Wallenda to meet with Niagara Parks Commission officials on Thursday
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Nik Wallenda, the American aerialist who wants to walk across the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, will meet with officials from the Niagara Parks Commission this week.
NPC chairwoman Janice Thomson told The Review on Monday that a meeting has been scheduled for Thursday between Wallenda and NPC senior staff.
The meeting will not be open to the public.
“It is an internal staff meeting,” Thomson said. “I will be there and our general manager and her senior managers who will discuss this project with him (Wallenda).”
Thomson expects the meeting will last at least two hours.
The Canadian Press also had a similar article called Daredevil to pitch Niagara Falls tightrope walk again
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Canadian officials pressed on Maid of the Mist issue
From the Buffalo News:
New York’s senators urged Canadian officials Thursday to protect the jobs, docking areas and brand name of the Maid of the Mist Co., regardless of whether another tour company is awarded launching rights around Niagara Falls.
In a letter to Canada’s Niagara Parks Commission chairwoman, Janice Thomson, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said that the 150 jobs created by the American Maid of the Mist operation should be preserved and that the Maid of the Mist brand name be maintained.
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Wallenda getting second chance to woo Niagara Parks Commission
From the Niagara Falls Review:
There are people on both sides of the Nik Wallenda fence, but everyone now seems to agree that it’s an international walk or no walk at all.
Wallenda, the American aerialist who has proposed walking across the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, is now waiting for a second meeting with the Niagara Parks Commission in hopes of getting the commission to reverse its earlier decision not to allow the walk.
After meeting with Ontario Tourism Minister Michael Chan Friday, Wallenda said he was encouraged to hear the minister’s interest in the proposal, which would see Wallenda walk across the Horseshoe falls this spring or summer.
Wallenda was denied permission by the NPC last month, and was hoping Chan would overrule that decision. While the minister didn’t reverse the NPC’s call, he did suggest a second meeting between the aerialist and the commission.
Chairwoman Janice Thomson said Monday she would sit down with Wallenda for a longer meeting than the formal 10-minute forum he was given on Nov. 16.
Related posts:
- Wallenda taking his case to tourism minister From the Niagara Falls Review: The Niagara Parks Commission slammed...
- Wallenda won’t give up on falls tightrope dream From the Niagara Falls Review: Both Nik Wallenda and the...
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Maid of the Mist future in jeopardy
From the Buffalo News:
Though Maid of the Mist boats have been shuffling tourists to the base of Niagara Falls for 126 consecutive years, their future on the American and Canadian sides of the cataracts remains uncertain.
In six weeks, the tourism company will find out if it can continue those tours, or whether the Canadian government will award a 25-year lease to another company, possibly with different ideas for the real estate around the cataracts.
“We’re still in the review process,” interim Niagara Parks Commission Chairwoman Janice Thomson said today.
The government had hoped to make a decision by the end of 2011, but needs five or six more weeks, Thomson said.
Some of the comments after the article are worth looking at…
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Parks Commission needs more time for boat tour lease decision
From the Niagara Falls Review:
It has had more than 11 months to pick a winner, but the Niagara Parks Commission says its evaluation team needs more time.
More than a year and a half after a long-term operator for boat tours at the base of the Horseshoe Falls was originally supposed to be found, NPC officials said Thursday the team making the decision needs another “five or six weeks,” before announcing a winning bidder.
The deal will be worth a minimum of $5.5 million per year, not including the commission’s share of annual revenue from ticket and souvenir sales.
Chairwoman Janice Thomson had said she expected to announce who would be awarded a 25-year lease to operate boat tours near the falls by the end of 2011, but she told The Niagara Falls Review the complex process to select a winner is still underway.
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Ontario, sanitized for your protection
The Toronto Sun newspapers had an opinion piece recently about Ontario, and how the government is trying to “protect us” (they called it a Nanny State). At one point, it uses Niagara Falls as an example:
These days, the architects of our bubble-wrapped, peanut-free society have their sights set on the daredevil community.
The nattering nabobs of nannyism at the Niagara Parks Commission won’t give permission to highwire walker Ken Wallenda to walk a tightrope across the Falls. Wallenda wants to start in Niagara Falls, N.Y., enter the mist, and re-emerge on the Canadian side. Fantastic!
Stateside, politicians who want to help the economically depressed city of Niagara Falls, N.Y. have championed Wallenda’s proposal, and lawmakers in Albany have approved the stunt.
But a snag has been encountered in — where else? — Nanny State Central. You see, Wallenda’s stunt isn’t being embraced by the testicular-challenged bureaucrats at the Niagara Parks Commission. Officials are frowning on what they deem to be a Falls folly.
Doubling down
Apparently, “risky business” in Niagara Falls, Ont. these days is confined to the rubes doubling down at the government-run blackjack tables.
When Wallenda first proposed the stunt, the Commission’s Janice Thomson remarked: “Doing something for one day doesn’t seem like sustainable tourism. It harkens back to those early days when Niagara Falls was a carnival-like atmosphere. We have come so far away from that.”
Egad! Has Thomson ever strolled up Clifton Hill, home to House of Frankenstein, Castle Dracula, and numerous other wax museums and freak shows?
Niagara Falls isn’t exactly Vienna on the Rhine. Actually, it can be cheesier than a bucket of Bulgarian feta.
Isn’t it disheartening that in our increasingly sissified culture the safety mavens are now turning their sights on daredevils?
So much for Dalton McGuinty’s oft-repeated boast that Ontario is “open for business” — Wallenda’s stunt stands, or stood, to rake-in millions for the region.
But that’s sanitized-for-your-protection Ontario — a province that wants bread, not circuses.
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- Pressure mounts to OK walk across Niagara Falls From the Toronto Star: As an aerialist’s bid to tightrope...
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Cullen miniatures sale approved
From the Niagara Falls Review:
The Cullen Miniature Village, which has delighted hundreds of thousands of visitors at its former location in the Durham Region, has found a new home in The Niagara Parks Commission’s (NPC) Botanical Gardens.
Oshawa City Council approved the sale after endorsing a decision made that city’s corporate services committee last week.
“Our Botanical Gardens will be the perfect site for the Miniature Village,” NPC Chair Janice Thomson said. “The village was originally developed for a botanical setting and they were intended to be viewed by audiences of all ages; our Botanical Gardens, with the Butterfly Conservatory right next door, will be the perfect home for this collection”.
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NPC buys Cullen miniatures
From Niagara This Week:
The Niagara Parks Commission hopes some little buildings will become a big attraction in Niagara Falls.
Oshawa City Council gave its nod to an offer by the NPC to purchase a collection of miniature buildings and assorted pieces that were once found at Cullen Gardens in Whitby. The NPC offered $113,000 for the 182-piece collection, which includes buildings, trains and accessories which it will pay off over the next five years.
“It’s something we hoped we could acquire,” said NPC chairwoman Janice Thomson after receiving word of the successful bid.
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Canada nixes Wallenda’s Niagara rope walk
From UPI:
Canadian officials in Niagara Falls have denied daredevil Nik Wallenda’s application to walk across the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope next summer.
Wednesday night, the Niagara Parks Commission voted to deny a permit for the stunt, planned for June, the Toronto Star reported.
The plan was for Wallenda to cross from Goat Island, which separates the U.S. falls and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, 1,800 feet across the gorge, on a 2-inch-wide steel cable to the Canadian side.
Parks Commissioner Janice Thomson told the Star there are safety concerns as well as a fear it would spur unauthorized copycat stunts. She said the event also didn’t fit with long-term planning for the park region.
Related posts:
- Pressure mounts to OK walk across Niagara Falls From the Toronto Star: As an aerialist’s bid to tightrope...
- Niagara Falls high-wire plans could go haywire From the Toronto Star: A daredevil’s plan to be the...
- Wallenda making pitch to Canada for tightrope walk From the Niagara Gazette: Nik Wallenda’s lifelong dream may be...
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Pressure mounts to OK walk across Niagara Falls
From the Toronto Star:
As an aerialist’s bid to tightrope walk across Niagara Falls next summer hangs in the balance, the commission ruling on his proposal is facing pressure to let the event proceed.
Nik Wallenda, a seventh-generation member of the famed tightrope-walking Wallenda family, hopes to fulfill his lifelong dream of walking across the falls on a wire.
The proposal has cleared all legal hurdles on the American side, but authority to approve or reject Wallenda’s idea in Canada rests with the Niagara Parks Commission. Chair Janice Thomson has repeatedly said the walk would be a stunt contrary to the commission’s mandate to preserve the falls’ natural beauty.
Wallenda maintains his balancing act is an art form, not a stunt. He made his case before the commission two weeks ago in a 12-minute presentation. The commission is reviewing the proposal and Thomson said she expects a ruling early next week.
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- Wallenda won’t give up on falls tightrope dream From the Niagara Falls Review: Both Nik Wallenda and the...
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