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Nik Wallenda – Niagara Falls – The Prairie
– and Government Baloney
Because I am from the Prairie
where everything is flat I am always amazed with height. Being up high is a super charged moment in my
life and I am super charged even by climbing a ladder!
Another unique thing about
being from the Prairie is there are few rivers – especially where we came from.
Most were called creeks or cricks. Most
were small flowing streams that would swell to a fast flowing creek after a
rain fall… and then in hot weather they would dry up all together.
On the Prairie there are no
Water Falls, at least where I came from in Southern Saskatchewan. The most water would fall was when it was
dammed up and then it would overflow the limits placed on it at the spillway… a
structure created to let water flow out of the dam at a controlled point. The
spillway could be keep the dam and its valuable water at a constant level all
year.
We had to travel to Alberta to
see Water Falls. But these Water Falls were all coming from the top of a high
mountain and flowing down jagged rock surfaces.
As a boy I heard stories of the
Great Charles Blondin that had crossed over the Niagara Falls on a tightrope…
and it didn’t make any sense at all. Why
would anyone do such a thing? The water
falls that I saw in Alberta and British Columbia were spectacular in their own
right – why would anyone try to walk over them.
That was all happening before
I witnessed Niagara Falls in Ontario.
And that happened when I was 22 years old for the first time. That was a
Wow Factor Moment for a Prairie boy to see.
We visited Niagara Falls a few
months ago. At that time plans were already in the works for Nik Wallenda to
walk across a tightrope over the falls in June.
Well the date for that
tightrope walk is only 8 days from now on June 15.
But all the plans and the great
feat that is about to happen is at another stand still. A snag in their sophisticated planning
process has come down to one small problem… there is no tightrope across the great
chasm of Niagara Falls yet.
The plan was to fly a rope
across the Gorge below the falls from the Canadian side to the American side…
from Table Rock(Canada) to Goat Island(American). When that is completed a cable is attached to
that rope which is then pulled back to the Canadian side and attached to the support
at the Table Rock area.
There is at least one small
problem in 2012. The helicopter company that
was to do this work has not yet been able to get government approval to do the
task. The level of Government approval that must be achieved is staggering… and
the company that they were planning on to do this part of the job has not been
able to get approval from the various levels.
Oh yes there are other ways to
get the task done by using the Maid of the Mist to string it across and
climbers to fetch the line up the Cliffside above the raging gorge below – if the
Maid of the Mist can do that….
They have considered a cannon
that can blast the cable across the river gorge. This is a small problem in
that the last time the cannon shot the projectile it buried the thing in a tree
and they couldn’t get the thing loose from the wood it was buried in… ahem.
Only seven days left and no
cable in place is a small problem to overcome.
Now ABC Television is planning
also their own cable to string a camera from and have it follow Nik Wallenga
across the Gorge.
At most big football games the
field camera they now have hovers high above the heads of the Football players
and is able to zoom in on the action.
ABC is planning the same thing…
and they have to fly a cable across the Gorge as well. I don’t think it is done
yet either. Hmmm? (But has anyone thought of the mist rising from the Falls
below and keeping the camera lens clear of water droplets and fog? Small problem…
who goes out to clear the camera as it stalls in the water mist???)
The greatest feat accomplished
in Charles Blondin’s days of walking across the Niagara Gorge in 1859 was the
poor equipment that might fail. Like
ropes breaking etc…
Nik Wallenga’s greatest feat
will be to conquer the huge levels of baloney of the Government.
When Blondin crossed he accomplished it first on 30 June 1859. Then he
did it a number of times, always with different theatric variations:
blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying a man (his
manager, Harry Colcord) on his back, sitting down midway while he cooked and
ate an omelet and standing on a chair with only one chair leg on the rope.
The greatest feat that
Wallenga faces in 2012 is 8 days to convince both Canadian and American
government authorities at a gazillion levels of baloney to allow it.
Now a hastily erected cable
over a huge distance and a troubled river below… may not be a great thing to
walk across in 2012.
I am from the Prairie and the
way that we think is different than the way people in other parts of the
country think.
We know that Government of all
sorts is usually from the city and they know little about nothing country. We
all highly doubt that they know much about things like water and falls and
fields and streams and spillways – they are just dumb.
We on the Prairie just know
that if you are to get something done you don’t ask the Government about
anything. They will send out a specialist that knows about the city – only.
And we on the Prairie think
doing dumb things for a thrill should be confined to a corral with a you
sitting on a Mad Bull and trying to stay on his back for a mere 8 seconds… and
if you get bucked off you try to outrun
the mad bull before he kills you.
Now that is exciting.
Watching a dude walk across a
tightrope after weeks of fighting Government baloney… he will likely jump from
the rope to escape it all!!!
The next 7 days will be
interesting to say the least.
~ Murray Lincoln ~
Resources:
Nik Wallenga’s Planned Tightrope Walk has
Glitches
Charles Blondin
All the Tightrope Walkers
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