You open your book with the comment: "I went to Niagara because I wanted to laugh at it." What transformed you into a Niagaraphile?
I grew up not far from Niagara and we would often drive through Canada. But I never really paid attention to the falls or thought about them. Then I went on a trip with a college boyfriend. Once I learned about all the hydro diversion and the infrastructure, I became really interested. I thought of Niagara as this great, untouched natural wonder that was bigger than us. It is a great natural wonder, and it is bigger than us in some ways, but it's more complicated than that.
You write that early visitors to Niagara were less enthralled than horrified by the waterfall. How did they see it?
It's interesting because the word hideous comes up a lot. You can understand it if you stand by the falls: There's this odd feeling, it's almost tempting you to jump in - it feels like something that could kill you and almost seems to want to. It killed birds, it killed waterfowl, it was difficult to get around.
And people sometimes forget that early developers didn't really preserve it in a state of nature. They actually made it user-friendly by putting in pathways, and viewing platforms and snack stands - the kind of thing that's there today, just slightly more scenic 19th-century versions.
The other thing that happened was the rage for the sublime. People were travelling to the Alps in Europe to see huge mountains and glaciers and snowy peaks. In the United States and Canada, Niagara was the most sublime sight - something that's so much bigger than us that it's immeasurable.
So there's this interesting contradiction because, on the one hand, it became popular because it was wild and huge and untamed. And on the other hand, it became popular because it was starting to be tamed and made a little less wild.
In fact, if Niagara is one of North America's natural wonders it's thanks to human manipulation. The falls are even turned up for tourist season. What else have we done to "make" the falls?
What became most interesting to me was less that the falls are turned up and down. What fascinated me was the incredible amount of work that the two nations did together to disguise the fact that we divert water. You go to Niagara and it looks fantastic. It doesn't look like they're taking water away.
What they did to make that possible is they excavated a good deal of the riverbed, they filled in the flanks where the waterfall was turning into a trickle. They eliminated 400 feet of the horseshoe on the American side. They have blasted away overhangs so it's less dangerous.
Then, of course, there's the great international control structure upstream, which I always thought had to do with power, but in fact is just about directing water flow correctly to make the waterfall look good. So today it's looking a little thin on the American side, so we'll send some water that way. Oh, the Canadians are getting too much spray, so we can reduce the flow over there so that the tourists don't get too wet. They seriously can do that.
You have to be impressed by that on the one hand. It's an awesome piece of engineering. And on the other hand, the thing that I question is: Does this make us less aware of the fact that using natural resources to generate power has a price?
There's another less savoury side to Niagara. You write that for at least the last 150 years it's been a "tacky tourist carnival." But why all the kitsch? Isn't the beauty, the sublime, enough of a draw?
