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The Niagara Escarpment.
Hundreds of miles of breathtaking landscape.
An ancient wall of rock standing strong
against the powerful forces of time.
It brands the Great Lakes Region
from Lake Ontario to Lake Michigan.
A captivating part of the world that tells magical stories
of age-old tropical coral reefs,
colossal glaciers
and haunting First Nation's lore.
Epic, enchanting and everlasting.
The Niagara Escarpment is a true geological masterpiece.
(♪♪♪)
The Niagara Escarpment.
An ancient meandering cliff.
450 miles long.
At its highest point, almost 1,700 feet.
The escarpment weaves its way through the Great Lakes Region
in the heart of central North America.
Stretching from Upstate New York,
on the south shore of Lake Ontario,
northwest through the Canadian province of Ontario.
It fringes Lake Huron and Lake Michigan
and trails off just past Green Bay, Wisconsin.
In its present state,
the Niagara Escarpment is one of the geological gems
of North America.
But there is no question
that the crown jewel of the escarpment itself
is Niagara Falls.
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A true phenomenon of the natural world.
It straddles the border between Canada and The United States
and is part of the Niagara River-
a 36-mile waterway that connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.
The water from four of the five Great Lakes
passes through here,
on its way to Lake Ontario and beyond.
From north to south,
the river features an elevation drop of 330 feet.
More than half the drop in elevation happens right here.
The crest line of these falls covers only 600 yards
of the Niagara Escarpment's 450 miles.
Yet, the impact is so dramatic,
it has become one of the most popular tourist destinations
in North America.
It is the only section of the escarpment
that most will ever see.
It's ancient geological history and composition
is no different than any other part of the escarpment.
Except for one thing, water.
More than 45 million gallons of water-
that's the total combined volume that goes over the crest lines
of the American and Canadian falls every minute.
More than the volume of an Olympic-sized
swimming pool every second.
Most comes over this crest on the Canadian side.
Horse Shoe Falls, named for its shape.
It is 170 feet high,
with a crest line more than 2,000 feet wide.
Niagara Falls was born about 12,000 years ago
when water released from melting glaciers
poured into what is now the Niagara River.
Today,
water from the river hurls over the edge of the escarpment
at a speed of 32 feet per second.
The level of erosion that has occurred here
is far greater than at any other point
on the escarpment.
12,000 years ago,
Niagara Falls was 7 miles downriver from where it is now.
Around the turn of the century,
the rate of the falls erosion was about 4 feet each year.
Today, it's been artificially reduced
to less than 1 foot per year on the Canadian falls.
The reason for this manmade intervention is that
this part of the escarpment is more than just a pretty picture.
In addition to precious tourist dollars,
Niagara Falls generates valuable hydroelectric power,
a resource worth preserving.
There is a small portion of the Horse Shoe Falls
on the American side,
along with two more distinct sections of the falls.
At 56 feet wide,
the Bridal Veil Falls is the smallest section,
named for its unmistakable resemblance to a bridal veil.
On the other side of this precarious piece of land,
is the American Falls.
A much larger section of the falls
that connects to Prospect Point in New York State.
It is 180 feet high.
It's crest line is 1,075 feet wide.
Perhaps the most memorable human intervention
in the history of Niagara Falls happened here.
In 1931 and 1954,
sections of rock fell to the bottom of the American falls.
Fears grew that this section of the falls would soon erode,
crumbling into a series of unsightly rapids
and in the process,
dealing a huge blow to the local economy.
In 1969, a team from the US Army was called upon
to actually stop the American Falls completely
and they did it.
The army built a 600-foot dam
from almost 30,000 tonnes of rock
to divert the flow of water.
The result was a truly bizarre sight.
The dolomite capped portion of the Niagara Escarpment
was naked for all to see.
With the giant tap shut off,
army personnel cleared some of the fallen rock
from the base of the falls, to improve its appearance.
Engineers mechanically bolted some faults on the escarpment
to prevent further erosion.
After they had collected as much research and data as they could,
the dam was removed in November of the same year.
Today, 75,000 gallons per second flow over the crest.
It's a staggering amount.
Yet, it represents just 10% of the total amount of water
flowing over the entire falls.
In all its glory, Niagara Falls is spectacular
and the escarpment on which it is found,
is one of the most beautiful geological marvels
on the continent and the planet.
It's ancient origins begin underwater.
>> To understand the Niagara Escarpment,
we have to understand a very long time scale,
a geological time scale.
>> For millions of years, the crust under the Michigan basin
was relatively stable.
Gently warping to form a giant basin,
about 480 miles across.
>> During the Silurian Period, which was 450 million years ago,
that large basin was a large inland sea.
So, right now through here, 450 million years ago,
we'd have to be anchored in a boat
to have this conversation.
>> The Silurian Period occurred 200 million years
before dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Animals with backbones were only just appearing
in the oceans.
This vast, calm inland sea is referred to by geologists
as the Michigan Basin.
It represents a rare geologically peaceful time
for this part of the planet.
>> The geologic history of Canada,
you see violent episodes when you build mountains
and then there're quite episodes when seas cover much of Canada.
So, the thing about modern reefs and the Caribbean,
beautiful, nice clear, aquamarine waters
and that covered huge areas of Canada at one time.
And that's because there was no mountain building going on,
it was quiet tectonically.
The Niagara Escarpment and the whole parts of Ontario
records perhaps the quietest period in the history of Canada.
About 400 million years ago,
there were these giant inland seas
that virtually covered the whole country.
And there's no modern analog,
there's no modern parallel anywhere in the world today.
>> During the Silurian Period,
the tectonic plate of continental North America
was at lower latitudes than it is today.
Geological forces caused the Michigan basin to sink down
in the middle and rise along the edges.
Sea levels rose, the climate warmed.
The vast shallow seas basked in sunlight.
And transformed this body of water into a giant incubator
that sparked an explosive period in the evolution of marine life.
Amazing things began to happen.
Coral reefs formed.
The first ever fish with cartilage skeletons appeared.
Plants began to grow on land.
Then, air breathing creatures such a millipedes, centipedes
and primitive arachnids,
helped create the earliest terrestrial food web.
This primordial ecosystem thrived for millions of years.
Immeasurable numbers of marine creatures
lived and died here,
while rivers fed the inland sea,
bringing sand, silt and clay into the water.
Coral and shells built up,
along with a growing deposit of calcium.
These layers began to harden.
Time passed.
Sand became sandstone.
Clay became shale.
Calcium carbonate became limestone.
Magnesium in the water infiltrated
layers of calcium carbonate mud, creating dolomite-
a rock similar to limestone but much harder.
Layer upon layer,
these dramatically different rock types built up.
Water levels in this ancient sea,
changed frequently,
as did the location of the ancient coastline.
The sea slowly dried up.
Then about 200 million years ago,
everything changed.
These layers, built up over millions of years,
formed the building blocks for the escarpment.
>> It's important to understand that in the sea,
the layers are being laid down one on top of each other
over millions of years.
>> Once many layers of sediment were laid down
in the shallow inland Silurian Sea,
the warping of the basin
elevated the sediments above water
to expose the edge of the basin as an escarpment.
>> And so, you've got an edge that's now exposed
and those top layers,
which were composed of a member of lifelike reefs
and all those living organisms,
formed in conditions that had a lot of magnesium.
So, it's not just calcium carbonate,
which is limestone.
It's calcium carbonate with a secret ingredient, magnesium.
So, it's calcium-magnesium carbonate,
which is much harder.
So, those top plates in that basin are hard rock,
really hard rock compared to the softer ones below.
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>> With the inland sea gone,
further geological shifting occurred in the region.
The edge of the Michigan Basin began to lift,
marking the first physical statement
of the Niagara Escarpment as we know it today.
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Over millions of years,
natural erosion wore down the landscape,
obliterating softer layers of sandstone and shale.
But dolomite is significantly harder,
so hard that not even the weathering power of time
can penetrate it.
For 200 million years,
dolomite shielded the softer rock
from earth-shaking events.
But there was one force in nature
it could not withstand, ice.
Unimaginably vast ice sheets,
crept down to the Michigan Basin.
>> In many ways, it's the events of the last 2 million years,
in other words, quite recent to geologists,
which have been the most profound.
Because it seemed the repeated development of ice sheets,
which, you know,
we're not talking about something in a hockey arena,
we're talking about ice sheets that are 3 or 4 kilometers thick
and they're moving and they're dragging debris at their base.
So, they're very, very effective agents of erosion
and all the main lakes in Canada
that lie around the edge of the shield,
including the Great Lakes, have all been dug out,
basically, by ice sheets.
So, the last 5 minutes, if you like,
of the geologic history have been the most profound
in terms of how they've affected the landscape in Canada.
>> For 2-1/2 million years, these monstrous sheets of ice
gave the region an epic pounding.
>> For about a million years to 10,000 years ago,
was our last glacial period
and we had four successive glaciers
across this landscapes,
the last one leaving about 10,000 years ago.
So, here again, this landscape which we have the escarpment
but then, you've got 3-1/2 kilometers thick of ice.
And so, there's a lot of weight and a lot of plowing,
a lot of, you know, pushing with the force
behind that weight of the ice.
And also, at the base of the ice,
you have boulders and some rocks the sizes of houses.
The grid of that base is very aggressive.
So, you've got this monumental scouring pad
that's scrapping across the landscape as well.
And it's shaped--
in some area you can see the corrugated nature of it,
where it's just, kind of, plowed and found weaknesses
that's able to dig out, in other areas where it's--
Like someone was playing with it and scraping it all around
and shaping it.
So, it's clearly being manipulative by the glaciers.
Over the next few thousand years,
glaciers that conquered the land began their retreat.
The giants were melting,
water frozen in time for thousands of years
pooled at the feet of the glaciers.
One by one, ice dams burst under the weight of the rising water.
Temperatures increased,
unleashing violent floods onto the surrounding land.
And finally the Great Lakes region was freed
from its frozen oppressor.
With the weight of its icy burden lifted,
the Niagara Escarpment continued to rise.
>> That's a tremendous amount of weight on top of the landscape
and when the glaciers retreated, taking that weight off,
it's like pulling your finger out of a wet sponge,
it slowly springs back.
And that rebound, it's known as "Isostatic Rebound"
that has occurred on the landscape here,
it's even happening now.
We're actually rebounding at about 30 cm a century.
And we probably have about another 40 meters to go
in South West Ontario to fully recover from the glaciers.
>> The epic geological history of this place
is now interwoven with its ecosystem.
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In most areas of the escarpment, water bleeds through the rock,
quenching ancient cedar trees, some nearly 2,000 years old
that cling precariously to the bluffs.
Both humans and wolves use these cliffs
as a look out for massive herds of caribou,
which ranged much farther south during colder times.
There are signs that humans inhabited these rocks
more than 13,000 years ago.
The escarpment is dotted with ancient settlements,
villages and campsites.
Many of these histories are long forgotten.
But here on the Bruce Peninsula,
the lore of some First Nations peoples has endured.
>> This is part of the traditional homeland
of the Saugeen First Nations.
This is an alliance of two First Nations,
the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation
and the Saugeen First Nation.
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This is part of their traditional homeland.
And this area then, became part of the province of Canada
in 1854.
And that's when the name was changed
from Saugeen Neyaashiinigmiing or Saugeen Peninsula--
Indian Peninsula to Bruce Peninsula.
And that was done to honor James Bruce,
who was Canada's Governor General at that time.
>> Tribes of First Nations' peoples have lived along the escarpment
for thousands of years.
For them, some of the amazing rock formations
are sacred sites.
Some indigenous people have strong spiritual beliefs,
intrinsically connected to the landscape.
This interweaving of spirituality and geology
has been coined "Geomythology".
It is the study of oral traditions
created by pre-scientific cultures
to explain geological phenomenon.
>> My focus has always been the stories
and being able to work here in Bruce Peninsula National Park,
I then have the opportunity to take our people--
my people's traditional stories and connect these stories
to the current geological research.
>> One of the most striking stories is the legend of Standing Rock.
For the Huron First Nation, the afterlife was referred to as
"The Path to the Village of Souls".
This pathway was marked by a rock called "The Watcher".
Here, the deceased waited for their turn
to walk through a door and into the underworld-
the Village of Souls.
According to legend,
to gain entry into the village of souls,
the dead were required to enter a cabin
where a man named "Pierce-head" waited .
As the dead souls entered,
Pierce-head cracked their skulls open,
pulled out their brains and kept them for himself.
A macabre tale.
But it was believed that as a rite of passage
to the afterlife,
the brains of the dead needed to be removed
as an act of mercy,
so they could not bring their memories to the afterlife
or yearn for their past lives.
This rock and these caves
are physical representations of this mythology.
To this day, the standing rock is a haunting site.
It appears to change its appearance
depending on lighting and vantage point.
Because of this,
it is thought that the First Nations' people here
saw it as both The Watcher and the Head Piercer.
The cracks and fissures leading down to the rock
might've been thought of as the meeting place
of the upper, middle and the lower worlds.
The varying rates of erosion
of the dramatically different rock types here
are one natural contributor to these unique formations.
But there is another cause, winter.
>> What ends up happening is water is continuously,
kind of, seeping through the rock from high up on the cliffs.
This limestone is full of fissures and tunnels
and different cracks and crevices
where water is continuously seeping into the cracks.
As the water freezes in the fall and onwards to the winter time
that that the ice expands
and over time that thawing and freezing of that water
in those cracks and those fissures
has the effect of breaking apart and crumbling apart
the cliff face.
And over time, of course, the rock breaks free
and crashes down on the shoreline below.
Now, the result of this
is that you get everything from smaller plate-size rocks
that are a little bit challenging to walk on
but sometimes,
you get these really incredible sized boulders.
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>> Imposing as it may seem,
the escarpment is actually being pushed back,
eroded bit by bit,
by waves and weather from the outside
and freeze and thaw from the inside.
While it is hard to imagine that it will one day be gone,
the effects of time are precisely
what make it so compelling.
Four miles off the coast of the Bruce Peninsula,
sits one of the Niagara Escarpment's
most remarkable sites.
This is Flower Pot Island.
These columns of rock were once part of the cliff face.
Over millions of years,
softer rock of the escarpment crumbled away,
eroded by wind and rain,
ice and pounding waves.
Only the harder rock remained in the shape of flower pots.
This extraordinary landmark of the escarpment
is located in Fathom Five National Marine Park.
It is accessible only by boat
and it is a haven for hikers and explorers.
The flower pots are each about 60 feet high.
There was a third flower pot, until it collapsed in 1903.
Someday, time will claim the remaining two.
But until then, their hard dolomite caps will endure.
(♪♪♪)
The powers of the elements here are merciless.
They carve and shape all parts of the Niagara Escarpment,
leaving incredible rock formations in their wake.
Just south of Flower Pot Island, is Indian Head Cove.
Overlooking the cove is overhanging point.
>> The top layer, the cap rock is dolomite,
which is much more resistant to erosion
versus the softer material which is underneath.
And you can see it's like plate.
So, the hard rock is just hanging out there
as it's slowly being undercut.
>> As you're walking up above on the cliff,
there's an opportunity where there's a bit of a rock
that comes right out
and it gives you the opportunity to, kind of,
stand out on that point
and get almost 180° sweep of the water
and the area around you.
It's really quite impressive.
Some of these incredible landscapes
have incredible effect on people.
When you stand out on the cliff edge
and you're looking over these vistas,
you can't help but feel tiny, you can't help but feel small.
And at the same time, it really fills you up with,
you know, with all the good stuff.
You feel better, you feel healthier,
you feel, like, you can, you know, go back
and you're full of energy and it's--
it's a really nice place to be and to visit.
>> Just underneath the overhang,
is a view that is equally compelling
but very different
because it allows you to look back in time.
>> Millions of years ago, that high cliff face now,
was actually, right at sea level
and the waves of the water at that time
were working away at that rock face
and really chiseling it out and carving it out.
What a lot of visitors will do is they'll actually hike down
underneath the cliff top
and what they find is a pretty remarkable geological formation
where the rock has been carved or cut out, over time,
from all the different forces of erosion and wave action.
>> The opportunity to stand inside a natural structure
created millions of years ago
is one taken by more visitors each year.
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>> Here you have within 3 to 4-hour drive
large urban centers.
And within 20 minutes from the parking lot,
you can find yourself completely alone
in this amazing, spectacular area
with these sweeping vistas of these cliffs
and this Georgian Bay water and this pristine landscape.
And it's pretty incredible to have that accessibility
in such a short distance from major urban centers.
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If we were to go back 10 years,
we'd be looking at our visitation in the park here,
which would be around 150,000 visitors a year.
What we've seen in the last 8 years
is a meteoric rise in visitation,
to the point where now in Bruce Peninsula National Park,
we're getting about 300,000 visitors a year.
When you combined that with Fathom Five,
the number is roughly up around half a million.
For visitors to Bruce Peninsula National Park
to get the full experience,
they need to go beyond dry land and be prepared to get wet.
This is the Grotto.
>> This carbon here is very striking.
There aren't too many areas south of the Bruce Peninsula
where you see these sea caves, the sinkholes,
some of the different features.
So, the landscape here is really quite dramatic.
>> The Grotto is an example of a feature
that was formed by wave action.
Waves beating against the shoreline
was able to erode out and create the grotto.
You can see areas, that popcorny lookin' rock-
that's evidence of an old reef.
So, that's rock that's 400 million years ago
during the Silurian period, there was reefs there.
>> For geologists,
the Grotto is yet another marvelous puzzle piece,
used to uncover the vast geological history here.
For the ancient humans who lived off this land
for thousands of years,
it provided shelter along the coast.
Today, for hikers and divers alike,
it's an experience of a lifetime.
>> The Grotto it's cool.
It's a sea cave.
The shoreline has lots of sea caves.
But the Grotto is different
because it also has the obvious entrance
that people scramble down to and that's an experience.
You feel rewarded when you get down
and, actually, more rewarded when you get back out.
There's also an underwater entrance
where light can come through
and it creates a bit of a hue in there
and it's because of the light from the outside.
So, diver's know there's that entrance
and they come through there.
So, you have these two entrances
and it's just in a remarkable location.
It's just a nice place to visit.
>> For new visitors,
one of the most surprising aspects of this place
is the water.
In this part of the world, this far north,
crystal clear turquoise water is not a common sight.
>> When you look at the water, it's remarkable.
You feel this could be Mediterranean and Caribbean,
it's just crystal clear or gin-clear water.
You can see down 20 meters, 30 meters,
40 meters actually to the bottom.
And in simple terms, water, H2O, is a blue chemical.
So, pure water is clear, blueish chemical.
So, what you're looking at is water
almost in its purest form.
So, there is very little other stuff in it.
So, there's very other little, let's say, silt,
which is gonna change the color of it
and change how far light can penetrate.
Or life, like, algae, like phytoplankton.
So, the more stuff that's in the water,
it's gonna effect it's colors,
it's gonna effect how far light can penetrate.
>> Under normal circumstances,
freshwater in this region wouldn't look this way.
But there is a unique combination of factors
at play here.
This water has been filtered.
>> Zebra and quagga mussels, which are an invasive species
that have colonized the Great Lakes,
have drawn so much nutrients and energy to the lake bottom,
to themselves that the lake is less productive.
So, in the spring time,
this area would have had a large algal boom, diatom bloom
that would've affected the water clarity.
You wouldn't be able to see as much.
But we're not getting those large algal blooms,
so our water clarity in spring time
is even more clear than it historically was.
And that's a shift.
It's a shift in the whole food web
and the whole dynamics of the lake.
>> Not surprisingly,
these waters offer some of the best snorkeling
and scuba diving in North America.
The water offers incredible visibility.
The submerged rock formations in the lake
are just as beautiful as those on dry land.
And there are shipwrecks.
There are hundreds of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.
Some as shallow as 10 to 20 feet below the surface.
The number of shipwrecks here might surprise some
but the Great Lakes waterway is a busy shipping route
that runs all the way to the Atlantic Ocean
and is subject to powerful storms.
The shipwrecks along this part of the escarpment
are among the best in the world for underwater explorers.
>> Our visitors, even if they don't have any experience snorkeling
or scuba diving,
can relatively easily get out to these shipwrecks
and go for a swim
and experience them and see them.
But again, that clear water,
you know, makes for an incredible diving experience.
>> These shipwrecks are protected by Canada's National Parks
and by the gentle fresh water in which they rest.
Salt water is not so forgiving.
Sea worms in the ocean bore into
and eventually destroy shipwrecks.
But not here.
The rarity of this level of preservation
is a big draw for divers.
Ships frozen in time
help make this one of the top freshwater diving locations
in the world.
For the advanced diver,
a deeper look can bring you much farther back in time.
Between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago,
before the glaciers fully melted;
dry land, rivers and massive waterfalls
connected the Bruce Peninsula with Manitoulin Island
some 50 miles north.
>> If we were to take away the water,
it looks like what a river
or a fall system would look like today.
It's quite-- still quite evident on the lake bottom.
And that continues on down 90 meters deep.
And that's just to the surface of the sediment.
Keep in mind, the bedrock is actually probably
another 100 meters below that.
>> Melted glacial water from Lake Huron
drained into Georgian Bay
down a giant, prehistoric waterfall.
It's roar was so loud,
it's estimated that it could be heard almost 10 miles away.
But the glaciers continue to melt,
water levels at the base of the falls rose.
The Great Lakes as we know them, came to be.
And this ancient waterfall
large enough to rival even Niagara Falls
became completely submerged.
For visitors to the Niagara Escarpment
who prefer staying above the waterline,
there are still waterfalls that have not been claimed
by the great glacial melt.
This is Inglis Falls, a stunning waterfall.
A gentle cascade.
A 60 foot brush stroke.
Left behind by time and erosion.
This is where the Sydenham River meets the Niagara Escarpment
along the Bruce Trail near Owen Sound, Ontario.
Here, water seeps through the dolomite cap rock
and slowly erodes the softer rock underneath.
Through the ages,
hunks of dolomite lose their support and tumble down.
Bit by bit.
It's a process called "Spring Sapping"
and Inglis Falls is the stunning result.
The falls are part of the region recognized
by the United Nations Education,
Scientific and Cultural Organization,
as a World Biosphere Reserve.
>> UNESCO's World Biosphere Reserve
concept or idea is about 40 years old now.
And it tries to promote and recognize
the ideas of conservation.
(♪♪♪)
There's lots of change happening on the landscape
and I can't help but think of the foresight
of those individuals
who envisioned the importance of this corridor.
I'm not sure if it weren't for those protective measures,
whether we'd be standing here
or somebody would be telling us to get off their property.
But the fact is
anyone can come and experience this firsthand,
can develop their own connection to this place
and see the importance of it firsthand.
People have a connection to this area
because it's authentic.
It's a real place.
We haven't manufactured a theme park.
This is a real place, where you can get cold and wet
and stub your toe on rocks and you can swim
and climb up cliffs, you can see trees,
you can hear birds, it's real.
>> The peninsula has always drawn people here.
And for the native people, this is where they hunted,
this is where they harvested for food and for medicine.
They fished out in these waters.
And they actually still do that to this very day.
I think for all people,
it's the sheer beauty of this place,
helps them or draws them, brings them
and keeps them connected to the peninsula,
so that they keep coming back again and again and again.
Taking a group of school children
out to Indian Head Cove and the Grotto
and coming out to the shoreline and hearing them say, "Wow".
That's-- yeah, that's what makes me...
...feel good.
And I'd-- for me, it's always a blessed day
when I can take a group of school children out
and show them this place.
>> It's a moving experience.
It moves you.
You feel something.
I was speaking with a colleague
who took some visitors out in the escarpments
and one of the women on their tour,
who was from overseas broke down and started crying.
And he couldn't understand what was wrong
and he went to her and he said, you know, "Is everything okay?
What can I do?"
And she was so overwhelmed with the vastness of this space,
the water and these-- the vastness and the size
and the scope of the escarpment that it moved her to tears.
That's something.
I mean, that's-- it's special.
(♪♪♪)
>> Here on the Niagara Escarpment, the stillness can be beautiful,
spiritual...
...and chilling, all at once.
(♪♪♪)
Born at sea,
scored by ice,
ground down by time.
It is forever a work in progress,
an unresolved geological masterpiece.
(♪♪♪)