IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Outside links for the Image this week. Michael Blowhard provides a link to a satellite image of Niagara Falls, which I thought I'd supplement with the Google Maps satellite image of the same place. The links:

Michael's satellite image
Google Maps image

Michael's image (not really Michael's image, of course, but that's a convenient shorthand) only depicts the Canadian falls, sadly; there's a prejudice about the Falls that has the Horseshoe Falls being more impressive than the American Falls, but for my money, the best place to see the Falls is from Goat Island, where you can stand on the brink of both Falls or even go down to the Cave of the Winds. Of course, the American city of Niagara Falls is an economic disaster to a degree that precisely mirrors that of Niagara Falls, Ontario as an economic miracle, but if I'm going to just look at the Natural Wonder of the Falls, I say, do it from the American side.

With the Google Maps image, of course, you can scroll northward to see the American Falls, or zoom out to get both in one image. Michael's image was apparently taken in summer, and the color is very striking; the Google Maps one is apparently taken in early May, since the surrounding trees are brown but there's no trace of remnant ice which sticks around for a long time after winter's official end. Also, scrolling around to the surrounding cityscapes on each side of the Falls, I note a surprising lack of traffic, which also indicates that the photo was imaged out of the normal tourist season, and possibly quite early in the morning.

And in both images, you can make out one of the Maid of the Mist boats near the turbulent pool beneath the Horseshoe Falls. In Michael's image, the boat is still on its approach, while in the Google one, the boat is coming about to return to its dock. One of the most fascinating things to observe, actually, when visiting the Falls is the voyage of a Maid of the Mist boat. They move very slowly upstream, coming surprisingly close to the curtain of the Falls themselves, and then suddenly the boats whip about and move back downstream amazingly quickly. It's then that you realize just how powerful the current of the Niagara River is, first in noting the way the river just shoves that boat right back downstream, and then the subsequent realization of just how powerful the engines on the Maid boats have to be in order to navigate those currents.