Doomed to Fail - Ep 156: We chased waterfalls - Niagara Falls

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Today we travel to Niagara Falls! We will talk about who lived there first, who came next, and what the falls have meant to America and Canada for the past few hundred years! There will be tightropes, barrels, power plants, and lots of people we've seen before in our doomed travels! Have you been to Niagara Falls? Let us know!  Sources:Inventing Niagaraby Ginger Strand - https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/inventing-niagara-beauty-power-and-lies_ginger-strand/896545/item/1181539/?#edition=4494064&idiq=2148537https://www.nfhps.org/echota-planned-community.html  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are back live and doing great, happy, belated post- Thanksgiving. Taylor, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good.

I'm really glad to be at my own house. Yeah. I went to yoga this morning, and, you know, the people who, like, are the instructors are very kind of woo-woo and like that. And even they at the very end were like, talk about minimalism. And they were like, and now my resolution after Thanksgiving is to minimize time with my family, but make sure that time is quality time. And everybody was just started laughing and like cheering. And I was like, yeah, I get it. That's hilarious.

I love that. Wait, let me introduce us. Yep. hello everyone welcome to doomed to to fail with a podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week every week and it is the post thanksgiving week which is why we're talking about it and i had two thanksgivings not even on the day of thanksgiving we got chinese food on an actual thanksgiving day it's a it's not like a jewish tradition on christmas it is and we called we have like a you know like a hole in the wall take out chinese place yeah one called and

he was like, are you open today? And the woman goes, we're open every day. And he was like, okay. It's really funny. It was funny. I don't know if this is true or not, or maybe it has to be with MSG, but I do think the whole and wall of Chinese places, I generally like those more than like, I went to like a really nice one.

There's a really nice one downtown Austin called Key or whatever. It's just like super upscale and super like fancy. And for some reason, I was like, it just doesn't feel right to not just like douse everything and soy sauce and just shovel a bunch of orange chicken in your mouth. like it just feels too dainty for that you know it's a different it's a different outcome like what do you want you know do you want just like eat a bunch of grease chinese food then like do it or do you want to like have like a a long grown-out meal with like dim sum those are two different things i mostly just want like drown in soy sauce and like not

be able to see it over my stomach while i'm watching tv on my back that's basically it absolutely and you're not like pretending you're in china you're like this is an american experience that I enjoy. Yes. Yes. More love for Panda Express people. Exactly. Cool. So let's go ahead and dive in. I think you're going to be telling us your story first today. I am. I am. So, okay, this is like, I don't think it's going to be long, but I feel like I could talk about it for a very long time. So I am going to try my best. So last time we talked, I was in Washington State. And I, in Spokane. In Spokane. In Spokane. It rained the entire time.

I think I told you that because it's like, it rains there. And we, my husband always wants to like get out of the house and do stuff. So we found like a little walk. So it was like a walk. It wasn't like a hike. It was like a path. You'd go and see a waterfall and come back. And so we had like, we had umbrellas.

We did it. We went down to downtown Spokane and it was actually quite cute. There were some cute little stores and stuff. The kids went on a really old, um, fair, uh, not Ferrisville. What's it called? Mary-Gar-round? Mary-Gar-Round, yeah, and they loved it. So that was super fun.

But when we were walking to the waterfall, we like ask some person, we're like, oh, is a waterfall up there? And they were like, yeah, but it's not on right now. And we were like, what, okay, which was funny, but also I should have known that because I was in the middle of reading a book for today's topic about a very, very famous waterfall. Niagara. Yes. Sweet.

You know what's funny is my parents just went to Niagara Falls, and they, Yeah, and they were so blown away by it. Like, you know, but I don't know. I've never seen it. I don't feel like I would ever, would I be that impressed by just like a really big waterfall? I don't think so. And it's not the biggest waterfall, even in the United States, really. But it's just like very popular.

I'll tell you all about the history of it and stuff. But I'm interested that your parents just went because I think toward the end, I have what I think should happen. And I'd love to hear more from that way there. Okay. So our friend Kiara actually suggested this, but she suggested the part of the story of people going over the falls. And I will have some of that in there, but then I was like, oh, God, there's so much more in here about, like, the history of the area, of the geology, the whole thing. I read one book, and there are like a thousand books about Niagara Falls, but I read one called Inventing Niagara Falls, but I read one called Inventing Niagara by Ginger Strand. So that's where most of my stuff is coming from, from that book.

So Niagara Falls on the American side, as we know it, are three separate falls. They were created about 10,000 years ago during the Wisconsin Glacian, Galation, that created the Great Lakes. So like glaciers, border of Canada, United States kind of area, and they start moving things around and they create the Great Lakes, you know. Yeah, of course we all know that, Taylor. You know what I mean. They've been changing a lot in sort of like, well, duh, because due to erosion, a waterfall is going to change. That absolutely makes sense if you think about it. I'm going to read a paragraph from Wikipedia right now to just kind of tell you some of the facts.

So Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario and Canada and the state of New York and the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls. which straddles the international border of the two countries. It is also known as the Canadian Falls. The smaller American Falls and Bridal Vale Falls lie within the United States. Bridal Veil Falls is separated from Horseshoe Falls by Goat Island and from American Falls by Luna Island with both islands situated in New York.

So the little islands that you can look at the falls from. Did you say bridal veil? Yes. So I went to, okay, well, that must be a common name. for when you started talking about waterfalls the first thought I had was I did this trip around New Zealand and I went to bridal veil falls in New Zealand it's a I guess just a comment name it's not yeah I mean it looks like a veil it's white yeah okay fine yeah fair point you know so those are the facts um the people that lived there that we know before settlers came

were the Seneca people they're a part of the Iroquois nation and they were the most west of the Iroquois-speaking people, and they were called the Keepers of the Western Door. So that Western Door is essentially at the top of the falls, there's like rivers and lakes that go out into the Great Lakes and then can like move you, move you west. The Seneca have an oral tradition, like an oral story that references an eclipse that we know happened in the 1100s. So they'd been there at least from then, but probably for many hundreds of years before them. Today, there are about 8,000 people in the Seneca Nation. They live and work in five

reservations in New York, mostly on casinos around Niagara Falls. So there's a lot of like Niagara Falls casinos and that kind of thing up there. If you go to Niagara Falls, like your parents did, they will probably see a myth about like a beautiful Native American girl going over the falls in a canoe and it's for a couple reasons either she like can't marry the man she loves so she sacrifices herself or she wants they want to sacrifice her for like rain or whatever or there's a snake chasing her there's a lot of like a big myth about like a young woman going over the falls that's not true it's like something that was made up by like settlers and stuff especially because there were no human sacrifices in the seneca nation like that was not a thing

that they did. But it's like a story they're going to tell a bunch. And Strand in the book that I read suggests that it's a myth created by the Seneca to or part of these myths are like, we're being chased by this snake and the snake is essentially the Europeans coming to ruin our way of life, which they did. Yeah, but they got casinos out of it, Taylor. I would much

rather have a casino than my ancestral homeland. You want to fucking money I'd make? How awful. I'm joking, by the way. I'm joking, just in case anybody... We know. I mean, I know. I mean, yeah, we know. So, because that's about to happen. Everything's about to be destroyed by settlers. The French come first, and I know we've talked about this. We're going to talk...

I'm going to mention, like, a ton of people that we know in this story. But we know how the French come over and they want to do be fur trappers. That's what they love to do. Sorry. Yes, I'm aware of that. Are these Seneca or Niagara Falls in we didn't start the... the fire? No. Okay.

Unfortunately. Good question. So the French came over to be, of course, preachers and fur trappers. One of the most famous people who came first was a man named Renee Robert Cavier. I'm sorry again. He is the Seur de la Salle, which means Lord of the Manor. He's like, he should have a whole episode. He was like a French aristocrat.

Somehow came from France. involved in exploring the Great Lakes, Ohio, and Texas. So like a huge parts of the United States and which is like a big trip even now with like airplanes. Yeah, what was he like 12 when he started and he died? You know,

yeah. He actually did end up getting killed by the indigenous tribes, the Karen Kawa in Texas. So eventually they got him. But she was involved in a lot of that. Imagine so now at 16, 77-ish. There's a lot of Europeans coming. The Western door, like I said, is access to the rivers and the lakes beyond the falls, which is a huge deal. People want access to that. William Bradford, who we talked about a very long time ago in Plymouth, called the area around Niagara Falls a place full of savages, and even Cotton Mather had an opinion about them. So people that we know were talking about them. Eventually, there's a battle on September 14th, 1763. It's called the Battle of Devil's Hole. where it's like right after Paniac's rebellion and like also those wars between um obviously like the

the revolutionary war is about to start so it's a lot's going on um the seneca lured the british soldiers into an area and killed 81 british soldiers and even though the seneca won that battle the it caused britain to bring over a lot more people and then they were able to push the seneca out of the area because of that and they pushed them more more north so sorry wait for that was that that was in 1763 so wait the wow so the revolutionary war was like right around the corner yeah interesting okay yeah yeah I do think I want to learn more about Pontiac's rebellion like I feel like there's a lot I mean there's so many stories obviously of like individual tribes like fighting for to keep their land being pushed north to Canada or being pushed west and then it's being pushed

further and further west forever yeah you i mean you did an episode on yeah or the name of that the trail of tears no you did the uh man the native group in canada oh yeah yes yes exactly the uh the people who became the creoles i can't remember i can't remember either what is going on i know we've done so much but yes exactly so that's exactly they're being pushed into different places. So this kind of is going to go not in chronological order because there's a whole bunch of things happening. As time goes by, there's the United States side and the Canadian side of the falls like we just talked about. The United States side is like, by all accounts pretty shitty. Like there's casinos, there's crappy hotels, there's like a shitty museum,

like a Madame Tussaud's, that kind of thing. You're talking about right now. Yeah. Okay. And which makes sense, if you've, like, ever been to upstate New York, it's beautiful, but it's so, like, tortured. Like, there's always, there's, like, these beautiful old towns that were, like, industrial towns, and now they're abandoned. You know, like, it's, it sucks because upstate New York is so pretty, but it's pretty rundown. Yeah, it's, I mean, you remember Olympia National Forest and Grace Harbor? Like, they're beautiful, but, like, also just broken down meth towns. Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of places in upstate New York are just like that.

and people do start even after so right after like the revolutionary war people go to start traveling to Niagara Falls just to see it one of the first recorded people to honeymoon there is actually Aaron Burr's daughter Theodosia so she went there and also I guess he also went there and brought his bride on like a honeymoon you never got to guess you heard about he was I'm just going to tell you um Jerome Bonaparte from who the Grim Brothers worked for the one where I said that his last name was Jerome Napoleon and you're like no it was yes exactly exactly so he'd been to Niagara Falls and he knew the Grim brothers isn't that crazy yeah history's nuts that's okay so that's just kind of like a little bit

about like the vibe people start going there as tourists like pretty early because it is pretty like you said pre-civil war there is a lot going on Canada outlawed slavery in like the early 1800s. And lest you think that I think Canada is perfect, that there were still indentured servitude and racism and it was terrible. It wasn't like good in Canada, but it wasn't the United States. And a lot of people were taken from the United States to Canada via the Underground Railroad via Niagara Falls.

And if it's good enough for Harriet Tubman, it's good enough for me because Harriet Tubman was there. She in 1855, they built the Niagara Falls suspension bridge. It's no longer there, but it was a two-level bridge. The top was for trains. The bottom was for like carriages and walking. And it became like a really, really important part of the Underground Railroad.

Harriet Tubman herself would oversee the crossings. She would go on the trains with people and they'd be like hidden in containers. And she would say, look how you can see the, you can see the falls. And people would be like, I can't. Like they're just so nervous because they're trying to get to Canada. The Fugitive Slave Act complicated things because that was an act where you could or people were hired to catch enslaved people who were trying to escape north to either the north of the United States or to Canada and bring them back to their enslavers. But it was still a very

popular route for the Underground Railroad. Two tangents about that, because it's so much, there is a family. Sorry, wasn't slavery still outlawed in the northern states? Like, wouldn't you just have to go to the northern states? You didn't actually have to go to Canada, did you? Well, because of the Fugitive Slave Act, you had to leave because... Oh, because somebody could go to Massachusetts, find you, and then take you back. Got it. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So people were trying to leave to leave to Canada. So two things that are kind of related to that, there's a family called the Porters, who is credited for helping the area become more protected and more popular. Really, they were just looking to make money and, like, for ways to get tourists there. So they weren't, like, conservationists. and one of the patriarch of that family

is named Peter Porter and he was someone who would help enslavers catch their enslaved people and bring them back so he's not a good guy but sometimes he's put forth

as being like the father of Niagara Falls and like that's not necessarily true if you go to Niagara Falls the next time your parents go I would suggest going to the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center because that sounds very cool

it's a museum has a bunch of stuff I'm going to ask something but like it's going to sound really stupid but like is the falls of Niagara Falls has that always been there or was it a dam that made it do

the fall thing? It's always been there since 10,000 years ago when the glacier's the water keep coming I don't know how this works I don't know where the water comes from how could it have that much water always going downhill I have no idea how waterfalls work

that was a very good question maybe there's like a pump at the bottom that just pushes it back like kind of like a water fountain I don't think so I think that waterfalls are just like ongoing water that comes from like the rivers but like where rivers come from

rivers are always flowing if everybody knows this can you write to us my god I feel so stupid so it's just like the end of a river you know and it goes over a waterfall but rivers are always moving they're not like static they don't run out of water

I have no idea how it works. Well, there's a couple more things I'll tell you on that note and we can talk through it. So anyway, Niagara Falls, a big part of the Underground Railroad, which is very cool. Also, from 1901 to 2008, other things were happening in the United States, so we skipped ahead a bunch. But Jim Crow laws, voter suppression, you know, people are starting to get really angry, obviously. And 32 African-American leaders meet on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, because they weren't allowed to be in the hotels on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls, and they start an organization called the Niagara Movement. The Niagara Movement didn't last too long, but a lot of

the founders of the Niagara Movement moved over and founded the NAACP. So the Niagara Movement is often called the predecessor of the NAACP. So a lot of stuff happened there. This happened to meet there. Yeah. So another thing that happens during all these times is people are trying to do stunts over the false because of course they're trying to like get tourists and have people watch something and get people to come um strand the author of the book that i read she was like oh the stunts are kind of kind of dumb but i like them i want to see someone go for it in a barrel you're not allowed to but like i'd watch yeah of course we all tuned into evil can evil exactly trying to kill himself when we were kids yeah i've totally watched that um

And one thing, one of the first things people do is tight rip walking. And man, I hate tight rope walking. It makes me want to die. Like, did you watch like Man on Wire? Yeah, I didn't watch that, but I did remember the guy who walked across the Grand Canyon or tried to walk across Grand Canyon. It was like, I mean, even if you fail, I know, I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do heights.

No, it's crazy. But the most famous type rope walker is named Jean Francois, Blondine, Gravelling. His stage name is Blondine. he crossed eight times in 1859 he crossed like over the falls on a tightrope one time he did it carrying his manager on his back like as like I hope he died the richest man in the world you know he did not but um he and so it's 1859 when he's doing this and he's crossing from the United States to Canada on a tight rope and something that Strand um the author of of inventing Niagara said that it's sort of like her her hypotheses which makes a lot of sense, is like, there's no way that people didn't associate that with escaping the United States into Canada because it was like actively part of the Underground Railroad. People are actively trying to escape their inslavers in the United States and move to, and like get to Canada. And someone is doing this like dangerous trick doing

the same thing. So she's like, there's no way that people watched this and didn't think about what was happening in the United States. And she equates it to like, what if David Copperfield went down to the Mexico border and like disappeared himself to the other side of the wall, you'd be like, that's amazing and also like, that's political. Which I kind of agree with? I guess.

Like there's no way you didn't, like it feels like it could have been a little bit political. At least people might have like. I don't know. You actually have a real world example because David Koppurfield literally did that between the Mongol side and the Chinese side of the great wall of China. Did he really? Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. And like, I don't know. I didn't think about the geopolitical aspect of... Do the people that live there think about it? Maybe that's... You know, like, maybe like a percentage of folks thought about it. Maybe that. Maybe that.

You know, but I think it's interesting. There were other tightrope walkers who tried as well. There was a guy named William Hunt who called himself the Great Farini. And him and Blondean would kind of go back and forth. Like, one of them cooked an omelet somehow on the tightrope, which isn't making sense to me. In the 1870s, a woman named Maria Sbelcherini. She was 23 years old, and she was the first and only woman to do it on a tightrope. And she did it a couple times.

One time she was blindfolded. One time her ankles and wrists were handcuffed. Yeah, I don't get that. I don't understand. So it stopped being popular kind of after that because it was so dangerous. But in 2012, a man who has quite the resume, his name is Nick. Walenda. And he is like his great grandpa started the flying Walenda, which is like a group of performers. So he comes from like a family of circus

performers. He's still alive. He has like the greatest book world records for like longest time on a bike on a tight rope, things like that. But with permission of both governments, he crossed in 2012, but he had to bring his passport because he couldn't get into Canada without it, which is funny. That's pretty cute. I like this story. There's also people that go over the falls. Sometimes by accident. And I know that there are three falls, but I'm not doing that right now. I'm just calling it all one. I'm talking about people going over them. In something, oh, so first it happened by accident a lot. I'm sure

plenty of people lost their lives accidentally going over the falls. In the first recorded one is from 1853, where three dudes in a boat lost control and went over, but I'm sure it happened before them. Animals actually went over a lot just naturally, like fish and geese. and maybe like a deer would like fall in and go over. So there's reports of like both the Seneca's and, um, and Europeans like finding freshly dead animals in the bottom of it and being like, sweet.

That was easy. Yeah. And just something that is insane that you're going to hate in 1827. They filled a boat called the Michigan with animals and sent it over the falls to see what would happen. They charged 50 cents per person to watch it happen. They had like a base. and dogs and deer and all sorts of like they we're going to try to get like a tiger

and an elephant but they couldn't get them but they had some animals go over one bear was like dizzy at the bottom I think another one they never found and a lot of the animals they didn't find people paid to see it God just fill it with people and throw it over like why you got to do with the animals there has nothing to do with anything they didn't do any I know I know I knew it I mean I didn't do it um but so there was that though. I know you would have. I might have. But like then, sure. Now, no. But like then, yes. The Taylor of the early 1900s would have paid her to go. The Taylor of right now knows better

and would not go. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. In 1901, a woman named Annie Edison Taylor, a 63-year-old who pretended to be in her 40s, was the first person to go over in a barrel. She sent her cat over the day before and the cat survived. So she was like, good enough for me. And she went over. She brought a heart-shaped pillow in her big barrel. She was like a school teacher who didn't have a lot of money and was trying to just like do anything to make money. So she thought that she could like do some speaking after this like be in the, be on the news. And she was. But she ended up, you know, not making a ton of money from it. What year? That was in 1901. Okay. So that was 20, 200 or sorry, a hundred and 20 years

ago. Somebody put their cat in a barrel, threw it over Niagara Falls. The cat came out unscased. They're like, all right, I'm just going to do it myself. And now we're sitting here talking across like 1,700 miles to each other. And what are we going to be like in 200 years? No, we're not going to be. How are we the same species we were back then? Absolutely. It's insane.

Yeah, 100%. I don't know. Crazy. So people were kind of pissed that the first person to do it was just like a regular lady. You know, they wanted to be like a big, more big of fanfare. But it was her. and she said she died 20 years later still poor but you know she at least had done it um she said quote if it was with my dying breath i would caution anyone against attempting the feet i would

sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon knowing that it was going to blow me to pieces and make another trip over the fall because i'm sure it was awful how fall how far is the top to the bottom again cause such a good question i have no idea let me look it up how tall it is 188 feet high I guess not like super high but very wild that's crazy high

I mean I thought it would be like to free fall 180 feet yes and you're like being battered with the water you know it's not like a nice that's crazy I can't believe you'd even survive the fall much less the drowning. Well, a lot of people didn't. And so there's a whole list on Wikipedia of people who went over the falls.

And I pulled out some highlights. In 1903, a drunk professional baseball player was kicked off of a train and he fell into the water and he died. In 1911, a man named Bobby Leach went over in a metal barrel, which feels like more harder. And he spent six months in the hospital afterwards, but he survived. in 1960 a seven-year-old boy fell off a boat and it was like he was with his like family friends and him and the adult family friend went over the falls the boy was wearing a life jacket and he survived but the family friend did not in 1961 a man went over in a big bouncy ball and he survived like he had like a big rubber ball that he went over in in 1981 a woman dropped her baby over the falls and was charged with murder but it was dismissed And to be clear, you're not allowed to do this. Like, you're not allowed to go over the walls and a barrel. If you do it, you're like doing it at night evading the police.

In 2003, a man named Kirk Jones went over after drinking with friends. He said it was an attempt to die by suicide, but he survived. And in 2017, he did it again and died. Like, he wanted to die that way. Okay, again, to our listeners write to us, the dupilapotaginal.com what I'm blown away by is I think the human body

reaches terminal velocity at like 30 feet of free fall and almost nobody can survive that is there something different because like there's water around you and possibly

possibly the barrel is like absorbing part of that energy but then you're smashing into the barrel like that's why the guy was in he was in the hospital of six months because he like broke off his bones the Golden Gate Bridge is 220 feet and everybody who jumps off

that thing died. I have no idea. How is it even possible? Okay, anyways. I know. I know. You're right. Like a lot of people died like this. In 2011, an exchange student from Japan, like, walked over a barrier and sat on a rock to, like, watch the falls. And then as she was leaving, she slipped and fell and died.

And then just a month ago, in October 28th, 2004, 33-year-old woman named Chianti Means, climbed over the guard with her two children, ages nine and five months and their bodies have still not been recovered.

Florence is here. She just said, whoa. You've got to stop exposing you to this stuff. She walked in. So people are going to continue to try to go over it. The next person has a stunt is going to have to sneak in, but there's a lot of guards to try to stop you from doing it because obviously, like you said, very, very dangerous.

Yeah, it sounds like you actually, you legitimately have to have a death wish. Also, you have to have a death wish and the desire to die in the one of the most terrifying ways possible. Like that woman, the first one, the school teacher that did it, she had it right.

Imagine in complete darkness inside of like a wine barrel. Oh my God. And you hear everything going on. No, it's got to be so loud too. Yeah. It's got to be so loud. I get terrified when I go to like a nice resort

and they have one of those like grottoes in the water's torn over. Like that freaks me out going to put my head underneath that thing. No, totally. I get scared really easily though. I know exactly what you're talking about how loud that is when you go over under the like tiny little. waterfall at like resort it yes no it's and then like that's a thing too like it's so loud the whole time it's so loud um okay so that's people who've gone over it so what else has happened there um

obviously people are trying to make it profitable profitable they want people to come and visit they want they own the land they want tourism all the things um those lots of decisions and conversations about how do we conserve it and how do we make it profitable um one person who we brought up before Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park. He was there, and in the 1870s, he helped build, like, promenades and places to walk. And he also, like, blew up some of the islands and, like, moved things around. Because, like, remember, Central Park, those aren't real hills. Like, they made the hills.

Right. They made the lakes, you know, like, they made it look like it was before, but, like, it's not what it naturally was like. You know, it feels natural, but it wasn't. So that's what he did. He did there as well. In 1885, Governor of New York, David B. Hill, made Niagara Falls the first state park in New York State. So it's like semi-protected by the government. Other things, we've mentioned that like honeymoons are really popular there.

In the 1920s, it became a big deal to have like a one-on-one honeymoon. Before that, the honeymoon was a time where you would like, with your family, go around and visit family that weren't able to make it to the wedding ceremony. so it was like that was a point yeah it was like an extended wedding but now it became like kind of sexy to like have your own one-on-one honeymoon and it was very popular to get to Niagara Falls because it was easy to get there for most Americans you could drive there and it was nice you could take a train there in 1892 Oscar Wilde visited Niagara Falls who we know and he said quote Niagara will survive any criticism of mine I must say this however that it is the first disappointment in the married life of many Americans who spend their honey

moon there, which is a joke, but he saw it too. There's a movie with Marilyn Monroe called Niagara, where she's on her honeymoon with her husband, and there's a scene where she walks away, and it's like 30 seconds of her walking away, like doing her little civil walk. That made it also very popular. There are also a lot of, like, junk museums, like I said, like a Ripley's, believe it or not. That's not a junk museum?

What are you talking about? It's not like a real museum. Well, so you're going to be able to stand next to, like, the guy who's like, the tallest man who's ever lived like you can't do that anywhere i think junk museum is the right word not like it's not a bad way of it in like a you know it's a junk museum i also though actually that reminded me i was on the airport the other day and one of the screens of the airport bar had a thing that was just like get a spoke of world records over and over again so it was like a dude on a standing on a bouncy ball juggling for two minutes and like just like those

ridiculous ones like the person who blew a plane card the furthest across street do you know what what ginnis won't take as a world record anymore um we just talked about it holding your breath what was it sleep sleep oh yes totally right um so but also this is cool so there was a museum called the niagara falls museum it was in canada in ontario it was founded by a man named thomas barnett in 1827 so he like was friends with people who were like i don't know grave robbers is kind of the word like people who were like bringing antiques from from the Middle East from Europe from these native settlements like and just like selling it to the highest bidder it closed in 1998 so it was open for like a really long time and when it closed the entire collection got sold to this one dude and that dude was like going through it piece by piece and selling it and you know what they found they found a real Egyptian mummy the mummy of Ramsey's the first and they were turned it to Egypt in 2003. So when I'm like a little bit of a tour, I went back to Egypt,

Ramsey's the first died in 1290 BC, and his mummy ended up in Niagara Falls. That's kind of nuts. Do we know how it ended up there? It was like just like, someone like stole it from the tomb and then it just like was in like a bunch of private collections, you know,

just like stolen and like brought around the world. Wild. Wild, right? So that's fun. So then there's other things that are happening. And this is where we'll talk about like the, the waterfall itself. So yes, they're doing preservation and thinking about that.

But the other question is, how much power can it generate? You know, which is a good question. Probably a ton given that we get a lot of water from water. Yeah, energy from water. So the sent a call out to be like, how can we do this? How can we do this energy? So Edison tried and he failed, but guests who succeeded and who has a huge statue in Niagara Falls right now.

Tesla. Tesla. You're right. You're right, Tesla. I think you know that. And also enter Robert Moses. So they built the hydroelectric plant via like the, what is it? The double current thing that Tesla invented.

Yeah, yeah. And that's going. And they want to make it bigger. So enter Robert Moses, of course. And in the book, Strand was like, yeah, if you're in New York City and I'm mad at Robert Moses, like try coming to Niagara Falls. Like he did like worse things there. he bulldozed some of the paths that Olmstead had created to create parking lots who could charge for parking

because that's just like the kind of guy that Robert Moses was sorry Robert Moses was the power broker right yeah yeah yeah I took a picture of me reading the power broker because I was excited because I got to pull it out again for this episode and put it on her Instagram um but some things that he did is like there were some um some seneca nations that were still there and they still owned their own land and he bought them from them at like a really low price and it was like such a bad deal that even Eleanor Roosevelt wrote him a letter and was like, cut the shit. Don't do this.

You know, like he were, and they did things that they were like, oh, let's preserve this part of, before we build these big, these like actually gigantic plants, let's preserve parts of the area. And the way that the parts that were preserved, like very conveniently were not the parts they needed for the plant. So it was all like a cover up and like people working together. Right.

You know. so obviously electricity became very popular very fast we've talked about this like thank god for electricity there was a at a world's fair they had like a whole thing that was like better living through electricity and the answer is yes so much better now that we have electricity and so essentially every time you go to Niagara Falls you are not seeing the falls at a hundred percent of what they could be you were seeing it anywhere between 50 to 70 percent and we can control it via the hydroelectric plants. I have no idea how technically it works, but that's how you can technically turn it on and off. So during the peak tourist season, they turn it up to 70%

but at night they bring it back down to be able to use that water for electricity. So during the summer, the water is reduced to 50,000 cubic feet per second at night to use that for the electricity. But that's still bringing it down to 50%. It would be twice that at its normal level. But it's never at 100%. It's either at 70 during the tourist season during the day or at 50% during the rest of the year. So I have a really, really hard time with large volumes or quantities of things. I can't even understand what that means, you know? Okay. Let's say, yeah. And me too. I totally agree with that. Cubic feet. I'm saying 50,000 cubic feet. what does it even mean like what does that mean like what does that mean

I don't know we'll have to think about I have to look better because I really don't know where that could possibly be I guess how many cubic feet of water in a pool in an Olympic pool Okay. So, 37 shipping containers stacked together is 50,000 cubic feet. Okay. And that's per second that go over it. So a Olympic pool is 88,000 cubic feet. So a little less than Olympic size pool go over the falls every second. Right. Does that help? Oh. It does. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a lot. It's too much. It's a volume in like three average three bedroom size homes. Like if you were to fill the interior of three bedroom home full of water three times, that's how much water it is. Wow. Which is terrifying to think about. That's terrifying. Terrifying.

So of course people are like, well, if we let it go at 100% it would erode faster. And you're like, yeah, because nature also like it's supposed to change. Like that's part of the point, you know. But right now we control a lot of it, which is crazy. So other things on the American side that I just wanted to note, there was a thing to have a really beautiful planned community there for people who worked around the area because there's tourism, but there's also a lot of industrial things that were happening around.

They're obviously with the water plant and things like that. And they built a community called Echota, which was like ECHO-T-A, all these like houses and like beautifully lined streets and like trying to be like a perfect suburban place and the houses were designed by stanford white who we know was murdered on top of Madison square garden oh yeah um but most of them now have been um been knocked down or they're like it did not work out i tried to find one on zillow and i couldn't find exactly a Stanford white house but like there are a lot of really pretty houses for very inexpensive up there in that area on Zillow now.

Another thing that I'll kind of end with that happened later and in more recent history is there was, like I said, there was a lot of industrialization and actually a lot of pre-work for the atomic bomb was done in the Niagara Falls area. So they would like get the uranium and like other things and bring it there, but they wouldn't tell people what they were working on, obviously. So before it got to Los Alamos, a lot of it would be worked on in Niagara Falls, but you'd only work on like a little part of it you know and you'd be like homes you're so cheap because wait just wait a second okay sorry um because okay so they're building piece that piece of the atomic bomb and with

that comes radiation and they're not taking precautions they're not telling people what it is people aren't wearing hazmat suits um and they're dumping shit into all of the rivers and into the land and a lot of stuff is going to be built on landfills that are filled of like bad things so I think you just answer my question. Yeah. So, like, a lot of people who worked on these things have died of cancer. You know, a lot of people who were just, like, drank the water in the area when they were children are dying of cancer.

There's a place called the Love Canal, which is now... Oh, yeah. That's a fun story. Yeah. So, essentially, it's a 16-acre landfill in New York. And from 1942 to 1953, they just filled it with hazardous waste. Over 21,000 tons of chemicals, acids, chloride, pesticides, pesticides. Um, were dumped there.

Jimmy Carter declared it a disaster zone in 1978 and they've been like trying to clean it up since then. I think it was, yeah, I think it was the first, um, super fund. Oh yeah. In the U.S., yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, because it was like very bad and the people were like, you, the people were irreparably

harmed, you know, for it. Um, so now to kind of end is that there are historical societies and preservation societies. we've only really been there for a few hundred years you know like figuring out what to do with it you know building and destroying and changing and doing all these things so I feel like I'd like to hear more because speaking of the cheap houses I kind of think that people should move there now

like I think the answer to places like those small shitty towns in the middle of America where like it used to be great because of industrialization and now it's not and there's people like a lot of drugs and a lot of things and like there's you know plenty of examples where it doesn't happen but plenty where it does where like people can have online jobs and live there you know and like help help the community i feel like there that there's a chance for that to happen because it is beautiful and the houses are cute and they're cheap like why not make a little

cute little tech town up there so i'm sure somebody has like done a lot of research on this and studied this but like detroit so when we're growing up Remember, like, the original Robocop and that horrible, god-awful city that was visualized as, like, the town in Detroit, and Robocop, that was supposed to be Detroit. And it turned into a complete shithole after, you know, manufacturing got sent overseas, essentially. And now it's, like, kind of back. Like, it's kind of like a cool, hip spot. Like, you know, and like, if you look at property there, yeah, sure, you'll find, like, $20,000 on houses. we'll also find like really cool looking lofts like it's kind of like a hip tech spot and like whatever they did to facilitate that yeah just do that with all these little burnt out towns that

i think it'd be cool i think there's just a lot of opportunity in those places i am have you watched detroiters i told you about it yet oh my god it's so freaking funny it's on netflix it's two seasons it's like just these two dudes who live in detroit and they're hilarious and there's one episode where there's like a tech company that moves into their building and they're like kind of mad at them and the tech people are like, oh, we're going to go walk to this area. And they're like, no, no, no, you'll get shot, which reminded me of when I moved to L.A. And I tried to walk somewhere. And Kyle at work was like, no, absolutely not. And like, drove me there. Yeah, yeah. So, like, I mean, there's, you know, and then there's, so then there's, like, community

of things that need to happen. Like, there need to be, you know, drug rehab centers and things like that to, like, help the people who live there, like, move up. But I feel like there's, you know, opportunity everywhere. But there's so many of these, like, especially in America, these small American towns that um need a little pick me up and Niagara Falls is one of them and it's by one of the tell tell me what your parents thought they thought it was beautiful yeah they thought it was incredible they thought it was like they were like it feels so powerful and people were getting on boats and

like going near it and I was like they were like terrified to do that because I thought it was just like foolish to like try even try that um but they yeah they were just like really in awe of it in a way that like I usually don't feel when I look at natural things but I think it's because I've been I've consumed so much media about it that I kind of have a sense of what it must be like I don't know when I saw the Grand Canyon I wasn't like oh my God this is well I actually think I think that like when I look out my window I can see like several mountain reaches I like live in a mountain I can see a bunch of stuff and it's hard because it's so far away and so huge like the Grand Canyon like when you're looking at it like I can't perceive how big the thing I'm looking at is I can take a picture of

it it doesn't work like all those things but I think Niagara Falls is small enough to be able to see all the grander in one spot soak it in yeah yeah yeah but I've never been there that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's what I imagine like is the difference because when you're looking at the grand canyon you're like I have no idea what I'm looking at this is huge you know yeah yeah I've I've thought like the hiking tours that like Arii does in the that could be kind of fun if you survive it um but i just feel like i just don't want to camp so like i'll do like a day on a donkey maybe i can i mean i might hate that because i hate being on a horse but i feel like maybe a donkey and i could hang out because we'd be like let's stop and have a snack

yeah you get along the donkey um can you hear the barking i cannot no okay so that's fun thanks for sharing that taylor um i learned a ton and it's fun it's fun how many crossovers we have with stories that we have. I know. I'm going to kind of talk about that in my story this week. But yeah, it all, history kind of flows into itself quite a bit. It does. Well, thanks for trying to tell. Is there anything you want to read out or listen to mail? I do have, I did get a note from Morgan on a way to say medieval to help you be able to spell it correctly. I'm going to open a pro voice note and play it for myself and then tell you what she said um because she what she say can you hear this no okay

meady evil kind of helps you say it like that you can kind of spell it better but it's still i feel it looks like i got the evil part right eval medi eval yeah medi eval yeah medi eval yeah i think maybe that's it yeah it might be the way to do it anyway um so thank you working for helping us do that. And she also said that she got her mouth washed out with soap. Seriously? That's still going on. Like, for real.

So she said, so she's like, it's still, I mean, not recently, but like, we know when she was a child. Hey,

tell her, have like, I mean, your parent is like, we're in kids like a lot different now that we were kids with like the shit that we did, like the punishments you would get. Yeah.

I mean, I definitely got spanked and I would never spanked my children, you know. We're like, what about like just being out and about and like you know playing around and I mean like by yourself as a kid well we used to just like run run around the neighborhood and like and like play around and like that was at the height of like our parents being a doctor day with like people kidnapping kids and my parents like go go go for it's fine I know I love I mean

I love my kids out a lot like one time like we were at soccer and like across like a soccer field like pretty far. There's a concession stand. And Florence was like, can I go to the concession stand? And I was like, sure. And I gave her my credit card. And I was like, just go. And she just went. And then another friend of hers asked their mom. And their mom was like, no, I have to go with you. And I was like, there's variations of. Yeah. I was like, oh, I just sent my child there with my credit card. She is 10. And hopefully they let her use it. You know, so yeah, it depends. But washing mouth out with soap is not on the. No. Okay. That's probably a good one to let go. Yeah, it's a good one to let go. I do, I do, I do like they have like a running list of how

much money they have. So they have like 20 bucks on the fridge, you know, and it goes up and down because I'm like, if I find your shoes in any place with the shoe rack, let's find us a dollar, you know, so we do stuff like that. They like money. So, you know. Nice. Yeah. Um, nice way to yeah. I mean, yeah. Driving kids works. It probably does. I'm sure that, I'm sure that's always been the case too, you know. Um, and then also one more announcement is, I'm starting a new podcast by myself. What? Not the first.

I do want to do this one about first ladies, but I also have been thinking about my town, Joshua Tree, where I live. And there's so much that I don't know about it. There's so many historical things and like things that are going on locally. Like what are you doing when you have kids? Like where are my kids taking music lessons? What's Little League like? I just went on a brand new hike two days ago.

I never been on. I lived here for five years. I know the director of development at the National Park. All these things that I want to talk more about. So it's called the Joshua Tree B, like a little newspaper, and I'm going to start it soon. So I'm on Instagram at the Joshua Tree B. So are we having, so Doom to Fail is going to become like the parent company, whatever it is. And then we're just going to have like several podcasts underneath.

So if you're a listener and you want to host a podcast and want to, you know, get the know how and how to get that going and want us to publish it for you, get us get in touch. No, it's starting network. Yeah, I like that. Doomed. I love that for us. That's fun. Yeah. Very cool idea.

Okay, we'll go ahead and cut things off again. Find us on the social at DoomfellPod on Gmail at DoomfellPod.com. And we'll join you all again in a few days. Thanks, Taylor. Thanks, for us.