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Short Stuff: Niagara Falls Dewatered · Stuff You Should Know

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. There's Charles, there's Jerome.
0:07
Speaker 1: This is Joshua. This is short Stuff the Legend. How
0:12
Speaker 1: you doing. I'm doing good man. I'm pretty excited about
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Speaker 1: this one. Have you ever been to Niagara Falls? I have?
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Speaker 1: What's it like? Uh? Watery, damp, It's very pretty. It's
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Speaker 1: actually really need it's it's definitely worth seeing. Which falls
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Speaker 1: did you see? We went on the American side, but
0:33
Speaker 1: then you know, when we got to the Canadian side,
0:35
Speaker 1: we stopped and turned around and looked again. It's a
0:38
Speaker 1: It's really definitely a site to see, for sure. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we should point that out for
0:42
Speaker 1: people like me who have never been to Niagara Falls,
0:45
Speaker 1: that there are a few falls. If you're American and
0:48
Speaker 1: you don't want to leave the country, you can see
0:50
Speaker 1: the American side, right if you want to see something that,
0:53
Speaker 1: to my eye on images online looks better. The Canadian
0:58
Speaker 1: Horseshoe Falls look pretty nice. H They're better, right, I
1:02
Speaker 1: don't want to say better because I'm an American, but
1:06
Speaker 1: they are much larger, there's much a much larger volume
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Speaker 1: of water. It's much more graceful, and they're separated by
1:15
Speaker 1: a Goat Island, and then there's cute little bridal Veilfall
1:20
Speaker 1: separated from the American Fall by Luna Island. Yeah, so
1:24
Speaker 1: there's technically three falls with Niagara Falls, and um, what's
1:29
Speaker 1: surprising to me, Chuck, is is um in researching this,
1:32
Speaker 1: like that set up where you've got the American Falls,
1:34
Speaker 1: bridle Veil Falls, and then the Horseshoe Falls in the
1:36
Speaker 1: Canadian side. That's only like five eight hundred years old. Yeah,
1:41
Speaker 1: that seems old, but uh, I believe that. I don't
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Speaker 1: know why that sounds reasonable to me. Okay, well, that's
1:47
Speaker 1: like I can't keep my socks on every time I
1:50
Speaker 1: hear that. Yeah, because you think of something like a
1:52
Speaker 1: geological feature like a waterfall, it's got to be ancient, right,
1:56
Speaker 1: But the idea that it's only been that way for
1:58
Speaker 1: five hundred eight hundred years kind surprising, until, of course,
2:01
Speaker 1: then you look into a little further and you see, oh, well,
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Speaker 1: this this waterfall is just eroding the earth beneath it
2:07
Speaker 1: so quick that Yeah, it's it's of course it's not
2:11
Speaker 1: always been this way. It just totally makes sense. Yeah,
2:14
Speaker 1: and that erosion, you know, the the bottom of the
2:17
Speaker 1: falls is pretty uh, intimidating. It's very rocky and uh jagged,
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Speaker 1: big boulders. That's why going over a barrel. We did
2:26
Speaker 1: a podcast, I guess if you want to call it,
2:28
Speaker 1: that may many years ago in our early days, about
2:32
Speaker 1: going over the falls in a barrel. Then it's incredibly dangerous. Yeah,
2:35
Speaker 1: it is very dangerous. And those rocks, though, haven't always
2:38
Speaker 1: been there. There were two rock falls in the nineteen
2:41
Speaker 1: thirties and the nineteen fifties, specifically under the American Falls,
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Speaker 1: and that left a lot of bowlers underneath. And some
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Speaker 1: people said, well that is just unsightly, and frankly, it's
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Speaker 1: probably not very patriotic to let the Canadians best us
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Speaker 1: with their much more beautiful waterfall. Now, so we've got
2:58
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do about us, because we
3:00
Speaker 1: can't just let the American Falls go away, that's right.
3:03
Speaker 1: And who do you call when you need something like
3:06
Speaker 1: this done? You know that you call the Army Corps
3:08
Speaker 1: of Engineers. And they said, well, really, the only way
3:11
Speaker 1: to find out what's going on is to dry up
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Speaker 1: this waterfall. And everyone at the table spit out their
3:17
Speaker 1: coffee and they said, you're crazy. It's it's nineteen nine.
3:22
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? And they said, you know,
3:24
Speaker 1: it's really not that hard. Yeah, it really isn't. So
3:27
Speaker 1: they hired a construction company and they built a Coffer dam,
3:30
Speaker 1: which I believe we talked about in the Hoover Dam episode.
3:33
Speaker 1: It's just like a mound of earth that is holding
3:36
Speaker 1: water back, um, that's not normally there. And they built
3:40
Speaker 1: that at the point like the fork where the American
3:44
Speaker 1: Falls began, and they diverted the Niagara River mostly over
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Speaker 1: to the Horseshoe Falls, a little bit to the Bridle Falls.
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Speaker 1: But then that was it. Like the water stopped flowing
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Speaker 1: over the Niagara the American Fall and it virtually ride
4:00
Speaker 1: everything up. It was kind of easy if you if
4:02
Speaker 1: you think about it. I mean, it was a massive,
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Speaker 1: huge project, but it wasn't technically that hard. Yeah. It
4:07
Speaker 1: was close to twenty eight thousand tons of phil So
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Speaker 1: that's a lot of a lot of dirt and rock
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Speaker 1: and fills. It's a lot of fills. Um. But when
4:17
Speaker 1: you think about the fact that the Horseshoe Fall accounts
4:21
Speaker 1: for of the dump anyway, like they couldn't damn a
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Speaker 1: Porshoe fall. There's no way, right, I I don't believe
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Speaker 1: so no, I don't think the American Fall could take it.
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Speaker 1: The other thing I wonder too, is if when they
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Speaker 1: did this, if he could tell a difference at Horseshoe Fall. Yes,
4:37
Speaker 1: I read that you could really most decidedly cooler. Right,
4:42
Speaker 1: I'm teen percent more inspired. I love it. Yeah, the
4:45
Speaker 1: rainbows around it were ten percent brighter. It was just
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Speaker 1: you could really tell. Well, should we take a little break? Well, sure, man,
4:52
Speaker 1: all right, let's take a break and find out exactly
4:54
Speaker 1: what they did once they had these dry falls right
4:57
Speaker 1: after this, so again, chuck there. They dried up Niagara
5:22
Speaker 1: Fall because they wanted to figure out how to keep
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Speaker 1: it from roading and possibly how to clean it up,
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Speaker 1: like clean up all those boulders that talus at the
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Speaker 1: bottom from those rock falls, because they were worried about
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Speaker 1: it looking ug basically, that's right. But here's the thing,
5:35
Speaker 1: uh that, And you should look up pictures of this
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Speaker 1: if you're not driving your car, because it's pretty remarkable,
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Speaker 1: it really is to see this thing, uh dried up
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Speaker 1: like that. I mean, it just looks like a you know,
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Speaker 1: really flat mountain basically like a cliff, which is what
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Speaker 1: it is. But they couldn't keep it all dry that
5:52
Speaker 1: face they had to keep wet because it had never
5:55
Speaker 1: been dried out and exposed to the sun and the wind,
5:59
Speaker 1: and they were rightfully worried about what might happen, so
6:01
Speaker 1: they had to keep spray in that face kind of
6:04
Speaker 1: continually from what like June to November. Yeah, they installed
6:08
Speaker 1: the sprinkler system to do it, and they didn't have
6:10
Speaker 1: just a bunch of people right to standing there like
6:13
Speaker 1: this is the worst summer job of all time, that's right.
6:16
Speaker 1: But then they had to clean out the riverbed, so
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Speaker 1: they sam blasted out um a bunch of stuff, and
6:21
Speaker 1: they get the moss off, and they sprayed all these
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Speaker 1: rocks clean and got all the loose gravel out of there.
6:27
Speaker 1: And they really wanted to see what was going on,
6:30
Speaker 1: you know, geologically, so they injected blue dye uh into
6:35
Speaker 1: the They drilled down into the riverbed injected blue dye,
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Speaker 1: and they were like, let's let's see what happens. Let's
6:40
Speaker 1: sit back and have have a t and see where
6:43
Speaker 1: this blue comes out. And then some of the more
6:45
Speaker 1: excited workmen among them and be like, oh, there it
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Speaker 1: is there, it is something. When the blue die started
6:50
Speaker 1: to emerge and they clap him point and laugh. That's right. Um.
6:54
Speaker 1: They also installed something called extensive meters, which are pretty interesting.
6:58
Speaker 1: They're little sounds so made up there it does. It
7:01
Speaker 1: also sounds like something a mad villain would would use,
7:05
Speaker 1: but it measures the movement of the rock in the
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Speaker 1: foundation or the bed or the riverbed of the American
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Speaker 1: Falls to to basically look out for any movement greater
7:16
Speaker 1: than one one h of an inch. This is pretty specific,
7:19
Speaker 1: very specific. And they also installed little metal posts called
7:22
Speaker 1: monuments which they can use in the future and have
7:25
Speaker 1: used in the future, um to survey the area and
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Speaker 1: see if they've moved at all, if the riverbed has
7:30
Speaker 1: moved at all, in the hopes that they will be
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Speaker 1: able to catch a rock fall from happening or erosion
7:37
Speaker 1: from happening before it happens. That's right. And they did
7:40
Speaker 1: find a place where they thought it was pretty susceptible
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Speaker 1: in the future to occur, and that was a prospect point. Uh.
7:47
Speaker 1: This had already been a place where they had a
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Speaker 1: rock fall in the nine, which is the one that
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Speaker 1: kind of kick started this whole plan to begin with.
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Speaker 1: So prospect point is a problem quite frankly, yes, although
7:59
Speaker 1: this was uh the last time it happened. It has
8:02
Speaker 1: happened since. No, it hasn't. And I think some people
8:05
Speaker 1: might be a little surprised because this is nineteen sixty nine,
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Speaker 1: where they're like, uh, this is probably where it's going
8:10
Speaker 1: to happen next again, and it just still hasn't. It
8:13
Speaker 1: was a summer of love, it was. That's so funny.
8:16
Speaker 1: Look I haven't written down here the summer of Love underneathing.
8:19
Speaker 1: Did you get that email? Yeah? Yeah, apparently we've been
8:22
Speaker 1: saying summer of Love is at anything but nineteen sixty seven,
8:25
Speaker 1: then that is officially the summer of Love. I did
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Speaker 1: not know that, so I always thought it was sixty
8:30
Speaker 1: eight For some reason, I always thought it was sixty nine.
8:32
Speaker 1: All right? Well, uh in show correction short stuff style. Yes,
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Speaker 1: So back to the dry bed. You would think who
8:40
Speaker 1: would want to come see a dried up Niagara Falls,
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Speaker 1: And it turns out a lot of people would you not? Well,
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Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't been this. I would want to.
8:50
Speaker 1: I don't know if that would want that to be
8:51
Speaker 1: my first trip right right? Or you would definitely want
8:55
Speaker 1: to go back a second time when it's in full
8:57
Speaker 1: swing first, or maybe actually that would be the time
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Speaker 1: to go because you could see that and Horseshoe Falls
9:02
Speaker 1: and get the best of both worlds. Yeah. So so
9:04
Speaker 1: some people were thinking like that and thought like this
9:07
Speaker 1: is amazing. There was one weekend in mid July where
9:09
Speaker 1: nine people streamed through there um to see, you know,
9:14
Speaker 1: because this is this is kind of a once in
9:16
Speaker 1: a lifetime thing to see Niagara Falls dried up or
9:18
Speaker 1: the American Falls at least. But overall that tourist season
9:22
Speaker 1: was pretty pretty lame because a lot of people were like, well,
9:26
Speaker 1: I guess it's under construction. I'm not gonna I'm not
9:28
Speaker 1: gonna pay for that road trip to go see a
9:31
Speaker 1: Lamo fall. Yeah. And the original plan was there, like
9:34
Speaker 1: let's try this thing out and invite people out to
9:36
Speaker 1: walk around and do stuff. They kind of were like,
9:40
Speaker 1: it's a little too wet still, and it's probably still
9:43
Speaker 1: kind of dangerous. So it was in August finally that
9:47
Speaker 1: they deemed it dry enough for people to go out safely.
9:50
Speaker 1: I think that they never allowed people up on the cliff,
9:52
Speaker 1: did they. Well, they built a fence on the brink,
9:56
Speaker 1: so I think I don't know how close to the
9:59
Speaker 1: brink they were loued to be, but I get the
10:01
Speaker 1: impression that all throughout the summer, whether they were allowed
10:04
Speaker 1: out there or not, people would go run out on
10:05
Speaker 1: the riverbed and just like hang out, and then they
10:09
Speaker 1: would be chased off by the army corps, like we
10:12
Speaker 1: might not have guns, but we have sextants. Another thing
10:17
Speaker 1: they did, and I just consider this very bad luck,
10:20
Speaker 1: people would go out and collect wish coins. I just
10:25
Speaker 1: didn't that bad luck. I don't know, those are people's wishes.
10:30
Speaker 1: We've seen the good eats. Yeah, yeah, but the wishes
10:32
Speaker 1: have come and gone. I mean, come on, if it's
10:34
Speaker 1: not if they hadn't been granted by now, they're not
10:37
Speaker 1: going to be granted. You know, let's give those coins
10:39
Speaker 1: another shot. I guess. So it just seems I don't know,
10:41
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem right. That's like that one part in
10:44
Speaker 1: the Simpsons, the beer baron episode where they're driving through
10:47
Speaker 1: the cemetery and bar goes, Dad, it's bad luck to
10:49
Speaker 1: run over gravestones, and Homer goes, really, I heard good,
10:55
Speaker 1: it's good luck. Um. One thing they did find, and
11:00
Speaker 1: it's kind of amazing they didn't find more dead bodies,
11:03
Speaker 1: but they did find too. One of them was a
11:06
Speaker 1: pretty recent one that they were actually looking for this guy.
11:09
Speaker 1: They saw this guy dive into the river about a
11:11
Speaker 1: week before, so they knew he would be in there.
11:14
Speaker 1: But what they didn't know is that they would find
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Speaker 1: a very creepy find woman in a red striped dress
11:21
Speaker 1: who had been down there for a long time. It says,
11:23
Speaker 1: lodged head first into the talus. Didn't that's so ghoulish.
11:29
Speaker 1: And she had a gold ring inscribed with forget me not. Yeah,
11:34
Speaker 1: and then the irony of that is that she's never
11:35
Speaker 1: been identified. Yeah, that seems remarkable to me. It doesn't. Man.
11:39
Speaker 1: I looked. I was like, I don't know how else
11:41
Speaker 1: to word the search, but I didn't find anything about
11:44
Speaker 1: that woman being identified ever. Um, so I don't. And
11:48
Speaker 1: I'm also not sure that the guy who jumped the
11:50
Speaker 1: week before they turned the water off was ever identified
11:53
Speaker 1: as well. It was, but they they yeah, he was
11:58
Speaker 1: mistaken for a worker by some people who's um initially
12:01
Speaker 1: jump in and then they were like, oh wait, that
12:03
Speaker 1: that guy. That's not good. Yeah, but but yeah, a
12:06
Speaker 1: lot of people are surprised that they didn't find more
12:08
Speaker 1: bodies because there's a lot of people who die by
12:10
Speaker 1: suicide or just do something dumb and and go over
12:14
Speaker 1: the you know, falls in a barrel or whatever, like
12:17
Speaker 1: it's it's a well known place to do that. And
12:19
Speaker 1: only two bodies is kind of strange. Yeah, they found
12:22
Speaker 1: one deer carcass, which that's kind of surprising. I just
12:26
Speaker 1: thought it would be littered with carcasses. I think that's
12:29
Speaker 1: kind of what they were half expecting to It was
12:31
Speaker 1: probably a good you know, they were delighted by that.
12:34
Speaker 1: I'm sure they were. Yeah. So by November they're like, Okay,
12:40
Speaker 1: we've figured out everything we can figure out. We've kind
12:43
Speaker 1: of shorted up as best we can. Um, from what
12:45
Speaker 1: I read the the waterfall naturally eroded at like five
12:51
Speaker 1: ft a year, and now they've got it down to
12:53
Speaker 1: one because of this stuff they did in nineteen nine
12:56
Speaker 1: and later nine two. But um, they said, okay, it's
12:59
Speaker 1: time to turn the wall are back on, and they
13:00
Speaker 1: did on get this November nine, which I believe was
13:07
Speaker 1: fifty years and two days ago. Oh wow, isn't that
13:10
Speaker 1: neat anniversary? Happy water Day, Reintroduction of water to Fall Day. Uh. Yeah.
13:18
Speaker 1: And of course they had to do it slowly throughout
13:20
Speaker 1: the course of a day. They couldn't just make some
13:23
Speaker 1: big magnificent scene and say watch this everybody. I'm sure
13:28
Speaker 1: they wanted to, but hang on to your duff's. Yeah,
13:31
Speaker 1: I'm sure they did some math to figure out just
13:34
Speaker 1: kind of how slow they needed to go with it.
13:35
Speaker 1: But it was still probably pretty cool to see it all.
13:37
Speaker 1: Bet it was, for sure. Um. And so what was
13:40
Speaker 1: kind of heartening to me is they said, Okay, we
13:42
Speaker 1: learned a lot. Actually we can probably keep this thing
13:45
Speaker 1: from a roading, but should we? And this joint task
13:49
Speaker 1: force to kind of preserve Niagara Falls, but a joint
13:54
Speaker 1: commission between Canada and the US said, well, what are
13:57
Speaker 1: the residents around here? Thinks? So they sent out little
13:59
Speaker 1: mailers and asked, like two thousand residents in Canada and
14:03
Speaker 1: on the U. S side, what do you guys think
14:06
Speaker 1: we should do? And the majority of people said, Hey,
14:08
Speaker 1: it's a natural formation. Just leave it to nature. Leave
14:11
Speaker 1: it be. So they did. I thought that was kind
14:13
Speaker 1: of neat. I like it. They ask locally too, right,
14:16
Speaker 1: They they asked local locally and acted locally. There you go.
14:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. They were going to turn it off all
14:25
Speaker 1: more time in two thousand nineteen to fix some bridges,
14:28
Speaker 1: and I believe time has basically run out on that project,
14:31
Speaker 1: so it might happen in let's cross our fingers, maybe
14:34
Speaker 1: we can do a podcast live from the brink. That's
14:37
Speaker 1: a really great idea, Chuck, Well, I guess that's the
14:41
Speaker 1: end of short stuff Chuck, which means short stuff out.
14:48
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