Trick or Treat

September 6, 2024

KOA Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Yes, we know it’s September 6th. However, it is Halloween here. No, it isn’t a Canadian thing, but something they do here and in Michigan. We spoke with one local who told us that the weather is so lousy in late October they just do it know. The KOA had all sorts of kids activities, including a spooky movie and of course, trick or treating. Some of the displays were great.

Next it was off to the curiously named Shoppers Drug Mart, with the tagline, “Food You’ll Love.” Why go there? Because it is a Post Office! And it was open on a Sunday! They can afford to be open since mailing a letter was around 95¢ US. (susan here: we caught on quick to the CN vs US thing. Initially seeing CN prices made us think everything was super expensive but it wasn’t. The exchange rate was such that a $5.49CN item would really be $4.03US.)

Off to Susan’s right are the usual padded envelopes etc with a big sign say that you had to buy them here, not up front. But what about those cases of water? It wasn’t clear that they were Canada Post’s water or Shoppers’ water.

And it was about 3/4 drug store like CVS plus about 1/4 of it was a grocery store with Canada Post jammed into a corner in the way-back. What a curious combination! The self checkout was hyper-active also. It was easy to double or even triple scan an item. It was so easy to do that they both had a clerk there to essentially scan them for you and to tap the “remove item” button on the screen. But it didn’t even require a store passcode like it does in the States, anyone can do it! Everything is more polite in Ontario!

Then off to lunch at The Blind Pig. Susan had Chicken Tinga and it was inoffensively bland. Tinga is supposed to be flavorful with a kick. Paul, ever hopeful that inland fish will be good, tried the fish & chips. You see, every fourth store here advertises Fish & Chips. Paul distinctly remembers some Lake Perch he had in Grand View, MI which was fabulous. But, alas, this was just bad frozen cod, it seemed to be overcooked and undercooked at the same time. It wasn’t even close to good and barely one step above awful. We’re sort of striking out with respect to restaurants, aren’t we?

But the Skylon Tower made up for it. It was incredibly cold and windy!

The winds on the windward side were insane. It was much, much worse than what this picture shows. They were so strong they nearly push you backwards.

Next it was off for human processing. (Remember, Soylent Green is people!)

Susan, post-processing…

But seriously, this was part of Journey Behind the Falls where you walk down these damp tunnels to two portals that are directly behind the falls. The furthest one is 200 meters long, about a third of the way across the Horseshoe!

We all stood in line patiently to reach the end. There was a fence about 10 feet back to keep you from doing Stupid Human Tricks. Paul really wanted to do something stupid, like touch the water but he also realized if he did it would probably break his arm. The place rumbles from all that water, you can feel it in your feet in addition to hearing it. It was rather wet there, too. Every once in a bit some water would fling into the tunnel.

Here’s one of the older tunnels.

Tunnel construction at Journey Behind the Falls commenced in 1889, using dynamite and hydraulic jacks to carve through 130 feet of rock.

Erosion led to the abandonment of the original tunnels, replaced by new ones in 1944. A lower observation platform was erected in 1951, offering unobstructed views of Horseshoe Falls and Niagara Gorge.

Next, it was off to the aforementioned lower observation platform. This is probably the best place to view the falls.

The sun came out and we got to see the ever-present, when sunny, Niagara rainbows.

Back up top.

We had 7pm tickets to the nighttime show at the power plant. We figured we get there around 5:30, wander around the daytime part of the plant learning about AC and DC and alternators and governors. But we had some time to kill, it was too early for dinner, but it is never too early for desert!

But, it turns out they close the museum around 6 to empty the floor and prepare the the evening’s show. So we ran through the museum, reading the signs, but not listening to any of the audio self-guided tour.

The giant blue things are the alternators, there were about a dozen of them.

The alternators (often referred to as generators) in this power station produce electricity through electromagnetic induction. This is the process of passing a conductor through a magnetic field to create or induce the flow of electricity.

In this case the alternator rotor spins to move the 10 electromagnets past the stationary copper coils of the stator. The distributed arrangement of the three sets of coils creates the three-phase electricity.

These alternators were too large and heavy for transportation, so they were completely assembled at the shops, then taken apart and packed in hundreds of boxes before shipping to the station. It took several months to re-build the fields and armatures piece by piece, with close to 47,000 punched laminations that form the stator.

This is a governor.

We’ve noticed all the kids, and by kids we mean 20-30 year olds. They’re all very good at posing for pictures, they strike poses. Susan remarked they the’ve all grown up with cameras in their faces for a good deal of their life. (For any kids reading this, us geezers usually had 1 roll of film shot per lifetime, say First Holy Communion, First Bike Ride, High School Graduation. Ok, maybe we exaggerate. But not by much.) So Susan is trying a pose we saw a lot of off, arms spread wide, we’re not sure what it means. We’re both sure she failed at it.

There was an interactive display which let you be a control operator, but neither of use could get it to work, but still, it was cool to see.

The water entered the plant through this penstock, falls 6 stories deep to the turbines, which spin shafts that go up six stories to spin those blue alternators.

As were we leaving the penstock area we re-entered the museum proper, and they were setting up for the nighttime show. The show was great, but the setup was just as nice. Here we see all of the lights on.

It’s hard to see in the photo above but the floor is laid out in a grid with pairs of numbers. We’ll find out later, why.

They kicked us all out. We wandered over to the weir to watch the gulls dive for food and to just watch the mesmerizing water flow by.

It started to rain so we headed back into the Jeep to wait until 7pm. We saw them letting guests in around 10 of, so we went over and got inside.

It was an immersive show much like we saw at the Bob Dylan museum in Tulsa. Projectors were everywhere. The show was on a half hour repeating loop and it took advantage of the geometry of the space, when the projectors showed water flowing, it flowed around the blue alternator.

It was interactive, with presumable body sensors in the ceiling. There were water drops displayed on the floor that tracked people as they walked, or the little kids dancing. It was a very cool effect.

The show’s narration spoke of the history of the water power. We don’t remember much of it. It was light in content, a backdrop for the dazzling light show that took center stage. These pictures really don’t do it justice.

Next up, the elevator ride to the bottom to the tunnel! Neither of us got photos through the glass wall of the elevator, but you could see the giant shafts and other machinery, all rusted and decaying.

The tunnel is about 2,000 feet long. It was built to return water from the bottom of the turbines back to the Niagara River. Modern dams return the water at the base of the dam, but this isn’t a dam thus the need to make a tunnel. The water has to return to Niagara somewhere.

There were benches to rest along the way and various kiosks teaching you more about the place.

It was still pretty early and we were very happy to see that the Falls were already lit up.

Sometimes they were a solid color, sometimes multiple colors.

We never saw solid green or any purple. The American Falls briefly showed white, which was nice, but here they are, in yellow.

Despite starting off later in the day it was quite a full day and also a very enjoyable one. We had planned to stay out more, have dinner at that same restaurant (yeah right, getting a window seat on a mostly clear Saturday night…) and then watch the fireworks at 10pm. But after a whirlwind two days we decided to head back to the RV to rest our very tired feet. Susan’s watch says we walked about 10 miles over the previous 2 days.