Grand River Falls in Spate

© August '11  photo by smck

In an earlier posting (Warning Falls Ahead) I mentioned the falls ahead and this photo gives some indication of the thunderous flume that I was worried about.  A few years ago a close friend of mine and I visited here when it was not quite as furious but still in impressive flow.  He was a master kayaker often leading large groups through some serious water.  When I asked him then whether he thought he could kayak down this stretch of water, without hesitation he replied in the affirmative with the only caveat being that he would walk down the ledge between the 'Salmon Ladder' on the left and the flume on the right to check the basic outlook of what he would expect on the downward paddle.  I had seen photographs of Dick plunging over perpendicular water-falls  of about the same drop as this flume so I had no reason to doubt his assessment. For my self I knew that even if I didn't die going over this drop in a kayak I would certainly at the very least be hurt rather seriously.  I'm glad I posted the blaze orange rain pants.

The salmon ladder on the left was built a good while ago.  I never could get an exact time from my friends in Grand River so I assume it was perhaps of their parents time in the Great Depression when many countries came up with relief work to keep families in enough money to survive.  It is a great piece of work standing up well to the severe weather of this northern clime.  In the 70's I would come here and watch various  anadromous fish leaping over and over against the mighty rush of the falls and being driven inexorably back into the relatively quiet pool at the foot of the falls.   But they would eventually find the entrance to the salmon ladder and gradually work their way up to the top of the falls.  Often the salmon would be resting in the small quiet stepping pools of the ladder as they gathered strength to move on thru the rapidly flowing openings to each small pool.  At that time fishing was banned along the ladder and the falls and for some fifty feet above and below the whole place.  And liberal though I am I still have serious reservation about the native Indian now flaunting with seeming impunity the conservation laws of the land by basically destroying the breeding stock of salmon within the salmon ladder itself.  

I received a comment on this posting that gave me a website with some information about the falls and the fish-ladder saying that it was built in the 1880s:

http://nswaterfalls.blogspot.com/2012/08/grand-river-falls-grand-river-falls.html 

this is an interesting blog with the theme of ' the waterfalls of Nova Scotia' and is well worth visiting.