1999 VHS • Niagara Falls: Raging Rapids 60 FPS

About

Niagara Falls: Raging Rapids is a science documentary examining the geological history, hydrology, and human relationship with Niagara Falls, presented through aerial, ground-level, and underwater footage. The program opens by framing Niagara as a natural force in constant self-destruction, then traces the hydrology of the Great Lakes basin, which contains a fifth of the world's freshwater and funnels it through a quarter-million-square-mile watershed into the Niagara River and over the falls at a rate of 400,000 gallons per second. The falls are identified as two distinct structures: the American Falls and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, drawing an estimated 11 million visitors annually.

The geological narrative follows the history of scientific understanding of the falls, beginning with the first European account by Father Louis Hennepin in 1683, through Charles Lyell's 19th-century revolution in geological thinking about the falls' age and rate of recession, through modern carbon dating and sonar surveying techniques used to map the gorge bed. Scientists explain how the falls have migrated seven miles upstream over 14,000 years from their origin at Queenston and how the Horseshoe Falls once stretched 1,200 feet across in a single wall before splitting into its current shape. A team of waterfall chasers is followed as they survey an uncharted falls in the Niagara region using laser rangefinders and GPS. The program also covers the Niagara Gorge, the history of daredevils and suicides at the falls, river rescue operations, the jet boat that must idle at 20 miles per hour to hold position in the current, and the dramatic story of the falls being deliberately dewatered in 1969 for engineering assessment before being restored. The tape runs approximately 55 minutes.

Human-made No record of this work says a model made it. What this means.

Archive

Internet Archive, in The VHS Vault

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

The Vista Group®

Language

English

Subtitles

English (automatic)

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed