Friday 5: The Icy Niagara Falls

I planned on writing a post about spring jackets, but I had a change of plans after my parents sent me pictures from their visit to Niagara Falls this week. I thought they were beautiful and my dad told me I could share them on the blog. (Thanks, dad!) Spring jackets can wait, these pictures are too pretty not to share!

February was very cold here in Ontario—in fact, it was the coldest February on record in the city of Toronto. You know what happens when it gets really, really cold for a month? Stuff freezes! For example: pipes, car locks, my brain, and waterfalls. Well, as you can see above, big waterfalls only partially freeze but the result is gorgeous. 

Looking towards New York

The frigid temperatures in Niagara Falls cause the mist freeze into giant ice formations at bottom of the falls. Nearby railings and trees get their own icy crust. It’s something that happens often around February during cold winters and it brings in plenty of tourists to see the frozen wonder for themselves. 

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I know that was 5 pictures for the day, but I love history too much to not mention the February 1912 tragedy. 

In the 1880s it became popular to walk and play on the ice bridge that sometimes formed across the river. This usually happens when ice from Lake Erie breaks up, floats downriver and freezes into a giant mass at the base of the falls. 

By Barker, George, 1844-1894 -- Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

On February 4, 1912, the fun ended when the ice started rumbling and cracking. It quickly broke into chunks and began rushing down the river. Eldridge Stanton, his wife Clara Stanton, and Burrell Hecock got stuck on a fast-moving ice floe. Hecock nearly made it to safety, but when he saw that Clara Stanton was struggling, he went back to help the couple. Attempts were made to save the trio by lowering ropes from bridges, but they ultimately failed and all of them perished. It's a famous tragedy that lives on as a reminder that the falls are not just beautiful, they are powerfully dangerous. 

I can't end today's post on that note, though so I thought I would at least post this video of Will Gadd's recent historic climb up Niagara Falls. I find it inspiring and terrifying all at once. I don't think I'll ever have the guts to be an ice climber!

That's it for this week. We're supposed to get above freezing soon, so things are starting to look up (and hopefully heck of a lot less icy). I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Welcome February: Ink, Sobs, and Chocolate

This morning I woke up to an ice rink of a driveway. I spent over an hour helping spread road salt and sand. To top it off, I had headache, an empty stomach, and a bad attitude. I was miserable.  

Welcome February! You sure know how to make an entrance.

Now that I’m in warm comfort and I’m staring at the cursor blink at me smugly in Word, I can’t help but smile and think of part of Boris Pasternak’s “February:”

Black Spring! Pick up your pen, and weeping, Of February, in sobs and ink, Write Poems, while the slush in thunder Is burning in the black of spring.

-Boris Pasternak, 1912, from the Lydia Pasternak Slater translation (Read the rest here.)

So maybe that’s what February is good for, the disgusting weather encourages you buckle down and get something done before the glorious distraction of spring fever hits.

And Valentine’s Day comes at just the right time to give us another opportunity to eat copious amounts of chocolate. Chocolate is good for brains, it boosts serotonin and other neurotransmitters. And happy brains can start thinking “only a few more days until March!”

March’s mantra is “in like a lion, out like a lamb.” Just repeat that a few times a day and pretty soon, we’re knocking on April’s door. And April sounds like spring. April is hopeful. There’s an end in sight.

Oh, spring! Green! Birds chirping! Sunlight! No more frozen nose hair!

Where was I again?

Oh yes, back to Boris Pasternak and February. Ink and sobs and slush. Perfect words for this month.

Here’s a little song that I love to go along with today’s theme. Regina Spektor’s Apres Moi. The part she sings in Russian is the part of Pasternak’s poem that I posted above.

Just to bring this post full circle, since I am working on the Versailles Vignette Guide, Regina also sings “après moi, le déluge.” A loose translation would be “after me, the flood.”

The phrase is often attributed to Louis XV, suggesting he thought destruction would follow his reign. It has also been attached to Madame de Pompadour, one of Louis XV’s famed lovers, but no one really knows who said it. It certainly ties in neatly with the French Revolution and the fall of his successor, Louis XVI.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to brew some tea, scare up some chocolate, pick up my "pen," and take care of that tirelessly smug blinking cursor.

I hope you welcomed in February a little more kindly than I. Do you have any special ways you deal with this month? Let me know!