No, this is not an insanely new idea that I present about riding the Niagara Falls in a barrel; in fact nineteen crazy people have attempted to go over the falls in something resembling a barrel. I like to think of it as going down the Niagara Falls in style! It should be noted here that it was only an attempt for tragically, four people died, six were stopped before they could jump, and only nine survived to tell the tale…one of them on emerging from her barrel told the world a revelation she had from the gods, “no one should try that!”
The Niagara Falls are actually separate into two water falls. The fall on the American side is a little shorter, but it has rocks at the bottom. It would be a kamikaze mission for anyone who attempted to ride this section of the falls. The dare devils that have attempted this stunt have done so on the Canadian side of the falls. There are no rocks at the bottom so there is a possibility of survival.
The very first person who went over the falls was Annie Edson in 1901. She wasn’t actually as crazy as she sounds; she tested the stunt with a poor defenceless little cat before trusting the barrel with her life. Ho one made another attempt after her for another 10 years. Then there was Bobby Leach, a professional stunt artist; he did stunts like this for a living. He lived life on the edge, and did pretty well until he slipped on an orange peel!
You’re not actually allowed to ride down the falls. The Authorities spend a great deal of time and money finding ways to try and prevent people attempting the stunt. The fine on the American side is $25,000 and a jail term.
Going over the fall isn’t really that dangerous (…talk about euphemism). There are a mere 600,000 gallons of water every second pressing on top of the barrel and you’re bobbing up and down on rocks. You are knocked around in the barrel by extremely strong forces; it is very easy to get a concussion. And if you manage to survive the fall you still have to contend with the landing.
There is the more obvious danger of your barrel hitting the rocks and breaking up, depriving you of your only cushion against rocks and harsh currents. There are , in all honestly, very few chances of survival, then again, it has been tried and people did make it through. Certainly this isn’t what tourists look out for when they visit Niagara Falls, but you never know. There might be the odd maniac taking another jump off the edge.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 6:26 am and is filed under North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
