Niagara Falls is one of the most famous landmarks in both America and Canada. Tourists have been streaming to the falls for around 200 years, since the 1800s. Many a daredevil has also been drawn to this torrent and it is a popular place for amateur and professional photographers. In 1969, however, a dark secret was revealed.
Running Dry
It was then that the waterfall’s normally torrential waters were reduced to little more than a trickle. This lead to some grisly discoveries which scared off even the most daring adventurers once these discoveries became known.
Something's Wrong
People living on the New York side of the Niagara Falls in 1965 noticed that the waters were becoming less and less torrential. The water was dwindling and they all knew that something had to be wrong.
American Falls
American Falls is one of the three waterfalls that combine to create Niagara Falls. It’s what’s known as a self-destructive mess. The waters that thundered over these falls were eroding the landmark. These rocks that get washed over the falls collect at the bottom of the falls. As they pile up, they become known as a talus. This talus was reaching almost halfway up the cliff.
Full Scale
This huge amount of rock that had collected there was preventing the normal flow of the water from the top of the falls. Residents were worried that this pile of rock was ruining the view on the American side of the falls.
Fears
The fear was that the American side of the falls would lose a lot of revenue if the waterfall stopped being quite as beautiful. This lead to the residents of Niagara Falls, New York launched a project to keep the falls beautiful.
Joint Effort
The American and Canadian authorities contacted the International Joint Commission as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about restoring the waterfall. The plan was approved, though the project itself wouldn’t be easy.
The Start Of The Project
Before they could restore the falls, however, they had to stop the water completely so that they could take a proper look at the talus. The idea was to remove 280,000 cubic yards of rock from the talus in the hopes of restoring the falls. The project officially got underway in June of 1969.
Cofferdam
The first thing the engineers did was to bring roughly 27,000 tons of earth and rock to the falls. The reason for this was to build what’s known as a cofferdam. A cofferdam is an enclosure that is used to pump out water so that there is a dry area where they could work.
Seeing The Bottom
The cofferdam allowed them to redirect the water from the American Falls into the Horseshoe Falls. The Horseshoe Falls border either side of the Niagara Falls. This allowed the engineers to finally see what lay at the bottom of the American Falls.
Unexpected
Understandably, they expected to see geological features that wouldn’t have been visible for close to 12,000 years. This was indeed what they found, but there was more to see and it was a truly shocking sight.
Secrets Revealed
At the bottom of the falls lay not only talus rock but also human remains. Tourists saw the remains of a man and a woman on the riverbed below. Needless to say, everyone had a lot of questions about the discovery.
John And Jane Doe
Unfortunately, no one really knew who the two people were though there were many rumors flying around. One rumor suggested that the man had jumped to his death from the falls. However, no one knew who the woman was or how she had ended up there.
Long Dark History
The engineers were rather disturbed by what they found and who could blame them? It was even more surprising that more bodies hadn’t been found, especially considering the history of the falls.
Statistics
Between 1850 and 2011 roughly 5,000 bodies had been found at the bottom of the falls. That’s why it was so strange that only two were found in 1969. Statically there are between 20 to 40 suicides committed at the falls every year.
Do A Barrel Roll
Thrill-seekers have taken the daring plunge from the falls’ peak since the 1820s, having built inventive barrels and casks to topple over the falls in. With fingers crossed, only a few have survived the audacious feat.
Daredevil
The most famous survivor is arguably Annie Edson Taylor, who took the plunge over the falls in 1901, cradled inside a wooden barrel. Reportedly, the adventurer said “No one ought ever do that again,” after her triumph. Sadly, many didn’t heed her warning, which explains some of the found remains.
Wishing Well
Being less dreadful, but more disruptive, millions of coins were, too, found among the talus collection in 1969. That’s a whole lot of wishes. Still, coins and bodies aside, the engineers still needed to get the falls gushing with water again.
Realizations
Believe it or not, after the intense, and wildly expensive, construction at the American Falls, engineers decided to leave the eroded talus after their realization that the rock supported the cliff face behind. Though it sounds absurd, the project didn’t go without purpose.
Restoration
It opened up an opportunity to give the American Falls some much needed TLC. With the help of anchors, bolts and cables, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked on stabilizing the falls so it could glisten and gleam for years to come.
Conclusions
The International Joint Commission concluded, “man should not interfere with the natural process.” Nevertheless, recent years have spawned talks of once again dewatering the falls, this time in hopes of restoring bridges. Experts know this could reveal important details from history.
Detroit Lake
That’s what happened about 100 miles away from Portland, Oregon, where the Detroit Dam on the North Santiam River creates a reservoir known as Detroit Lake. The lake provides water for the city of Salem — and intrigue every autumn.
Run Dry
Towards the end of every year, the lake runs mostly dry, exposing a cracked-and-grassy surface that brings locals out to the Marion County mountains in droves. It’s not the lake’s barren surface they want to see, however — well, not exactly.
Rich Past
Rather, travelers pull off Route 22 every fall — usually between October 1 and January 1 — hoping to catch a glimpse of history: a piece of the area’s rich past jutting from the soil like a troop of two-foot soldiers.
Creepy Atmosphere
Tree stumps pepper the landscape, vestiges of the past creating an eerie atmosphere. Touch a stump and you won’t feel the familiar bark; rather, you’ll feel a thick-and-bloated stump that belongs to the depths of Detroit Lake.
More To It
Most thought these stumps, interesting as they are, were all the drained lake had to offer (when full, the lake’s a popular place for water sports). But in 2015, a drought drained the lake in its entirety, revealing the deepest depths of the reservoir…
Taking A Chance
During the drought, and thanks to a lack of snowfall in the Cascades, the lake dropped 143 feet below capacity. Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy Dave Zahn saw this as an opportunity to explore the land beyond the stumps.
Deputy Dave
“I went on a treasure hunt down along the river, figuring I’d find foundations or something like that,” Deputy Dave said. He wandered the dried-up lake bed, grazing the stumps with his fingertips until he saw something in the distance.
Oddity
In a part of the lake bed submerged underwater for over 70 years, the deputy saw what at first might’ve looked like a fat tree branch in between two stumps. But as he neared the oddity, he saw more clearly what it actually was.
Spokes
Out of the mud stuck a wagon, complete with massive spoked wheels and a spring seat. Low oxygen levels in the reservoir preserved the piece of history almost perfectly, including a metal plate with some telling details.
Manufacturer
The metal plate revealed the wagon was built in 1875 by the Milburn Wagon Company of Toledo, Ohio, the biggest wagon manufacturer in the U.S. at the time. A simple discovery, yes, but one that had an immeasurable impact on the local community.
The Full Story
The wagon discovery reopened the past. While the history of Lake Detroit wasn’t exactly a secret, it didn’t hurt for Oregonians who might not know to ask what’s the story behind this wagon and all these stumps?
History
The charming history, soon consumed by locals intrigued by the wagon, went like this: in the 1880s pioneers — likely steering carts like the one Deputy Dave found — left Michigan for the Pacific Northwest. They made a settlement along a river.
New Detroit
They called their settlement “New Detroit,” named, of course, for their home state’s largest city. While New Detroit never matched the size of its namesake, the settlement did grow to about 200 people.
Small But Thriving
The small community nestled in a pocket of trees first housed builders for the Oregon Pacific Railroad, but eventually, it thrived on its own merit as citizens built cafes, churches, hardware stores, and logging companies.
Dammed
For about 70 years, the small settlement grew, but then Congress devised a plan to help out farmers and downstream towns getting obliterated by a constantly-flooding North Santiam River: the construction of a dam.
Flood Control
The 463-foot-high dam was for electricity, irrigation, and most importantly, flood control, and its creation, New Detroit residents knew, meant the demise of their humble settlement. In 1952, after World War II, the Army Corps of Engineers arrived.
Stumped
The Corps cleared over 3,000 acres of trees from what would be the dam’s reservoir, not knowing, of course, they were creating what would be a local attraction 70-some-odd years later: the tree stump garden.
Feeble Protests
Residents protested the destruction of their settlement, but to no avail. Still, grim as it looked, this was not the end of New Detroit, which by then was alive with automobiles instead of horse-drawn carts!
Moving Day
Residents who’d grown fond of their little corner of the world simply packed up and moved to the top of a plateau about one mile away. It must’ve been haunting to watch the water turn their old settlement — including the wagon — into a ghost town!
In The Light
Thanks to Deputy Dave’s lake bed exploration, the history of New Detroit was brought into the light once more. That neat wagon, which experts supposed had never before been exposed until that 2015 drought, triggered an entire area’s interest in its colorful past!
Ancient Secrets
New Detroit proves that maybe we don’t know as much about our history as we think. Similar to Deputy Dave, a team of archeologists recently learned this lesson when they uncovered an ancient clue that led to yet another completely forgotten past…
First Claims
The First Nation indigenous to British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest, the Heiltsuk people have laid claim to the remote Triquet Island for nearly 5,000 years. But archaeologists have dismissed their claim of ownership for one glaring reason.
Ice Caps
The continental glacier that formed over Canada during the last Ice Age would’ve also covered Triquet Island, making it uninhabitable. But even with the facts stacked against the Heiltsuk, a small group of researchers took it upon themselves to uncover the truth once and for all.
Excavations
The archaeologists began an extensive excavation of the remote island in the hope of discovering traces of a past civilization. What they found there not only shocked the entire archaeological community, but it also changed history forever.
Can You Dig It?
Beneath several layers of earth, they found remnants of an ancient, wood-burning hearth. But how could this be? According to researchers, it would’ve been impossible for humans to dig their way through the glacial ice to get to the soil below.
More Artifacts
As they continued digging, researchers unearthed additional artifacts, including tools and weapons. This discovery stumped the team as the Heiltsuk people traditionally didn’t use tools of this kind.
Food Source
The Heiltsuk people had derived their food source from fishing and smoking salmon, utilizing small, precise tools to harvest the fish. The tools and weapons found were much larger and likely would’ve been used to hunt large sea mammals, such as seals, sea lions, and walruses.
More Discoveries
What’s more, the team also uncovered shards of obsidian, a glass-like rock only found in areas of heavy volcanic activity. This discovery also puzzled the archaeologists, as there were no known volcanoes near that part of British Columbia. So, how did this rock — and these people — get there?
Deductions
The historians deduced that whoever left these artifacts must have traversed the land bridge that existed between Siberia and Alaska during prehistoric times. Yet researchers still needed cold-hard facts…
Time To Date
Luckily, a closer inspection of the hearth revealed ancient charcoal remains, which the archaeologists quickly brought to the lab for carbon dating. When they received the results, the researchers couldn’t believe their eyes: everything they knew was a lie.
Carbon Dating
According to the carbon dating report, these bits of charcoal were an astonishing 14,000 years old, making them the oldest carbon remains ever to be discovered in North America.
Even Older
Even by global standards, this was an extraordinary find. After all, these simple pieces of charcoal were older than the Great Pyramid of Giza and even predated the invention of the wheel! But that’s not the most remarkable fact about this discovery.
Contrary To Beliefs
The 14,000-year-old discovery placed the earliest Heiltsuk at Triquet Island 2,000 years before the end of the ice age. Therefore, the island couldn’t have been covered by the massive continental glacier. And that’s not all.
Out Of Time Artifacts
Since Triquet Island was surrounded on all sides by water, the early Heiltsuk would’ve used boats to traverse the open waters. Boats, however, were not believed to have been invented until centuries later.
Earlier Then Expected
This meant that the Heiltsuk settled the area 2,000 years before initially believed. If this was the case, then these early men likely crossed paths with some of history’s most formidable beasts.
Land Bridge
As the Heiltsuk people made their way south from the land bridge, they likely had to fend off giant creatures like mastodons, woolly mammoths, and giant sloths. But somehow, these humans survived, and it’s likely for one crucial reason.
On The Level
Thanks to the Pacific Ocean itself, the sea level at Triquet Island remained constant for over 15,000 years. So as the sea gradually eroded the surrounding islands, the great beasts of the Pacific Northwest were kept at bay, leaving the Heiltsuk to a peaceful, secluded existence.
Oral Tradition
The most astounding realization that’s come to light is the fact that the Heiltsuk people were able to preserve their history orally for nearly 14,000 years. However, they are still being deprived of their history’s legitimacy.
Disrespectful
When the media caught wind of the story, they seemed to focus more on what the discovery meant for the scientific community rather than acknowledge the rich history of the Heiltsuk. To many, the media’s portrayal of the nation was seen as highly disrespectful.
Shifting Focus
As a result, University of Victoria student Alisha Gauvreau — who was present during the excavation — has dedicated herself to shifting the focus of the dialogue toward the Heiltsuk people.
They've Got The Spirit
The Heiltsuk claim to Triquet Island stands as one of the oldest land-ownership claims in the world. Not only does this discovery speak volumes about the strength of the Heiltsuk people, but it also represents the indomitable spirit of mankind.