Family Falls for the Nontoxic Beauty of Niagara

The nation’s honeymoon capital and America’s first toxic tourist attraction--our Niagara adventure is full of surprises. And all we expected was a waterfall!

We had spent the previous week with relatives in New Jersey, taking day trips into New York City. It was hard to turn our backs on a week of television, real beds, home-cooked meals and showers, not to mention the Big Apple. But it was time to hit the road and get back to reality in our faithful four-man tent.

Softened by city life, we cruise on the toll roads north through Pennsylvania and back into New York State, to Syracuse. Some time the next day, we make a right at Buffalo and arrive at the scenic Four Mile River State Campground on Lake Ontario.

Fifteen miles south is Niagara Falls. We stand at a view point, open-mouthed, gawking in amazement at the incredible explosion of white water charging out of the United States over a cliff and a border into Canada.

We get a close-up look at the falls on board the “Maid of the Mist,” a boat ride that began operating in 1846 and claims to be one of America’s oldest tourist attractions. Wearing heavy blue raincoats, we join 50 other thrill seekers on a half-hour trip to within perhaps 50-75 yards of the 170-foot-high Horseshoe Falls. (Boat trips depart from both the American and Canadian sides.)

Our boat’s diesel engines are in forward gear, but we are going nowhere against the driving current. Millions of gallons of water appear to be boiling around us, and the boat disappears into an “Evian spray” cloud of fine mist. There is a sense of danger and adventure standing this close to so much awesome power. (Half of the waterfall is tapped for hydroelectric stations in the United States and Canada.)

“I’m scared,” says Henri, our 5-year-old, as he hides below the boat railing. His little sister, Matilda, 3, is leaning further forward over the edge of the boat, loving every minute.

“Look there--it’s soap,” she says, pointing to the foaming white waterfall above us and the rapids around us.

The ride into the mouth of Niagara wakes us up, clears our heads and refreshes our skin. But it is much too short.

“We are on the edge of America,” Henri announces as he recovers from his waterfall fear on the boat ride back to the dock.

But we find the best cliff-top view of the waterfall over the border in Canada.

It costs us a 25-cent bridge toll to walk the pedestrian walkway over the Niagara River into the land of the maple leaf. At one point, a sign marks the spot where you have one foot in the Unites States and one foot in Canada. There are no Mounties in sight so we corner the next-best thing, Ontario Niagara Park police officer Renato Greco, on duty at the edge of the falls.

The policeman tells us that not everyone comes to Niagara to be a tourist. About 25 people every year commit suicide by jumping over the falls. “Most are from the American side,” officer Greco allows.

Niagara police are also on the watch for stuntmen and women. The first person to go over the falls in a barrel and survive was a schoolteacher named Annie Taylor in 1901. A Frenchman had walked over the falls on a tightrope four decades earlier. But the dangerous and often deadly stunts are now outlawed. According to Greco, there is a $50,000 fine to discourage attempts, but it doesn’t stop everyone.

Last year, one daredevil thought he could ride the falls in a kayak. “He even made dinner reservations for the night at a real nice restaurant in town,” Greco says. “We found the kayak (but) we still haven’t found him.”

A block away from the border-bridge crossing in Canada is the Clifton Hill area, home to scores of tourist attractions. We walk by wax museums, haunted houses, an Elvis collection, a Ferris wheel and a bungee jump. There are cotton candy, fudge and ice cream cones for sale.

Good, clean fun--just ask Amy, the teen-age ticket seller at a wax museum featuring criminals and killers. “I love my job,” she says. “A lot of people are coming in and asking if Jeffrey Dahmer is on display yet. He’s not, but he will be soon.”

The sun has set and we walk half a mile to the edge of Niagara Falls, where lovers line the fence railing, smooching and cuddling in the fine mist.

At nightfall a light show, which goes on until 11 p.m., changes the colors of the falls to Kool-Aid shades, from green to blue to lipstick red. A couple from Pennsylvania who got married the day before ask us to take their photo. They cuddle--it’s sooo romantic.

Romance is not featured at our next stop only a few miles away, on the New York side of Niagara Falls. The infamous Love Canal--the abandoned residential neighborhood and school built on top of a toxic waste dump--is a destination that apparently is popular with the more curious visitors to Niagara. “You are the second person to ask today for directions there,” the lady at the tourist office tells us.

We drive into the eerie area of the development that has been declared uninhabitable. There are streets of deserted, boarded-up houses and dug-up piles of dirt where houses used to be. The “canal,” covered up and overgrown with grass and some wildflowers, could pass for a playground field if it weren’t for a chain-link fence with “Caution Hazardous Waste Site” signs pinned on it.

A handful of people who chose not to sell their houses still live in this tragic ghost town. We drive past a boy, about 10 years old, riding a bike along a silent street. Peter Villone, 49, is sucking a cigarette on his front porch, 100 yards from the Love Canal toxic-waste dump site.

“It’s all a fraud,” says Villone, who maintains that alarm over Love Canal is overblown. “But I like it now, it’s nice and quiet and there’s no one here to bother you.”

Villone offers us a free soil sample from his front yard, where the grass doesn’t seem to grow too well. “Thanks, but no thanks,” we say.

Trip to Date: San Diego, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Amarillo, Hot Springs National Park, Atlanta, Stone Mountain National Park, Great Smoky; Mountains National Park, Washington D.C., New York City, Niagara Falls

Paget Family Trip Route: Chicago, Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, Yellowstone National Park, Boise, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles