male announcer: A few miles from Buffalo, New York, and just across Lake Ontario from Toronto is a natural wonder so majestic and powerful that every year, millions of visitors are left speechless with awe.

The marvel in question is, of course, Niagara Falls.

♪♪♪ announcer: Tourists flock from every state in the Union, every Canadian province, and literally every nation on earth just to see and experience it.

Karen Dubinsky: Niagara Falls has been an icon for two centuries.

For Niagara Falls to have remained iconic, remained as crowded as it is today, it has had to work very hard to constantly reinvent itself.

Shane Peacock: Anything that's superlative or extraordinary like that, people want to be around it, and they want to be drawn to it, but also-- and this is very important-- they want to exploit it.

So Niagara Falls was this wonderful Falls here, and almost right from the beginning, people started to use it in various ways.

announcer: The fall seems to generate a magnetism that pulls people to it and then forever links them to this extraordinary place, to one another, and to their destinies.

♪♪♪ announcer: Niagara Falls has attracted many daredevils, some defying clouds of mist, tricky winds, and gravity itself to walk over the yawning gulf carved by the Falls.

♪♪♪ announcer: Others for reasons as diverse as the daredevils themselves have used some device to challenge the swirling waters of the Niagara River and plunge over the Falls.

♪♪♪ Karen: I think part of the lure of Niagara was that it was understood to be a very dangerous place.

And there's another whole history of people going over the Falls, the history of daredevils, et cetera.

Jay Cochrane: If you separate the word "daredevil," it's exactly what it is.

A daredevil is somebody who goes out and does a daring thing.

Maybe they make it, maybe they don't.

Patrick McGreevy: They wanted to challenge the power of the Falls, you might say.

So we had people on tightropes, we had people going over in barrels, we had people trying various kinds of stunts, jumping into the Falls from great heights, and all of these sorts of things.

Patrick: Of course, this also appealed to the carnival atmosphere in Niagara Falls.

The general circus atmosphere-- these people were like performers, and people came out to watch them.

George Bailey: People are always fascinated by the daredevil story at Niagara Falls because it's people challenging death.

There's that mystique about, you know, "I can beat it!

I can beat it!"

So people are always interested in stuff like that.

announcer: For visitors and daredevils alike, the danger of Niagara Falls is part of the show.

Part of the reason they come to this place.

Shane: I think the wire walkers are drawn to Niagara Falls because Niagara Falls is monumental.

Everything about it is big, everything about it is spectacular, so it provides an excellent backdrop for a high-wire walker, and I think the great love of all high-wire walkers is Niagara Falls.

Jay: And what more spectacular view could you have?

People say, "What does it look like up there?"

I have a wonderful view from my office.

Every day I step onto the wire, I go to my office.

announcer: Jay Cochrane is a modern-day high-wire walker.

He carries on a tradition started by some of the greatest entertainers ever to use Niagara Falls as a stage.

Jay: My fellow Canadians, I salute you.

Well, of course, Niagara Falls has held a long line, a long tradition of tightrope walkers and wire walkers throughout the history.

It's about recreating what Niagara Falls was famous for 150 years ago.

It's about bringing that second era back.

announcer: The first era of wire walkers began with a man who would become one of Niagara's most famous performers: Frenchman Jean Francois Gravelet, better known as the Great Blondin.

Paul Gromosiak: In 1859, Blondin came here and set up a wire across the gorge close to the Falls and all summer long did everything possible on that wire-- backwards, frontwards, crawling, cooking meals, washing clothes.

You name it, the man did it that summer, and people were fascinated.

And so he started something at Niagara Falls.

Shane: You have to think about it in terms of nobody ever having done it before.

People were stunned that you could even put a wire across in the first place, and it is an amazing engineering feat.

And then to actually get on it and walk across on it was even more stunning.

He was able to project himself as a kind of a Superman.

Paul: Blondin was not a daredevil, per se.

He really wasn't a daredevil.

He knew what he was doing out there on the rope.

He was a performer.

Sherman Zavitz: He was not just a rope walker, he was a real showman and an innovator too.

He came up with many different ideas of stunts to do on the rope.

He was a real showman and drew tremendous crowds.

announcer: Blondin's death-defying acts turned him into a superstar at Niagara Falls.

But it wouldn't be long before his supremacy on the high-wire would be challenged.

Paul: When Blondin was performing here at Niagara in 1859, watching him was a young man in the audience who said to himself, "I can do this."

And so he gave himself a fancy European name, Farini.

"The Great Farini."

Shane: Farini grew up in the area near Port Hope, Ontario, in South Central Ontario.

I think from the time he was born, he wanted to do exciting things.

The Great Farini came in 1860.

In about June or July, they actually started competing.

Patrick: People were perhaps-- secretly, at least-- hoping for someone to fall, something dangerous to happen.

That was part of the attraction.

Paul: So all summer long in 1860, crowds were running from one to the other and back and forth and back and forth to see if one would outdo the other.

Farini did just about everything Blondin did on the rope that summer of 1860.

Shane: Now, Blondin didn't like this very much because this was Blondin's show.

So Blondin decided that he was going to do something so extraordinary that he would knock Farini off the wire.

So, first, he carried a man on his back across the wire.

Farini got an even bigger man.

Then Blondin decided to take a stove across Niagara Falls.

So Farini had to do something even more extraordinary, so he went out and got himself a washing machine.

Put the washing machine on his back, walked out here across Niagara Falls.

When he was about halfway across, he took a rope, lowered the rope all the way down to the water with a bucket at the end, brought the water back up, and did his laundry.

So throughout that summer, they continued with this competition.

So you can imagine what the scene must have been like in those days.

It was spectacular.

♪♪♪ Paul: Farini and Blondin parted and never spoke, never became friends.

Blondin would have nothing to do with the young man.

Some people claimed that Farini was just as good as Blondin, others say no.

Shane: But looking back on history now, the person that is best remembered is Blondin, and the reason for that, of course, is he was the first person to do it.

So I think that's why Blondin is judged to be the greater wire walker, and I think he was the greater wire walker, but Farini was a much more extraordinary personality.

Jay: What I am attempting to do is carry on what they started-- not just to do what they did, because that wouldn't be accomplishing anything, but to carry it on in a bigger, much grander fashion.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jay: My goal is to come back one day and walk across the actual Falls itself.

It has never been done.

There was never a position and never facilities to be able to allow that kind of thing back then.

But I will do it.

♪♪♪ Jay: The special thing about Niagara Falls is that it has a long line of tradition and history, and I'm honored to be part of it.

Paul: People came to Niagara Falls to perform stunts because they knew this is where people came to see something magnificent.

They also came here because Niagara has this impression on people of making you want to challenge it.

People, when they see something as grand and magnificent as Niagara, they want to do something there to challenge its mighty power and to make themselves as famous as the Falls.

Shane: There's something about Niagara Falls that just connects it to desire.

If you go and stand at the very edge of Niagara Falls, there's something about it that's irresistible.

There's something about it that draws you.

And high-wire walkers, I think, have that to an exponential degree.

They're drawn to it, they're drawn to that spectacle of nature, and the desire inside them is connected to it.

I think they got drawn from France or parts of Canada, the United States, or wherever to come to the Falls, to do what they did, but then when they got here, I think there was a magic that really kind of overtook them.

And everybody who saw it would be inspired and remember it for the rest of their lives.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: If truth be told, many of those who came to see the famous wire walkers at Niagara Falls did so in hopes of witnessing a tragedy.

"If performers were bent on attempting such acts," the argument went, "then people might as well be there to watch them fall into the water."

The wire walkers never obliged.

In reality, the danger was more apparent than real.

A different and far more risky variety of daredevils would come to Niagara Falls in the new century.

The idea was simple: instead of dancing on a wire, these 20th century daredevils would actually take the plunge.

Shane: When you go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, you're taking a great chance.

You get in the barrel and nature just kind of takes you over the Falls, and whatever happens, happens.

George: I guess in the minds of local people, a daredevil, when you talk about the Falls, is somebody that goes over the Falls in some type of contraption, whether that be a rubber ball, a steel barrel, a ski jet, or a kayak.

Sherman: Sixteen people have deliberately gone over the Horseshoe Falls in something or other, including two who've done it twice, and out of the 16, 11 have survived.

Some of them, of course, are hoping to make a lot of money from the stunt, but hardly any of them made any money of any consequence.

One of the most interesting characters here at the Falls over the years was Annie Edson Taylor, who was the very first to go over the Falls in a barrel.

She was 62 years old at the time.

Paul: And she was desperate to make some money so she wouldn't end up poorly in her older age.

So she had an oak barrel made, and she decided to go over the Horseshoe Falls, be the first person to ever do it.

She ended up doing it on her birthday, October 24, 1901.

And to think some woman in her 60s getting into an oak barrel, going over the Horseshoe Falls that no one had ever done before, that took a lot of courage, or else she was not exactly all there.

announcer: Annie Taylor had gone over the edge.

She later said it felt like all nature was being annihilated, but the event produced neither her death nor the happier ending she had envisioned.

George: She went over to gain the fame and glory, but she died at 83 years of age in Niagara Falls, New York, in a home for the destitute.

So certainly she didn't gain fame, and she didn't gain any glory.

announcer: Annie Taylor was the first but certainly not the last to brave the Falls in a barrel or other such contraption.

Paul: She was followed by 15 other people who went over the Falls.

They went over in things from rubber balls to more wooden barrels to tubes from truck tires, all held together with ropes and wires.

And the next person to go over was Bobby Leach.

He went over in a steel barrel, July 25, 1911.

Bobby Leach survived his stunt and he went to New Zealand and was walking down the street one day and slipped on an orange peel, and he ended up in the hospital with gangrene in his leg and he died from that.

So he slipped on an orange peel and died, but survived going over the Horseshoe Falls.

announcer: The next daredevil at Niagara Falls would be the first not to survive.

Englishman Charles Stephens was clear about his reasons for making the plunge.

"I want the money," he said.

Stephen's preparation did not match his ambition for the perilous trip.

Paul: Charles Stephens went over in a wooden barrel on July 11, 1920.

His barrel was not well made, and when it went over, it fell apart and took his body apart.

And then all they found was one of his arms still attached to a piece of the barrel.

Then we have Jean Lussier, who went over in a rubber ball, steel-enforced, on July 4, 1928.

♪♪♪ Paul: And he survived.

♪♪♪ announcer: Lussier was the first person to use something other than a wooden barrel or a steel drum.

He spent his life savings making the rubber ball and later sold pieces of it to make money.

George Stathakis is likely one of the strangest individuals to test his luck against the Falls.

♪♪♪ announcer: The 46-year-old made the trip on July 5, 1930 in a massive barrel.

He took with him his pet turtle, said to be over 100 years old.

Stathakis explained to reporters that should he not survive, the turtle would tell them about the experience.

The turtle survived, Stathakis did not.

Adopted by the Niagara Falls Museum, the turtle lived on for many years after his plunge over the Falls.

George: When you're near the edge of the Falls, there is a draw.

I see some people holding on to the railings because it's-- it has that draw, the power of water.

Most people don't give into that draw.

Most people look at it and take a photograph and go back home and show it to their relatives.

The odd person says, "I'm gonna come back and make a barrel and go over."

That's an oddity.

announcer: Many of the devices used by daredevils have not survived the passage of time.

Several of the unique contraptions are displayed at the Daredevil Gallery at the IMAX Theater in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Among the collection of barrels at the Daredevil Gallery are several that belong to the Hill family, perhaps the most famous family in Niagara Falls daredevil history.

They were known as much for their life saving efforts at Niagara Falls as for their stunts.

William "Red" Hill Senior saved 28 people from drowning and recovered over 100 bodies from the dangerous waters.

He was a powerful swimmer with tremendous knowledge of the river and Falls.

His son, "Red" Junior, helped out on many of the rescues and recoveries.

"Red" Hill Senior made three successful trips through the lower rapids, the first in 1910.

During the last stunt in 1931, his barrel was caught in the vortex.

But his son swam out and rescued him.

"Red" Junior followed in his father's footsteps, starting his daredevil career in 1945 with a trip through the Whirlpool Rapids.

Elaine Bald: It was an event in Niagara Falls.

I was very small at the time, but I remember the whole family being there and looking over and watching the barrel go through the rapids and just being mesmerized by the whole magic of it because the Falls was the forbidden.

It's like the jungle.

It's got that same fear factor.

announcer: Six years later, to honor his father's memory, William "Red" Hill Junior decided to attempt an even more dangerous stunt: plunging over Niagara Falls.

Paul: "Red" Hill Junior, he went over in truck inner tubes with wires and netting surrounding the tubes to hold them together and leather straps.

He called his device "the Thing."

He went over August 5, 1951.

It fell apart, and he was killed.

♪♪♪ announcer: "Red" Hill Junior was only 38 years old when he died at Niagara Falls.

Another of the barrels on display is that of William Fitzgerald, who used the name Nathan Boyer for his stunt.

His vessel was known as "the Plungosphere."

Fitzgerald never articulated his reasons for doing such an outrageous stunt.

George: He was what we call the quiet daredevil.

He never made any fanfare about it.

He went over, paid his fine, and then left.

Since then, I've talked with Dr.

Fitzgerald a number of times, and he still says, "Hey, I have my own reasons for doing it," and he's really never discussed it.

♪♪♪ announcer: A flurry of daredevils took on the Falls during the 1980s and 1990s.

These latter-day stunters made the trip in crafts unlike the simple oak barrel that Annie Taylor rode into legend in 1901.

Most were equipped with elaborate features to heighten the drama and increase their odds of survival.

A few have even included hammocks, oxygen tanks, and radios.

Karel Soucek, the first Canadian to go over Horseshoe Falls, equipped his converted metal drum with a padded bucket seat, lights, and a radio transmitter.

Paul: Each one was trying to, in some ways, outdo the previous stunters because people did get bored with certain kinds of stunts.

Karel Soucek went over in a steel barrel July 2, 1984.

He survived, and later he went around and toured with a barrel similar to the one he went over in and ended up at the Houston Astrodome a few years later and was killed when his barrel hit the side of the tank into which it was dropped.

Made it over the Falls, died at the Astrodome.

announcer: There is something inherently solitary about going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, the kind of thing you would do by yourself.

That is, until 1989, when two natives of Niagara Falls, Ontario, created a new chapter in daredevil history.

Paul: Then we have the first duo to go over, Jeffrey Petkovich and Peter DeBernardi, two Canadians who went over in a large, large tank, steel tank with a periscope on it.

They had music inside.

And they went over September 27, 1989 and survived.

announcer: For some people, surviving a plunge over the Falls was not enough.

Canadian Dave Munday was the first person to go over the Horseshoe Falls twice.

Once in 1985 and again in 1993.

Paul: Dave Munday went over in his aluminum barrel with the Canadian flag on it, October 5, 1985, and he survived.

David Munday came back again on September 26, 1993, this time in a steel ball, a tank, so he became the first person to go over twice.

announcer: Over the years, others would challenge the Falls.

One paddled a kayak and another rode a jet ski.

Neither survived.

♪♪♪ Patrick: There's always been daredevils at Niagara Falls from a very early period.

They were people who were attempting to defy death.

They wanted to challenge the power of the Falls.

Paul: Most of these people were doing it to gain fame and fortune, to challenge the river's power and its fame, and to become equal with the Falls, as famous as the Falls.

Their fame, of course, is fleeting.

We talk about them once in a while, but most people have forgotten them.

George: People do it for fame, but they don't become famous for more than two or three interviews, and then after that they fade into the mist.

Elaine: Niagara Falls is the canvas on which our stories are told because it's a wonderful, dramatic river, and the Falls, and known throughout the world.

It's big.

It's like Everest.

It's wonderful, and it's spectacular.

George: Daredevils are part of the Niagara allure.

It's something that's told over and over again.

People always want to know the stories about the daredevils.

When you come to Niagara, you just can't help but ask, "Hey, did somebody go over the Falls in a barrel?"

Yeah, they did.

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