Day Four: Niagara Falls and Niagara-On-The-Lake

Okay, so Niagara Falls is quite awesome if you do it correctly. Today we had a delicious breakfast of eggs Benedict before hoofing it back over to the U.S. to begin our Niagara Falls tour. Our guide took us to a whirlpool gorge, power plant, Maid of the Mist, Daredevil Museum, and Cave of the Winds. Of these sights, Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds were what truly changed my mind about Niagara Falls. The Maid of the Mist boat ride takes you past the American and Bridal Veil Falls into the center of the Horseshoe (also known as Canadian) Falls. The experience of being in rolling, rushing whitewater while all around you walls of water come crashing down is indescribable. Wow! Cave of the Winds provided a similar yet different experience. Both involve ponchos, although the Cave of the Winds tour provided us with sandals (oooh!). In the Cave of the Winds, you climb stairs up to the base of the American Falls and you eventually end up beneath the Bridal Veil Falls on a structure known as the Hurricane Deck (because apparently that’s what it feels like to stand in a hurricane). Mom noticed the hilarious sign on the deck which said “No Smoking.” Um…I don’t think you could manage to light up here.

On the Maid of the Mist

Cave of the Winds

Our return to Canada was preceded by a scoop of Fireball ice cream from the horrendous tourist trap of a building where our tour originated. Back when I was a small fry, I would sometimes get a scoop of ice cream when I went to Harmon’s grocery store with Mom. The name of the ice cream was Firestick, a reference to that old Jolly Rancher candy which was roughly the shape of a candy bar. You can’t imagine how well the heat of cinnamon oil goes with cold, icy creaminess. Since then, I haven’t been able to find it anywhere, and my attempts to make Firestick using my own ice cream maker have fallen flat. So you can imagine my joy and surprise when we found a similar flavor at the ice cream shop. Hooray!

For dinner, we headed up to Niagara-On-The-Lake, a town about 30 minutes north of Niagara Falls. The drive there was beautiful, with groves of green punctuated by bursts of colorful flowers. Our first stop was The Olde Angel Inn, a site that burned down during the War of 1812 and was rebuilt in 1816. It had the feel of a genuine British pub; after all, if those seated around you have Scottish and British accents, it seems as though you can make such a claim. Mom had French onion soup with a Caesar salad, and I had a garden salad (with the best raspberry vinaigrette) with magnificent fish and chips. The fries were crispy and the fish moist and flaky, with the batter light and buttery. Again, wow.

But our evening of wow was just beginning. Earlier this morning we made a last-minute decision to visit the Shaw Festival, an annual local theatre festival celebrating the work of George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries. We were able to get tickets to The Stepmother, a play written by Githa Sowerby in the 1920s. According to the festival program, “There has been only one previous production of The Stepmother. It took place at the New Theatre, London, on January 13, 1924, staged for one performance only by the Play Actors, a private theatre club.” During a Q&A with the actors after the show, the male lead explained that the piece had been found during a recent visit to the archives in London. Well, what a find. Although written in the 1920s, the themes of gender, marriage, and the importance of communication within relationships evoked in The Stepmother are just as relevant today. The actors performed their roles with such passion, energy, and emotion…it was magnificent. Toronto will be hard pressed to top today.