EP 05 · Canada Stories
The River Bends
Below the falls, the river makes a hard right turn — and the water that misses the turn has been circling in the Whirlpool for four thousand years.
The falls get all the fame, but the river's strangest trick happens a few kilometres downstream, out of the spotlight. The gorge narrows, the river swings hard to the right — and the current that cannot make the turn piles into a great green basin and simply goes around. And around. The Niagara Whirlpool has been turning like that, they say, for some four thousand years: a roundabout of white water, with the cliffs standing over it like patient spectators.
Since 1916, a small red car has been sliding across that basin on cables, high above the turning water. The Whirlpool Aero Car was designed by the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo, and it still runs today — an antique that works for a living. Oddest detail: both stations stand in Canada, yet because the river bends beneath it, the car crosses the border with the United States four times on every trip. No passport required. The river ignores the line; the car just follows the river.
Further along the rim, the gorge relaxes. The river widens, the banks go green and quiet, and from the overlooks you can watch a speedboat stitch a white line across water that, an hour upstream, was falling off a cliff. Same river, four moods: the calm approach, the fall, the whirlpool, the wide green run to the lake. We drove the whole parkway slowly, windows down. Creation does not repeat itself much along this river — every bend is a new idea, and every one of them is a gift.
Hidden gem
The whirlpool lookouts along the Niagara Parkway are free; the Aero Car (seasonal, roughly April to November) is the paid way to hang over the middle of it.
Lesson
The rapids run fastest when more water is diverted away from the falls — midday in summer usually gives the whirlpool its strongest spin.
Reader stories
Have a trip worth telling?
We don't publish reader stories yet. If you'd like to share yours, tell us where you went — we're gauging interest before building this. No photo upload.
Tell us about your tripAll episodes
- EP 01The Falls From AboveSeven hundred and seventy-five feet up, the whole river finally makes sense — both falls, one bridge, and the gorge running away green below.
- EP 02Standing at the BrinkUp on the tower the river looked calm. Down here at the rail, it is all speed — water shouldering past, and then the edge, and then nothing but mist.
- EP 03The Smallest ChurchTen feet square, six seats, one low door — and a guest book full of travellers who stopped, the way we did, because it was there.
- EP 04A Clock Made of FlowersForty feet across, planted tens of thousands deep, and keeping time since 1950 — somebody has to replant this clock twice a year, and somebody does.
- EP 05The River BendsBelow the falls, the river makes a hard right turn — and the water that misses the turn has been circling in the Whirlpool for four thousand years.