Niagara Community

Niagara-on-the-Lake's
Community Web Site

CHRISTMAS AT SEA

By Robert Louis Stevenson

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.  ...more>>

September 22 & 23

See it off the mouth of the Niagara River

Results HERE

For the third time in memory, (if you didn't attend the beer tent) the Shark World Championships are coming back to Niagara for 2009. The Shark Sailboat was designed and built by George Hinterhoeller right here in Niagara and since then, over 2000 have been built.  This means that up to 65 identical boats will be competing for the coveted top spot in the most hotly contested world title held on Lake Ontario! Watch ..here>> for more information as it unfolds!

Sharks are pretty darned fast looking boat, don't you think?

Truly International Art, Sculpture, and Design

Introducing Art Discoveries, a truly international Art dealer with new offices in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Browse the newly rebuilt web site!

The Niagara phone number is 905-468-8558.  Congratulations to Art Discoveries for bringing something internationally special to Niagara! 

Images from Space!

Google maps not only give us a map, in pretty good detail, but a satellite image of most of North America. 

Ever wonder what Area 51 looks like from space?  Most Martians prefer to visit Niagara in the summer, when the blooms are out, the vineyards are in full glory, and wine tastings are around every corner.

How about Sailor's Rest Cottage in Niagara-on-the-Lake from space?  Scroll around, zoom in, zoom out, plan your stay in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Other points of interest:

• Niagara Falls, just up the road from Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Parliament Buildings in Ottawa: Our tax dollars at sitting there, at work. You gotta love the feds.

• Toronto downtown and harbour, just across the lake from Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Ever want to visit France? Try St. Pierre & Michelon, two islands just just a few miles off the coast of Newfoundland that are a part of France!  No kidding!  It's such a find that even Google maps don't show it.  Only available on satellite images.

• Our friends at the Reif Estates Winery surrounded by vineyards and nestled on the Niagara River.  Just 2 kilometers away is the Marynissan winery. A favourite amongst Venusian visitors.

NIAGARA'S  2009 ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL

Do You Want To Watch
Movies That Are Chosen With Care
or
 Movies That Are Chosen By Fast Food Experts?

Coming soon:

Watch this small screen for notices about what happens when they bring the world to us here in Niagara!

Here's a sea story that will make your corn flakes soggy!

Somewhere in the tremendous rush of water ...

...I took my left hand off the tiller and the next thing I remember is hanging in the water on the port side reaching up and over the transom grasping the tiller with my right hand. I was trying to decide if I should hang on tightly and risk breaking the tiller or let go before it broke.
Then the boat tilted to windward and I lot my grip and went underwater.      ...more>>

by Adriana Maxwell

All right.  I’ve had just a little too much Chardonnay at my friend’s guest house, but what’s a girl to do?  In sleepy Niagara-on-the-Lake at two a.m., leaving the car where it is and walking seven blocks is the right thing to do.  It’s a safe and quiet town and somehow it is all a neighbourhood feeling  ...more >>

Happy Christmas Caroling

Paul Tobey and The St. Catharines Standard partner in the 2007 Christmas Traditions CD fundraising program for Big Brothers Big Sisters Agencies of Niagara.

Walther Gretzky hugs a seeing-eye dog-in-training at the Niagara Wine Festival on Sunday in St. Catharines.  Walter was in town to attend the first of four Flying Fathers Hockey Games on Sunday night in Niagara Falls. 

In the past few years The Walter and Wayne Gretzky Youth Scholarship Foundation has given out more than 340 scholarships to blind and visually impaired students.

The Flying Fathers are a group of Catholic Priests, who since 1963 have been playing madcap hockey games to support community charities in Canada.  The Flying Fathers will play Monday Night in Brantford, Tuesday in Woodstock and Thursday in Gravenhurst.

Besides being a past mayor, J.E. Masters wrote a weekly column in the Niagara Advance between 1949 and 1955.  As the years go by his memories become recorded local history.

Some of us remember the jams of 1909 and 1937. I think the latter was the last, as I do not seem to remember any since. These jams were caused by ice from Lake Erie coming down in such quantities over the Falls that the slower current of the Lower River could not pass it out into the Lake fast enough to clear.    ..more >>

View of the Ice Jam of 1909, taken from the current location of King's Point. The ice threatens the lighthouses and warehouse that was to become the Niagara-on-the-Lakes sailing club.

Here is a true but unattributed reminiscence of a pilgrimage to Vimy Ridge.  I wonder how many of these lads shipped out of our town.

I first visited Vimy Ridge in November 1984 when I accompanied the Minister of Veterans Affairs on an annual commemoration of the capture of Vimy Ridge.  It is often said it was at Vimy Ridge on 9 April, l917 that Canada became a nation. ...more >>

Exploring the Lighter Side in Niagara News
by Hammond Wry

Old Town
Niagara-on-the-Lake 
May Be a Part of America

A recently found lost document from the Treaty of Ghent raises questions. Is Niagara part of America? ...more>>

WWF Wrestling is coming to Niagara!

News that Vince McMann was planning to bring the new headquarters and prime arena of the World Wrestling Federation has yet to reach Niagara wags but this reporter has gleaned a few of the plans.  ...more>>

WHIRLPOOL JET BOAT ENVIRONMENTAL LOAD ON THE NIAGARA RIVER

COMPARED TO ALL OTHER BOATS ON THE NIAGARA RIVER

One of the hotly contested public debates has been the Whirlpool Jet boat lease and the process around the request for extension for the next 14 years. 

Citizens against the Jet boat lease have cited safety concerns, arrogance, quality of life issues, erosion and needless pollution as reasons why the Jet boat lease should not be extended.  Much of this is subjective, but here is a quick little calculator (that only works in Internet Explorer) you can use to estimate the amount of load that the Whirlpool Jet boats add to the environmental degradation of the Niagara River through constant. 

Now everyone will have a different opinion on what the numbers should be, but that's what spreadsheets are for.  I've played with the numbers and found estimates that the Jet boats add   between 1,000% and 4,000% to the environmental load of the river compared to ALL of the other pleasure boats combined! 

Try it yourself! (using Internet Explorer)

Now that one has figured out the additional load on the Niagara River ecology, what does one do about it?   

A sneak excerpt from a soon to be published book by local author Adriana Maxwell

Cassandra, Age 7, 1800,

 “Do you want to take the tiller?”

Did I?  It was a scary proposition. My father’s dinghy, the Swallow, was big and heavy. My seven year old body had a world that didn’t extend much past what I could reach, or where I could run and somehow I knew that when I took the tiller it was the giant leap for me. 

Boats were what the trappers and the traders used to arrive from all sorts of places and then carry smaller boats past the fort and up over the falls and into the wilderness, and they carried some of them back with tall tales of giant bears, fierce Indians, and cold winters.  When they arrived from over the falls, they often needed a doctor and my dad would hear fantastic tales of the wild west and one needed a boat to be in those stories.  ...more>>