive past the whirlpool to park at the next parking area at Thompson's Point. This area is at the other end of the Spanish Aerocar cablecar journey. The Aerocar opened in 1916 to transport passengers over the Whirlpool. The "Spanish" part of the name is for the engineer, a Spaniard named Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. The point is named for the Thomson brothers, former Butler's Rangers, who farmed here. If you look over the wall toward the river, you will see how steep the sides of the gorge are. There are some trails that lead from the parking lot down the gorge. Continue along the Parkway to the Sir Adam Beck Power Plants. Ontario Hydro runs tours of the power plant.(More about Beck and the power plants to be added) Continue along the Parkway past the Floral Clock and the Lilac Gardens, which are really beautiful in the late spring when the lilacs are in full bloom. The road goes under the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge. This is the third bridge here. The first bridge was a suspension bridge. It lasted less than three years and blew down in a gale. The second was the bridge moved from the Falls View site when it was replaced by the ill-fated Honeymoon Bridge.
Drive along the Parkway, around the traffic circle and drive to the Queenston Heights Park. This is the site of the Battle of Queenston Heights in the War of 1812. Here is the Brock Memorial where Sir Isaac Brock and Lt. Col. Macdonnel are buried. The park has a well-laid-out tour of the battlefield, showing where Brock, the commander of the British forces in Upper Canada and acting Lieutenant-Governor, was killed so recklessly in a vain attempt to regain a cannon that had been taken by the attacking Americans. Here also is the monument to Laura Secord, whose house is down the hill in Queenston.
You have reached the end of the trip.
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