A FEW WEEKS AGO the Maid Of The Mist, which cruises the base of Niagara Falls, carried a blond, blue-eyed boy as a passenger. As the boat approached the discharge port of a Canadian power plant near the foot of the falls, which spewed a torrent of white water into the river, the boy began to get nervous. "There's the big pipe," he said. "That big pipe scared me."
As the Maid Of The Mist drew nearer the falls, despite a brave effort to control himself, the boy began to cry. It was small wonder Roger Woodward was unnerved by the "Thunder of Waters." He was remembering the most terrifying minutes of his life. Here, a few weeks before, clad only in bathing trunks and a life jacket, he had been swept over Horseshoe Falls.
It was a nightmare he will never forget. It was a nightmare the world will never let him forget. The trip made by the Maid Of The Mist is probably the shortest boat cruise in the world. It takes place every 15 minutes in a boiling basin of water immediately below Niagara Falls, where the drainage of half a continent spills over from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The cruise is limited, rather effectively. Were the boat to cruise any farther up river, it would disappear into the cauldron at the base of Niagara Falls. Downstream, it would be sucked into the Lower Rapids, the most turbulent and violent stretch of water in the world.
Every day during the summer months thousands of tourists descend the inclined railway on the Canadian side of the Upper Gorge, to the dock of the Maid Of The Mist. Their boat fare is $1.15; the inclined-railway fare is 10 cents. As they go aboard they are issued with black oilskins, in anticipation of the unique shower bath to come. At 15-minute intervals the Maid Of The Mist casts off with a load ranging from 50 to 100 men, women and children. The boat cruises up past the American Falls, crosses back across the river and then sticks its nose up into the centre of Horseshoe Falls.
Here, only a few hundred feet from the cataract, soaked by spray and spume and shaken by the violence and thunder of Niagara, most of the tourists seem glad to turn back for the homeward run. Including loading and unloading time, the entire trip takes 30 minutes. The Maid Of The Mist is able to do it every 15 minutes because the Maid Of The Mist is really twins. The Maid Of The Mist and her sister ship, Maid Of The Mist No. 2, are a far cry from that first steamer which began the run 115 years ago.
Because there was no water access to their home in the Upper Gorge, the early boats were built on the spot. The present Maids, of all-steel welded construction, were built elsewhere, then cut into four sections, brought down the side of the gorge and put together again at the river's edge. They are 66 feet long, 16 feet in the beam, with a draft of five feet, six inches. For extra safety each has twin diesel engines, twin screws and twin rudders, which can be operated independently. There is automatic fire control in the engine room, as well as a bank of storage batteries in case of generator failure. Should all these precautions fail there is an auxiliary launch, The Little Sister, standing by at the dock, capable of taking a disabled Maid in tow.
It is highly unlikely that the present Maids will ever take the trip through the Lower Rapids made by one of their ancestors in 1861. That particular Maid Of The Mist had been sold, conditional upon delivery in Lake Ontario. On June 6 of that year, Capt Joel Robinson, with his fireman and mate aboard, steamed down into the Lower Rapids.
What happened after the Maid Of The Mist hit the rapids seems to have been less of a feat of navigation than of simple ability to hang on. The boat was knocked flat on its side at one point, losing the funnel. At another the mate was flung through the side of the wheelhouse and the captain stood on him to keep him from going overboard. The mad ride continued, through the Great Whirlpool, down the second stretch of the rapids and into the calm water beyond where Capt Robinson brought the sinking ship safely into Queenston harbor.
The Scottish port collector must have thought the world had turned topsy-turvy when he saw the first ship ever to approach Queenston from the direction of Niagara Falls, but it is reported he rallied enough wit to collect a port entry fee.
Joel Robinson was, of course, a singular man. At an earlier time in his life he had walked, through the water, half-way to Luna Island, which perches at the very brink of the American falls. On July 25, 1839, he made what is probably the most spectacular rescue of all time at the crest of the falls. Goat Island, the large island which divides the Niagara river into the American and Canadian falls, was at that time reached by a wooden bridge.
A workman named Chapin fell from the bridge while repairing it and was swept downstream. He managed to reach a small islet in the middle of the rapids. Almost incredibly, Robinson, in a small rowboat, managed to reach the islet before capsizing, righted his boat, took Chapin aboard and rowed him back to Goat Island.
But Niagara Falls seems to specialize in the incredible, as in the case of Roger Woodward. Saturday, July 9, I960, was a warm, sunny day at Niagara. In the tiny office at the Maid Of The Mist dock, Capt. Lawrence ("Bud") McGinn, the Canadian manager of the Maid Of The Mist Steamboat Co., Ltd., was sitting at his desk. At exactly 12:52 P.M., his ship-to-shore phone began to squawk: "No. 2 calling! No. 2 calling!"
The captain of Maid Of The Mist No. 2 was Capt. Clifford Keech. He was, McGinn knew, at that precise moment at the apex of his run at the base of Horseshoe Falls or, as employees refer to it, "up in the Shoe." CAPT. KEECH, a pipe-smoking veteran of 23 years' service with the company, had made more than 40,000 runs on the Maid Of The Mist. McGinn knew he did not get excited easily. But the voice coming over the air was excited. McGinn grabbed his microphone. "No. 3 answering! What's wrong?"
His voice breaking with excitement, Capt Keech replied: "Just a minute! Wait till I get straightened around. There's a life jacket up here there's a boy in it and he's alive!" McGinn waited no longer, but ran for the dock and the auxiliary launch, The Little Sister.
There were only three possible explanations for the boy in the Shoe. One, he had fallen overboard from the Maid Of The Mist. Two, he was one of the foolhardy swimmers McGinn had occasionally to order away from the river banks in the Gorge. The third incredible possibility was that the boy had been swept over Horseshoe Falls and had lived.
There is a peculiar eddy in the currents below the falls. Because of it, nearly all debris swept over the brink ends up at the dock of the Maid Of The Mist. The cause of this eddy is a discharge port below the American falls, from an American power plant. It throws a barrier of frothing white water across the river, which causes most floating objects to swirl back upstream to the dock on the Canadian side.
Company employees are kept constantly busy dragging driftwood from the beach and pulling from the water logs which might snag the screws of the Maids Of The Mist. Night and day, a large bonfire burns on the beach to dispose of this stream of driftwood. Along with this debris arrive the bodies, and parts of bodies, of those persons swept over the falls. These are the known suicides, and the assumed suicides. At the height of the season this averages about one body a week.
The time-lapse from the moment a person is observed going over the falls until the body appears at the Maid Of The Mist dock is quite constant. Almost invariably it is four days. ON extremely rare occasions a body has shown up ahead of schedule, perhaps the result of being caught by a freak current. Among rivermen, there is also the belief that a violent thunderstorm will bring a body up from the depths ahead of time, and this has been observed to happen, but there is no scientific explanation for it.
The boiling basin of water at the foot of Horseshoe Falls is believed to be about 200 feet deep. "Bud" McGinn, who had watched the parade of battered bodies over the years, did not at first seriously believe that the boy up in the Shoe had gone over Niagara Falls, and lived. But Roger Woodward had done just that.
At the wheel of the Maid Of The Mist No. 2, Capt. Keech at first did not believe his eyes. As always, he was scanning the heaving milkshake of water ahead for logs and debris, when he saw something orange literally pop from the depths, about 100 feet ahead. The object, flung upward by a "boiler," emerged far enough for Capt. Keech to see it was the body of a boy, in an orange life jacket.
The object came swirling downstream past the discharge port of the Canadian power plant nearby. It was held in a sitting position in the water and as it felt the pummelling of Water, the head turned apprehensively toward the enormous discharge pipe. For the first time Capt. Keech realized he was seeing not a corpse, but a real, live boy. Shouting at First Mate Murray Hartling, he turned the Maid Of The Mist away from the boy.
Under the boat were two twin screws, four feet in diameter, churning the water at 1,500 revolutions per minute. (The engines are capable of an additional 500 r.p.m., kept in reserve to deal with sudden vagaries in the Niagara currents). If Capt, Keech tried to pick up the boy while heading upstream and missed there was a chance he would be drawn into the propellers. Capt Keech held his new course and allowed the boy to drift past the Maid Of The Mist on its starboard side. The boy, who had begun to yell, "Help! Help!" as he caught sight of the boat with its passenger-lined deck, now saw it going away from him. He yelled with real desperation.
Capt. Keech circled upstream, turning toward the American side and then turning back to approach the boy from upstream. Hartling and deckhand Jack Hopkins stood ready on the starboard bow with a life preserver. As the captain reached and held a safe position, they threw it to the boy in the water. Twice, it fell within a few feet of him, but was pushed away by "boilers," or upsurges of current from below. "The third time I threw it," says Hartling, "it was almost too close for comfort. If I'd hit him with it, it might have knocked him out." But Roger Woodward was able to grab it, and to sprawl into the centre of it, as it was hauled in to the Maid Of The Mist.
Jack Hopkins climbed over the rail of the boat and stood on the whale strake, the metal projection running around the boat to protect it while rubbing against the dock. As they pulled Roger Woodward aboard, he cried, "My sister! Save my sister! Deedee's still in there!" At this moment, Capt. McGinn drew alongside in The Little Sister. Capt Keech shouted down to him: "He says his sister's still in there!" "O.K.!" shouted McGinn. "You take him back! Tell the shore to phone the hospital! I'll look for the sister!" He headed upstream to where he could see a small, red object bobbing in the water. On the deck of the Maid Of The Mist they tried to take off Roger Woodward's life jacket so they could make him comfortable on the deck.
He struggled, and cried in fear, "No! No! Don't take off my life jacket!" They managed to reassure him, and removed the life jacket gently. They could see no marks on him. They asked if he was hurt. "My legs hurt," he said. A woman passenger said she was a nurse and took charge of covering him up, with the uniform jackets of the crew. Roger tried to tell them again about his sister in the water. He was told another boat was looking for her. Capt. Keech headed back toward the dock and picked up his ship-to-shore microphone. Roger was carried ashore on a stretcher and set down to await the arrival of an ambulance.
A crowd quickly gathered around him. The first of many newspapermen to arrive was Tony Fredo, of the Niagara Falls Review. Fredo declares he will never be able to forget his own strange reaction, and that of others, as they gradually began to realize what had happened to Roger Woodward. The boy was lying on a stretcher, holding a blanket up to his chin. He was lying quietly, but he was moving his head around with all the lively awareness and curiosity of a normal, seven-year-old boy.
Fredo asked Capt Keech, "Where did you pick him up?" "Up in the Shoe," said Capt. Keech. "He must have come over the falls. There's nowhere else he could have come from." When these words were uttered those standing around the stretcher fell back, as though they were frightened, or in the presence of some strange creature. Fredo himself, although staring at what was obviously a very-much-alive boy, said, "Over the falls? Is he alive?" As the ambulance arrived, Fredo began shouting at the passengers milling around the dock. "Anybody take any pictures? Anybody got any pictures of the rescue?"
Many had taken pictures. Hardly a tourist arrives at Niagara Falls who is not armed with a camera of some kind. Some had taken black-and-white pictures, some had taken color pictures and some had shot moving pictures. Some wanted $500 for their roll of film. Others asked $1,000. Still others said they did not want to profit by Roger Woodward's misfortune. They turned their film over for the price of a new roll.
Roger Woodward had now arrived at the Greater Niagara General Hospital. Because he said his legs hurt, he was X-rayed. There were no broken bones. In fact, the only marks on him were slight brush burns on his chin and chest not even serious enough to treat He did have a slight bump on the right side of his forehead. He was marked down for head-injury routine. This meant regular checks on his pulse, respiration, temperature, blood pressure, pupil dilation and his general level of consciousness for anything pointing to internal damage. But nothing could be found. Roger Woodward had gone over Niagara Falls virtually unharmed.
Soon Roger's frightened and bewildered parents arrived at the hospital. From them he learned that his 17-year-old sister, Deanne, whom he called "Deedee," was safe and sound in Memorial Hospital, on the American side of the river. His parents left for there, followed by a growing horde of reporters and photographers, and Roger was cut off from visitors so he could get some rest. He was moved to another room in the Children's Ward. After a while he began to worry about his bathing trunks, which had been removed on his arrival. He kept asking the nurses about it until finally one of them found them in the drawer of the bedside table in the first room he had been in. "Gee, thanks," he said, when she brought him his trunks.
He examined them carefully. The only damage was a small tear in the side. Roger looked up with relief. "Mother will be able to fix that without too much trouble," he said, "Haven't you seen enough water for a while?" asked the nurse. "I won't go swimming for a while anyways," said Roger. He was realizing more and more what had happened to him. "I really did go over the falls. Boy, am I ever lucky!"
MEANWHILE, back at the Maid Of The Mist dock, Capt. McGinn had returned from a fruitless search for Roger's sister. The red object he had seen in the river proved to be only an auxiliary gas tank for a small outboard motor, not the life jacket he had thought it might be.
He was back in his office when he received a phone call from the Niagara Frontier State Commission Police, on the American side. "We've got a girl over here," said the police officer, "who was just pulled out at the top of the falls." "That's nothing," said McGinn. "We've got a boy down here must have gone over the falls and he's alive!" "No kidding!" said the officer. "That must be her brother. Kept saying he was still in there. They were in a boat Supposed to be three occupants. A man, too. But don't release that till we confirm it." "O.K.," said McGinn.
He glanced at his calendar. "If he isn't here now, he should be along Wednesday." It was Wednesday, July 13, when the battered body of James Honeycutt floated up to the Maid Of The Mist dock. He was the friend of the Woodwards who had taken Roger and Deanne for their fateful boat ride above the Falls. NEXT WEEK: More about Roger Woodward's plunge over the Falls and the fantastic rescue of his sister Deanne from the brink.
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