The Many Waterfalls of the Niagara Escarpment
Niagara Falls One of Many to Explore and Experience
Nothing evokes this sensation better than Niagara Falls with its seething white, foaming water tumbling over the crest of rock and the thundering roar of the water crashing on the rocks below.
Discovery of Niagara Falls
In 1678, Father Louis Hennepin, a Recollet missionary became one of the first Europeans to see Niagara Falls. In his book "A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America," Father Hennepin describes the impact the sight had on him.
He wrote: "Between Lakes Ontario and Erie, there is a vast and prodigious cadence of water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel...... The waters which fall from this horrible precipice, do foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise, more terrible than thunder; for when the wind blows out of the south, their dismal roaring can be heard more than fifteen leagues off."
Other Waterfalls Along the Niagara Escarpment
What Father Hennepin may not have realised is that Niagara Falls is but one of more than 60 waterfalls that have been created by the rivers and creeks that tumble over the Niagara Escarpment. If you, like Father Hennepin, enjoy exploring waterfalls, you are in luck. Within an hour or two from Toronto the Niagara Escarpment provides opportunities to view up to 60 waterfalls.
Stretching 520 km (323 miles) from Niagara to Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, the Escarpment is southern Ontario's most significant geographical feature. In 1990, the UNESCO recognized its significance by declaring the Niagara Escarpment a world biosphere reserve.
How the Niagara Escarpment was Formed
The Niagara Escarpment was formed by the power of water cutting into soft sedimentary rock over hundreds of millions of years. This sedimentary rock known as Queenston shale dates back 400 million years when a warm sea covered what geologists today call the Michigan basin.
A hard layer of rock known as Lockport dolomite covers the soft sedimentary rock. The soft underlayer was eroded first by the advancing glaciers and then again when they receded. When the glaciers receded they left behind a steep escarpment sliced by rivers and streams which cascaded over its edge.
The long period of erosion that follwed helped create the shape and features of the escarpment we see today. Through a pocess known as "sapping", swirling waters of the waterfalls erode the soft Queenston shale until it undermined the Lockport dolomite above it until the hard dolomite breaks off. This process has resulted in the formation of deep gorges along the rivers and creeks that tumble over the escarpment.
The Niagara Escarpment: From Rochester, New York to Green Bay, Wisconsin Via Ontario
If viewed from a satelite, the Niagara Escarpment is shaped like a horseshoe that streteches from a point near Rochester, New York and cuts through Ontario beginning at Queenston, north of Niagara Falls. From Queenston, the escarpment follows a path through the Niagara Peninsula westward towards Hamilton. In Hamilton the escarpment is known locally as "the Mountain".
The escarpment wraps itself around the Hamilton-Ancaster-Dundas-Burlington area and then travels north- eastward towards Georgetown a point north of Oakville. It then veers north and continues up to the Blue Mountains by Georgian Bay near Collingwood .
The escarpment then travels west towards Owen Sound where it turns northward along the Bruce Peninsula. At Tobermory at the northern most tip of the Bruce Peninsula, the escarpment plunges under the waters of Georgian Bay and resurfaces on Manitoulin Island and a string of islands that stretch west ward along the North Channel of Lake Huron where it disappears underwater until it resurfaces on the western side of Lake Michigan where it veers south and finally peters out near Green Bay, Wisconsin.
For more information on the formation of the Niagara Escarpment see "The Niagara Escarpment", Walter M. Tovell, Royal Ontario Museum/University of Toronto.
Niagara Falls in Early Spring
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Map: Niagara Escarpment in Ontario
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