I took yesterday off and last night (8/6) for dinner went to a buffet restaurant on the 14th floor of the Sheraton Hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario, which offers a great view of the Falls. I had a 20-minute conversation with one of the hosts at the restaurant, Alexis, who is from the Bahamas and is doing an internship at the hotel this summer. He has lived in Canada for about a year and is attending the Toronto School of Management. His goal is to “aim for the top”–he wants to own and operate his own resort in the Bahamas someday.

Alexis found this past winter in Ontario to be very challenging–he is used to hurricanes, but not blizzards. He faced his first snowstorm wearing “socks and Crocs,” but quickly learned the importance of picking up some good cold-weather apparel. Alexis was quite interested in my trip and wished me well on my journey. Here he is, with a view of the Falls in the background.

Here are a few photos taken at dusk from the balcony of the restaurant showing the City of Niagara Falls, as well as the three waterfalls.

Today’s 38-mile bike route took me upriver from Horseshoe Falls. Below the Falls, I could feel a mist in the air from the cascading water a quarter mile away. This is what the Niagara River looks like above the Falls.

En route to Fort Erie, Ontario along the Niagara Recreation Trail, I alternately passed and then was passed by a guy who, noticing all the gear on my bike, was curious about where I was heading. (He was biking a bit faster but paused more frequently for breaks.) Eventually, we both stopped and had a more prolonged conversation. He admired my older bike, which has a steel frame like his. His name is Steve, and he is from Niagara Falls, Ontario, but now lives in Fort Erie, where he works as a landscaper. He had been visiting his mom in Niagara Falls and was looking forward to getting home, where he had a beer and some chicken wings waiting as his reward for the ride.

Shortly after I reached Fort Erie, it got quite windy, and a thunderstorm blew in. I waited for a while next to public utility building for the storm to die down a little, which it did, and snapped this photo of downtown Buffalo, NY, across the Niagara River.

My route west from Fort Erie to Port Colborne (pop. 18,424), where I’m staying tonight, was along the Friendship Trail. The asphalt trail conditions were quite good, and I was able to make decent headway in spite of the rain, which lasted most of the afternoon, off-and-on. Here is a view of Lake Erie from the trail.

I was introduced to two rather surprising historical events that I learned about through some signage along the way. First, I discovered that the NAACP had its origins in the “Niagara Movement,” which had its birthplace in Buffalo, NY and at a hotel on the site of this marker near Fort Erie, Ontario, under the leadership of W.E.B. Du Bois. Here, Du Bois convened a group of twenty-eight men from fourteen states in July 1905 to write guiding principles for the group, which helped inspire the modern civil rights movement and the founding of the NAACP. The men who met there pledged, in part, “to fight in freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom to vote, freedom to enjoy public conveniences & freedom to associate with those who wish to associate with me.”

Then, at this marker in Ridgeway, Ontario, I learned that in 1866, a group of Irish American revolutionaries called Fenians had invaded Canada in what is known as the Battle of Ridgeway. In their invasion, the Fenians sought to attack Great Britain and create an independent Irish Republic. The Fenians ultimately returned to Buffalo, NY, but their attack “shocked the country” and instigated an effort to improve Canada’s military defenses.

Tonight, I am staying at a small apartment that is right across the street from the Welland Canal, which forms an important link in the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes Waterway, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. I learned that 3,000 ships pass through the canal each year. Here is what the apartment looks like from the front.

And here is the view directly across the street, where a schooner is docked and where barges pass by–as one is doing in this photo.

I’ll be spending some more time on the north shore of Lake Erie tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what new discoveries may come my way.