Niagara Falls Without The Water

It's taken 41 years, but a previously unseen set of photos of the mighty Niagara Falls reduced to nothing more than a barren cliff-top have finally surfaced. The stark images reveal North America 's iconic - and most powerful - waterfall to be almost as dry as a desert. In June 1969, U.S. engineers diverted the flow of the Niagara River away from the American side of the falls for several months.

Niagara Falls Light Show

From the beginning of November until the first week of January, the Niagara Falls Winter Festival of Lights takes place. During these two months a decorated six-kilometer route stretching from Dufferin Islands along the Niagara Parkway, an area known as the Niagara Parks, is illuminated by nearly three million lights and over 100 lighting displays, including fireworks over the falls.

Although the Niagara Falls is illuminated all round the year, the Winter Festival offers a special spectacle. In spring and summer, the colored lights shine for just three hours, but with less daylight in winter, curtains of color wash over the falls each night for up to seven hours.

Crowds gather along the sidewalk and railing on Niagara Parkway to see the show as colored mist rises from the falls in front of them. The display starts with patriotic themes - red, white and blue on the American Falls, red and white for the horseshoe-shaped Canadian Falls. The light beams emanate from a bank of 21 spotlights, each 30 inches in diameter, sitting atop a raised stone bunker across the road.

Nik Wallenda Tight rope Walk Niagara Falls

Daredevil Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk on a tightrope across the Niagara Falls. He traveled a distance of over 1,800 ft. before an estimated crowd of 112,000 people. Nik described wind “coming from every which way,” mist so powerful he had to blink it away to maintain his vision and a breathtaking view during the nighttime walk illuminated by spotlights that “compared to nothing.” “There was no way to focus on the movement of the cable,” said Wallenda, 33. “If I looked down at the cable there was water moving everywhere. And if I looked up there was heavy mist blowing in front of my face. So it was a very unique, a weird sensation.” He went on to describe that fatigue had set in by the halfway point and said “I’m strained, I’m drained. This is so physical, not only mental but physical.”