June 8, 2020. Sketchbook Traveler. Dispatch #69. Niagara Falls -

Washington Heights, Manhattan. June 8, 2020

Since April 1, I have posted sixty-nine quotidian dispatches pairing images and texts. Apart from keeping myself occupied with a structured project during quarantine, these mini-travelogues were published as messages of hope, addressed to others sheltering in place. Thanks for following these dispatches. As parts of New York State begin to reopen, I will be devoting my attention to other pressing tasks. Today’s desktop road-trip will be the first of a new series of hebdomadal blogposts. Every week, look forward to another. The next installment will be on June 15.

Niagara Falls. Sunday. September 30, 2012.

“…when viewing the falls from below and at a distance, it is hard to say from where the whole river comes. But finally the waters reach the rim, and they rush downward without encountering any obstacle. They do not however form a single mass, as they are separated by an island into two very distinct cataracts. The larger one, occupying the northwest side of the river and bordering the bank on which I approached belongs to the English and is called the Great Falls, or more frequently, the Horseshoe Falls because its summit is quite curved and the two ends, the one on the shore side being longer, project about 70 feet from the center. The top of this cataract forma a nearly horizontal line that is broken only by rocks projecting beneath the water. Masses of suspended rocks lie on the shores, and the quantity of their debris piled at the foot of the cataract attests constant disintegration. One of these projecting rocks was famous for its enormous dimensions, its position over the abysm, and the names that thousands of curious people, including the great Washington, had scratched on the surface. This narrow ledge, known as Table Rock, afforded a view of the whole cataract and the vast chasm below. Upon my arrival, I did not hesitate to venture out on such a perilous platform but, during the night, the gigantic mass broke loose and rolled into the precipice with a fearful noise, engulfing the frivolous glory of all those who had inscribed their names on the stone. Returning to the scene a few hours after the catastrophe, I was terrorstricken and thanked heaven for having preserved my life.”

–Jacques-Gerard Milbert. Picturesque Itinerary of the Hudson River and its Environs. 1826

Niagara Falls. Jacques-Gerard Milbert. Picturesque Itinerary of the Hudson River and its Environs. 1826

Lake Erie drains into Lake Ontario via the Niagara River, which flows over a ledge of Silurian Dolomite that extends east to the Adirondack Mountains, and west via a long northern loop through Bruce Peninsula, Manitoulin Island, around the Michigan Peninsula to Door Peninsula, along the southern shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The movement of six million cubic feet of water over the falls per minute erodes the ledge, moving its lip upstream (south) at a rate of two to four feet each year. The first European to describe the falls was Pere Antoine Hennepin (1626-1704), a Franciscan priest who accompanied explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle on an expedition through the Great Lakes in 1679. The Niagara peninsula became a battleground between invaders from the United States, and British forces supported by Canadian fencibles. On October 13, 1812, defenders held their ground at Queenstown Heights, at the loss of their dynamic young general Isaac Brock. On July 15, 1814, American regulars led by Winfield Scott defeated a larger British force at Chippawa, few miles above the falls near the mouth of the Welland River. A dozen miles south of Scott’s victory, a force of Irish-American Fenian invaders were defeated at the Battle of Ridgway on June 2, 1866, by a combined force of British regulars and Canadian militia. Many consider this minor battle a major event in the path to Canadian independence. On July 1, 1867, the North America Act established the dominion of Canada within the British Empire. Hibernian veterans of the U.S. Civil War continued harassing British-held Canada until 1870. What one might find astonishing is the number of artists who visited the area, including British artillery officer Thomas Davies, who also documented actions around New York City in 1776.

Niagara Falls. Thomas Davies. Royal Artillery

A few years after hostilities ceased in 1815, Rembrandt Peale, Jacques-Gerard Milbert and Samuel F.B. Morse all visited the falls, bidding for their shares in a booming market for picturesque views of exotic locations. Frederic Church produced several views of the falls, the most famous of which was exhibited in multiple venues like a theatrical event, or the equivalent of an Imax film today.

Frederic Edwin Church. Niagara. 1857. Corcoran Collection, National Gallery of Art. Washington DC (Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.)

On Sunday September 30, 2012, Kathie and I flew to Toronto. She was to attend a meeting of scholars and curators at the Art Gallery of Ontario, to plan a major survey of art the Americas. The exhibition would coincide with the Pan-American games being held in Toronto in 2015. Flying into the city on Porter Air, we landed on a little island linked to the mainland by a two-minute ferry ride. Having a few days to kill before her meetings, we decided to visit Niagara Falls. Taking a taxi to our car-rental facility, we got a vehicle and headed south. The trip to Niagara was shorter than expected. Driving through Burlington I noted the house of Thayendanegea, aka Joseph Brandt, the Mohawk war-chief who coordinated bloody raids as far south as Ulster County, New York with British forces and American loyalists. Brandt and a number of Haudenosaunee who had borne arms again the Continentals had relocated to Canada. The industrial city of Hamilton stands along the southern shore of Burlington Bay at the head of Lake Ontario. Crossing the James Allen Skyway, we entered the Niagara Peninsula. The terrain is flat, lush, agricultural and a center for wine production. Presuming the beverage would resemble the sweet white table-wines of New York’s Finger-Lakes, we were pleasantly surprised to find a greater variety. En route to our hotel we visited Brock’s Monument at Queenstown Heights, the massive fluted column surrounded by woods and manicured lawns.
The present monument was built in 1856 to replace another that had been dedicated in 1824, which had been damaged by insurrectionists. The landscaping reflects a similar impulse seen in the USA at the same time—the creation of pastoral settings for rural cemeteries, and later for city parks. After winding our way through the strip-commerce, we locate what remains of the battle-field of Lundy’s Lane, a small grassy park next to a Starbucks, across the street from a Presbyterian church and graveyard. Checking into the Oakes Hotel, we are stunned to find the management had put us on the eighth floor, with a stunning view of the falls.
Walking down to the head of the Falls Incline Railway, we queued up for tickets then waited to board. Like funicular gondolas, the carriages were small and glazed on all sides. Greeting us at the bottom was the remains of Table Rock, and the constant roar of the cataract, as the river plunges nearly two hundred feet into the chasm below. Walking north past a monument to Nikolai Tesla, we find Hornblower Cruises, purchase tickets and fall in with the lowing herd.
Photographs were taken. Color-coded hoodie-ponchos were issued. We were in the blue group.
Filing on board, we made our way forward along the starboard rail. Following a short, narrated tour of the Niagara Gorge, the boat made its way toward Horseshoe Falls, hanging back for several minutes while another boat entered the pool at the base of the falls. As we crept forward, aerosol droplets of water filled the air, like rain falling from every direction. Unlike the hissing roar one hears from above the din was deafening like at ground zero of a nuclear explosion. Vibrating every bone, every ounce of quivering flesh, I was reminded of how it felt, the first time I heard Emmanuel—the great bell of Notre Dame de Paris. Metal striking metal. Its deep sonorous call. The voice of God. Dripping wet in our useless raingear, looking up at an avalanche of water, sheer terror is inundated up by an ecstatic flood of exhilaration. This mélange of fear and awe is what Romantic poets dubbed the Sublime.

Back in our hotel-room I unpacked my journal and watercolors. Looking east, a rainbow leaped across Horseshoe Falls, anchored on Table Rock. Across the river was Goat Island and the American Falls. Behind a rosy plume of mist, the wide southern leg of the Niagara River stretched out to the horizon. I thought about doing a nocturne, the falls were illuminated by pulsing colored lights changing slowly from red to blue to green to white, and so forth until past midnight. Drawing the curtains, we called it a day.

Sunrise. Niagara Falls from Oakes Hotel. Monday October 1, 2012

I arose the next morning at five o’clock. My sketchbook and materials still lay on the table beside the window. The sun had yet to appear as I mapped out the imaged. The perpetual mist-plume ascended from the pit. As the sun burned through the haze, its fiery shape hovered behind the clouds. I was reminded of Frederic Church’s 1862 Cotopaxi, Carl Rottman’s 1849 Epidarus, and of the fact that if one never goes on rambles, the scenery never changes.

Frederic Edwin Church. Cotopaxi. 1862. Detroit Institute of Art. (Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.)