Niagara Falls is a tourist attraction and there is a huge tunnel buried deep below the cascade that had been off-limits to visitors

The rocks beneath the Niagara Falls lies in the border between the US state of New York and Canada's province of Ontario. These rocks are honeycombed with chambers created to harness the powerful forces of the waterfall. There is a 2,198-foot tunnel, built more than a century ago on the Canadian side. It is now open to tourists. They can move about in the tunnel and see the awesome scale of these engineering marvels. Since July 2022, it has become a part of the decommissioned Niagara Parks Power Station tour. The tunnel in an example of the pioneering work that helped bring this corner of North America into the modern age. The power station operated from 1905 until 2006. It diverted water from the mighty Niagara River to run giant generators that electrified regional industry and contributed to the nearby Great Lakes port of Buffalo. It seems the region around the waterfall, was once a hub of activity for those who wanted to cash in on harnessing the power of water. A huge tunnel has opened below Niagara Falls.

Today, the Niagara Parks station is the world's only intact hydroelectric plant of its era. Before reaching the tunnel, visitors to the power station can see a scale model of the massive engineering works that went into converting the pounding waters into electricity. There is a glass elevator to take the visitors down to the bottom is the tunnel where the water exits. The tunnel itself is an engineering marvel. Thousands of workers excavated the shale beneath the main generating room. They used equipment like lanterns, dynamite, pickaxes and shovels. Incidentally, the tunnel resembles a fortress and they did it all without any electricity. A visit to the power station and tunnel takes around two hours. There is also an evening show involving an overnight halt. Niagara Falls is a place of natural beauty and an example of how natural forces continue to shape our modern lives.

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