From the Niagara Falls Review:
Fill up the printer ink cartridges and load up the letterhead.
The St. Catharines-Thorold Chamber of Commerce is urging its members to send a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security asking it to modify the requirement that anyone entering the U.S. will need a passport by June 2009.
The intent is to convince U.S. decision makers to reconsider the controversial Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative taking its toll on the local tourism industry.
“Take it upon yourself, if you believe this to be an important economic matter in the future of Niagara, take this (letter) put your name on it and mail it,” said Walter Sendzik, chamber executive vice-president and general manager.
Chris gets a daily email from Ripley’s Believe It or Not! with an interesting fact. The one he got yesterday mentioned Niagara Falls:
The frozen waterfall of Mount Beardmore in the Antarctic has a height of more than ten thousand feet—sixty times that of Niagara Falls.
Mount Beardmore is essentially now a high glacier, but that sure is tall! Niagara Falls would look puny next to it.
As many of you know Harry Oakes was one of the big names in Niagara Falls 70 years ago. There are many things in the city named after him, and his family still operates the attractions and hotels on the south side of Clifton Hill (HOCO stands for Harry Oakes COmpany). The original Harry Oakes was murdered in the Bahamas, and no one was ever convicted of his murder.
Apparently the FBI was involved in the investigation, and the FBI web site has 3 PDFs you can download with information on their investigation.
The FBI conducted an investigation into the death of Sir Harry Oakes. Initially, it was thought that Sir Oakes was murdered by a member of his family in Nassau, Bahamas, sometime in August of 1943. The FBI learned, from a source who knew Sir Oakes, advised that Oakes was found dead from natural causes in his apartment on July 23, 1943. Sir Oakes’s nephew was charged with his supposed murder, but was not convicted.
A common thing for people to collect is a postcard. The Edsen Breyer Postcard Museum is an online-only collection of, among other things, old Niagara Falls postcards. There are some great postcard pictures of:
- the incline railway with the Minolta Tower in the background (and no other hotels)
- old aerial views of the Falls
- the Spanish Aero Car from 1926 (it didn’t look very safe
- and more
Here is a LiveJournal entry for someone who goes by kenville:
We went on a family outing to Niagara Falls yesterday. It’s been a while since I’ve been there, maybe even not since our anniversary the year before last. A lot of changes on both sides of the border.
As Dan mentioned in a previous comment, there is a new snack stand beside the House of Frankenstein. It’s called Dr. Frankenstein’s Brain Freeze (Dan called it Frankenstein’s Sweet Tooth). They sell popcorn and slushies. There used to be a currency exchange booth there. I guess with the US dollar being where it is, there isn’t much need for people to exchange their money.
To follow-up on some of the discussion on Marineland, I found a site that lists all of the captive orcas (killer whales) in the world as of August 20, 2007. As of that date, there were 48 in captivity (a smaller number than I expected) at 13 locations, with 4 of them at Marineland.
Here is what the site reports on the 4 Marineland orcas. You can click on each name to see lots of pictures of each whale.
| NAME |
MOTHER |
SEX |
ORIGIN |
CAPT./BORN |
AQUARIUM |
REMARKS |
| Kiska |
? |
F |
Iceland |
10/1979 |
Marineland Ontario |
Kiska was about 3 years old when captured. She measures about 20 feet and weighs in at 6,500 pounds (July 2006). |
| Nootka 5 |
? |
F |
Iceland |
10/1981 |
Marineland Ontario |
Nootka, also known as Noni, was about 2 years old when captured. She measures about 22 feet and weighs in at 8,000 pounds (July 2006). |
| Ikaika |
Katina |
M |
captivity |
08/25/2002 |
Marineland Ontario |
Ikaika measures about 11.9 feet and weighs in at 1,800 pounds (Summer 2004). |
| Athena |
Kiska |
F |
captivity |
08/08/2004 |
Marineland Ontario |
Athena measures about 9 feet and weighs in at 1,500 pounds (July 2006). |
Someone posted about their trip to Niagara Falls on their Yahoo! 360° blog:
Yep, back again. This time it’s from our excursion to Niagara Falls. It was a whirlwind trip but, we all made it back in one piece. On Saturday we visited Andrew’s friend Sandra at her place near Niagara on the Lake. It’s right on Lake Ontario and the kids had a blast with the swing they have up in the tree. They swam, and we talked. We did a short jaunt into Port Dalhousie to ride the 5cent merry-go-round.
We headed to the “Falls” around 6ish. Stopped at the floral clock, did a drive up Clifton Hill then headed to our “hotel”
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