Local swimming holes have disappeared

Posted By AL OLEKSUIK

There was a time in this fair land when ‘the old swimming hole’ was the summertime place of fun. All across Niagara Falls there were those special places to hang out with your friends and cool off during the hot summer days.

Let’s take a brief journey down memory lane.

The Cyanamid swimming pool is a contender for the No. 1 ‘old swimming hole.’ It was created in the mid-1940s largely due to the vision and generosity of then plant manager, George Emmerson Cox and the Cyanamid Company.

The 64-metre by 32-metre pool was filled from the nearby hydro canal with nearly two million litres of water per hour. Anyone who swam there remembers the current in the pool as the waters moved from one end to the other before entering the plant. This was an ultimate luxury swimming hole with change rooms, picnic tables, stone fireplaces, an on-duty nurse and lifeguards. Countless local children learned to swim here and social activities such as volleyball and horseshoes added to the fun atmosphere.

Although artificial, it clearly was one of the coolest places to be during the summer months, right up until its final season in 1971.

The swimming areas in Dufferin Islands were another cooling spot. They were first established in 1907. The swimming areas, as well as the islands themselves, were man-made. A joint agreement between the Ontario Power Company and the Niagara Parks Commission resulted in this unique swimming and picnicking spot being created. Cascading waterfalls and shallow flowing waters attracted locals and tourists alike to this free summer playground. Many a summer romance sprang up in this idyllic setting.

While most of the swimming areas were quite tame, some of you might remember the spot called ‘the current’ or ‘the pipe’. A pipe fed under the parkway from the water flowing into the Ontario Power Company head-works.

The water jetted out under considerable force and would give an adventurous swimmer a quick ride towards the rocks on the opposite shore. You could dive under the current and listen to it roar overhead.

Another Niagara Parks Commission- controlled swimming area was at Kingsbridge Park on the Welland River (Chippawa Creek) in Chippawa. Once again this was a man-made area in a park setting. The waters flowing out of the Niagara River and into the creek are quite fast. However, the beach area was located in a small bay and protected by a sandbar.

The waters within the immediate area of the beach were calm, sandy and safe for most swimmers. This, too, was a popular location for locals and tourists.

The very popularity of both of these locations, safety concerns and an economic downturn for the Parks Commission resulted in the swimming areas being removed.

To say the decision was unpopular with locals would be an understatement. Losing these two ’swimming holes’ was a serious community loss and it is a shame future generations will not have them. It is still hard to believe both these priceless resources were closed. Not everything needs to generate a profit to have a value.

Well, one spot nobody could close was the Welland River, or Chippawa Creek, or ‘the crick’ as Chippawanians call it.

The deep, fast flowing waters of today’s crick are a far cry from its early days. Once a shallow, slow-flowing waterway, it was dredged and had its flow reversed in order to feed the hydro canal and the Beck power plants.

While every bridge and dock was a perfect summer hangout, several were special. The town bridge, the railroad bridge, my grandmother’s dock (known simply as Oleksuik’s dock) and several others were hives of activity all summer long. The bravest of the brave were in the water by May and not out until October. Bridge tag and underwater tag would be played for hours. Jumping and diving from the different levels of the bridges a test of courage. Jumping from the old block on the town bridge or the top of a railroad car was the ultimate test, passed by only the bravest or most foolish depending on your perspective. There are as many stories from along this waterway as there are fish in the waters below.

Once again, the decisions to tear down the railroad bridge and to put up signs on the town bridge banning jumping have taken away something special we should not be losing. Of course there are risks and of course the big expensive boats need a place to go. I just don’t think the decision makers understand what is being lost and that it could be lost forever. There are some things -intangible things -we need to covet, to remember and to protect.

There are countless small ponds, creeks and streams throughout Niagara that have served as perfectly sufficient swimming holes.

Today, there are hundreds of backyard cement ponds. While they serve the purpose, they just don’t cut it as a “swimming hole.” If there aren’t fish, frogs, seaweed and other crawly things in the water it just isn’t right.

Three Parks posts refilled -but no word on Gale’s spot

By COREY LAROCQUE

The province has reappointed three Niagara Parks Commission members whose terms were ending -but not Bob Gale, the controversial member whose term expired in February.

“We wanted to make sure the board remained functional. We were concerned about that,” Ontario’s Tourism Minister Monique Smith said in an interview Tuesday.

Niagara Falls lawyer Italia Gilberti, St. Catharines businessman David Howse and Ed Werner, the Niagara-on-the-Lake investor who backed the highly successful Trivial Pursuit board game, have been reappointed to the parks commission, Smith said in a phone interview from Sudbury.

The appointments were made at the end of last week, she said, though the changes have not been reflected on the Ontario’s Public Appointment Secretariat’s website.

Gilberti’s term expired July 24. Howse and Werner’s appointments were to expire in September.

And the spot previously occupied by Gale has been vacant since February.

Having three vacancies on the commission’s 12-member board would have made it “difficult to function,” Smith said.

The move appears to end the uncertainty around Gale, the gas station owner who rocked the boat last year by formally complaining to Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner about the way the Niagara Parks Commission operated.

He objected to the commission’s renewal of the lease that allows the Maid of the Mist Steamboat Co. to run its Canadian operations from parks

commission land. Gale said the commission should have used a competitive bidding process to see if another company could run Niagara River boat tours on financial terms more advantageous to the commission.

Asked specifically about the fourth vacancy -the spot occupied by Gale -Smith repeated her announcement about the three commissioners.

“We’ve reappointed Ms. Gilberti, Edward Werner and David Howse,” Smith said.

Gale said he has come to terms with being passed over by the government.

“Do I need to be on the parks board? No. I’ve got too successful a company to run,” Gale said.

He repeated his position that he would only serve again if the government ordered the commission to put the tour boat project out to public tender. The commission approved the extension in April 2008, but it has not received cabinet approval and is still awaiting a second review by the parks commission before it can go to cabinet.

The tourism ministry is still awaiting two reports that resulted from Gale’s complaint to the Integrity Commissioner Lynn Morrison. In March, Smith accepted her recommendations to review the way the Parks Commission and other agencies under her ministry are structured and to review the policies the parks commission uses for purchasing goods and services.

Smith said in March she expected those reviews to take a “couple of months.”

KPMG, a Toronto-based consulting firm, is conducting a governance review estimated to cost $98,000, looking at the parks commission’s structure and the rules it follows. An internal government audit is also looking at the parks commission’s policies for purchasing and leasing.

Both of those reports are still in progress. Smith said she expects a final report by “early fall.”

Gale was critical of Smith and the Liberal government for not including him and the union representing parks commission workers in the review and audit. The people who pointed out the problems should be included in the investigation, he said.

“The old boys club is still intact and she’s not doing blessed nothing,” he said .

Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor welcomed Gilberti’s reappointment, but said he doesn’t have much contact with Howse and Werner.

“I was pretty adamant that Italia should be reappointed,” Craitor said. “I haven’t finished with Bob’s yet. I still feel he deserves to be back on.”

Craitor said he’s “frustrated” by the logic his own government used to renew commission appointments in the past year.

A year ago, after Gale filed his complaint to the integrity commissioner, the government position was not to touch the board during the integrity commissioner’s investigation. But the government re-appointed vice-chairman Archie Katzman in October.

After Gale’s term expired in February, Smith said it would not be renewed while the two reviews recommended by the integrity commissioner were underway.

But Gilberti, Howse and Werner were reappointed, while the reports are still outstanding, despite the reports not having been finalized.

Removing parks commission confidentiality could impact other provincial agencies, tourism minister says

Province not rushing to enact Niagara Falls council suggestion to relieve parks commissioners of oath

By Corey Larocque

The Ontario government isn’t in a hurry to act on free advice from Niagara Falls council about how the Niagara Parks Commission should run.

Tourism Minister Monique Smith confirmed her staff received a July 9 letter from city hall, outlining a resolution councillors passed calling for openness at the Niagara Parks Commission.

Council suggested the Liberal government amend the Niagara Parks Act in a way that would allow the four Niagara Parks Commissioners who are also municipal politicians to report back to their councils about parks business.

“The resolution has been received by my staff. It will be taken into consideration,” Smith said in an interview with The Review this week.

City clerk Dean Iorfida wrote a July 9 letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty, outlining council’s concerns. McGuinty replied July 27, saying the issue is the Minister of Tourism’s responsibility.

“I trust that the minister will also take council’s views into consideration,” McGuinty wrote.

Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Niagara-on-the-Lake and the Regional Municipality of Niagara area each allowed to appoint one council member to the Niagara Parks Commission’s 12-member board. The province names the other eight members.

But the municipal politicians are required to sign the same confidentiality agreement the provincial appointees take. It prevents all commissioners from publicly discussing commission business, councillors say.

Niagara Falls councillors want Coun. Vince Kerrio, the city’s representative on the board, to update them regularly on what happens at parks commission meetings.

“I don’t understand whey we put somebody there and they can’t talk to us,” said Coun. Carolynn Ioannoni, who introduced the resolution at a June council meeting.

Kerrio himself voted for the resolution, but said he “didn’t have high hopes” it would push the government to act.

While it’s “helpful to have council’s opinion,” Smith said her ministry won’t act immediately on the suggestion from Niagara Falls.

Relieving the four municipal politicians on the parks commission of their confidentiality agreement might have implications for the way other government agencies would work. Members of some of the other 630 provincial agencies also take confidentiality agreements.

The city’s resolution “could impact the legislative requirements for appointees as defined by the Public Service of Ontario Act,” Smith said.

She passed the city’s suggestion onto the Public Appointments Secretariat, the office that oversees the 4,300 people who sit on government boards.

Earlier this year, the government ordered a review of how the parks commission is structured and the rules it follows. The city’s call for changes to the Niagara Parks Act could be considered during that review process, which is expected to be complete in September, she said.

The Niagara Parks Commission is known as an “operational enterprise agency“ of the provincial government, meaning it’s intended to act like a business and to make money.

Parks commission officials, including chairman Jim Williams, routinely defend the commission’s closed-door policy saying they’re legally allowed to meet privately and are required to because doing business in the public could jeopardize its own business plans and those of its partners.

One of the reasons for criticism of the parks commission is private meetings prevent people from seeing what goes on. Holding open meetings would “take that shroud of mystery,” Kerrio said.

“When I see how the meetings are conducted, they’re not much different from city council meetings,” Kerrio said.

clarocque@nfreview.com

Niagara Falls: Canadian side overflows with kitsch kitsch

by Dennis Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

NIAGARA FALLS, Canada — Niagara Falls spills 750,000 gallons of water per second down a 167-foot drop in a roar that began when glaciers melted 10,000 years ago.

Tourists come by the millions, stare into the white mist, and marvel at one of the wonders of the world. Then they have wonders of their own: What to do next?

As Nick Ramunno, who oversees a hall full of wax rock stars there for the staring at, puts it: “You need something else besides the Falls. You can only look at the Falls so long.”

That’s when it’s time to climb Clifton Hill.

There is no compromising with Clifton Hill. Either you recoil in horror at the noise, lights, crowds, smells, outsize waffle cones and howling fright houses or you give yourself over to the Great Spirit of Kitsch that has pervaded since the days hotel owners shanghaied each other’s guests at the train station and shook them down for trips to the bottom of the Falls.

Consider the words of Chucky Prime Time, who is bellowing the virtues of Ripley’s Moving Theater, a lights-stereo-and-cinema attraction on the main drag of Tourist Land.

“It’s what’s going down. It’s the Vegas of Canada, Clifton Hill. That’s the only way to describe it,” he says. Then, after some prodding, he confesses that his last name isn’t Prime Time. It’s Booth. And in real life he’s a college student and spends his free hours as a volunteer youth coach, but in Niagara Falls, every kid who wants to can get a summer job being something else: a cross between a day laborer and a carnival barker.

The Vegas of Canada is a perfect inversion of all common assumptions. Canadians have been famously defined as polite, unarmed Americans with health insurance. Yet in this one corner of the world, stereotype has been turned on its head. The Canadians bellow, their signs all but jump off the buildings, commerce reigns supreme, and a people ordinarily famed as the guardians of every leaf on every tree have left it to the Americans across the river to maintain a sedate park where it is the birds, not a recorded Dracula, that are heard during a walk.

But Clifton Hill? There is kitsch beyond computation. On a two-day swing a visitor counted five wax museums, three commercially haunted houses, a village built of LEGO, three towers capable of satisfying anyone’s urge for vertigo, King Kong on one building and Frankenstein holding a giant Whopper on another, a two-headed lamb, three electric chairs, a pair of shrunken heads and a bowling alley with giant TV screens affixed above the pins and filled with distracted bowlers who couldn’t seem to figure out why their shots landed in the gutters.

One caveat, warns Tara O’Hara, a Canadian who had three hours to spare and stopped by Clifton Hill with her date: “I would say it’s the children-friendly Las Vegas of Canada.”

Making money at the Falls

Niagara Falls, Canada, has long been known as bridal suite to the world. It got that reputation in 1801 when Aaron Burr’s daughter Theodosia sauntered north for a honeymoon. Three years later, Jerome Bonaparte, youngest brother of Napoleon, carted his bride to the Falls for a wedding trip. Jerome went on to become a notorious philanderer, but the die was cast: couples began flocking here. Then they had children.

The trick was to make money out of the place.

That’s when Saul Davis, an entrepreneur of Homeric proportions, began his trade. It involved a unique combination of hospitality and hostage-taking.

Davis owned a hotel on Table Rock, a shelf that jutted over the Falls. He built a set of stairs down to the bottom of the Falls and it became his practice to gull visitors into donning oilskin coats and taking “free” trips down those stairs to see the Falls. Upon their return, he then charged them extortionate rates for the rental of the coats.

The battle between Davis and his nearest competitor, Thomas Barnett, isn’t traditional Chamber of Commerce fare. Barnett ran a small museum and had his own stairs to the Falls. Davis put up signs declaring Barnett’s stairs unsafe. Later, Davis sold tickets to his own stairs and told customers that the tickets also gave them admission to Barnett’s museum. Barnett would send angry ticket holders to the police. Eventually the feud developed into gunplay, and one of Barnett’s employees lay dead.

“It’s actually a great script for a movie,” said George Bailey, a local historian, photographer, author and one-time marketing director for the local parks commission. Known locally as “Mr. Niagara,” Mr. Bailey was transported here at the age of 4 when his father took a job piloting one of the Maid of the Mists tour boats that chugs to the edge of the Falls’ spray. He began his own work on Clifton Hill as a freelance photographer.

“Great spot to go and seek the ladies,” Mr. Bailey explained. “I used to have a camera with no film in it at the time and I’d take pictures of them. Of course, I never had any film, but I’d always get their addresses to find out where I could deliver it later.”

The carnival of Clifton Hill

It was the creation of the Parks Commission that cleaned up the area around the Falls and drove the commercial craziness up the hill.

Today, the legacy of Saul Davis and Thomas Barnett lives on Clifton Hill, though nobody’s taking hostages, the gunfire is confined to attractions such as the Criminal Hall of Fame Wax Museum and families are, by and large, highly entertained.

“A lot of people think negatively of the carnival side of things, but really that’s part of our history, it’s been there since the very beginning. Since the days they were bootlegging on the ice in the middle of the Niagara River,” said Nicholas Tritchew, director of interactive marketing for HOCO Entertainment and Resorts, the largest company on the Hill.

HOCO runs a city block of Clifton Hill, with a hotel, game arcade known as the Great Canadian Midway, the Movieland wax museum, and plays landlord to a host of eateries, a bowling alley and its newest attraction, the Sky Wheel. It’s a 175-foot-high Ferris wheel with 42 six-passenger gondolas, and it serves as something of a giant metaphor.

Tourists rise to view the timeless Falls below and, as they move on, are confronted with the Clifton Hill vista where the architecture fairly cries out “20-minutes-ago.”

For the frantic pace, locals seem to love Clifton Hill.

“When you live in Niagara Falls, you don’t have to travel all over the world because the world comes to you,” beamed Elisabeth Senese, who was shuttling tourists into the Sky Wheel gondolas.

She worries, though, about the rainbows. Rainbows are a huge issue in Niagara Falls. Mr. Bailey, the former marketing director for the parks, came to know every turn and bend along the river to the point that he could pinpoint the precise location where the water’s spray would create a rainbow visible from the roadway.

Once, driving Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his family through the Falls on an official visit, Mr. Bailey picked up his cell phone and jokingly called in a rainbow.

“Would you please turn on the rainbow for Mr. Mubarak and his family,” he said. “And soon as I drove 20 feet — voila! The rainbow appeared.”

With high rises and towers jutting up along the fringes of the park, though, some locals now worry about the vista. Already, Marine Land has put up a massive tower that intrudes on the Falls profile.

What to make of a place that balances the natural glory of a waterfall with the determinedly unnatural agglomeration of fright houses and high rises?

Ms. Senese thinks it over for a moment.

“Consumed by our consumption?” she ventures.

Then she presses the button and a visitor rises 175 feet and sees past, present and, of course, the casino to his left.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09214/987540-37.stm#ixzz0N8iCfF9Q