The cliffs in the Niagara River gorge, photograph by the Author.
You
never know what you are going to find when you step outside and into the
wilderness, sometimes you find nothing at all, and sometimes, well, you find
strange things, maybe even things that you have never seen before. And it always starts with a walk in the
wilderness, or in this case a walk in the gorge...
A Walk in the Gorge...
The Niagara River, below the Whirlpool, from the trail, photograph by the Author.
Last
weekend we decided to go on a walk with Boy Scout Troop 285, along the lower Niagara
River. The day started out cold and
overcast, but by about 3:00 pm, it was sunny, without a cloud in the sky, and it
was almost 60oF (16oC).
We started walking at the top of the cliffs along the gorge, from
Whirlpool State Park, on the American side of the river, before walking along
the gorge by the river. This is a great
walk and the trail along the river can be reached by climbing down almost 300
feet (91 meters) of stairs built into the cliff sides along the gorge. When we got down to the riverside, we turned
west to walk upriver to the area of the Whirlpool.
An excerpt from a map by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, it can be found HERE.
A Seiche...
How wind driven seiches occur, a NOAA illustration, found HERE.
So,
“what is a seiche”, you might ask?
That is a good question!
A
seiche (pronounced “saysh”) is caused, according to the American National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, when strong winds and rapid
changes in atmospheric pressure push the water from one end of a body of water
to the other end, raising the level of the water and causing flooding. When the wind stops the water quickly returns
to its original level and the flooding, literally, just drains away! Lake Erie is known for seiches, particularly
when strong winds blow from the southwest to the northeast1.
The
day before our walk in the gorge, on Friday, March 26, 2021, the Western New
York area experienced strong winds, blowing from the southwest, which caused a
seiche. According to the National
Weather Service the “WATER LEVEL AT BUFFALO NOS GAGE REACHED 8.4 FEET ABOVE LOW
WATER DATUM”; 8.4 feet (2.6 meters) above low water level is a lot of water
being pushed towards the Buffalo, New York end of Lake Erie and then down the
Niagara River!
Where we found evidence of a seiche.
It
was when we got to the shelf of rock, which is across from the Whirlpool, that
we found evidence of the seiche.
Stranded Fish...
A Rainbow Trout (which is also known as a Steelhead Salmon) stranded by the seiche in a rock pool, photograph by the Author.
All
the water that was pushed to the end of Lake Erie had to go somewhere, and the
somewhere it went, was down the Niagara River.
Because of the seiche, the water level below Niagara Falls had risen enough
that fish were able to swim above the rock ledge which is across from the
Whirlpool – a ledge that is usually several feet above water level! When the winds stopped blowing, the seiche
ended and the water in the western portion Lake Erie dropped back to its normal
level, and the flood waters in the Niagara River receded so quickly that there
a lot of fish got caught in rock pools and cracks all over this ledge!
Rainbow Trout left stranded by the seiche in a rock pool, after the water drained away, photograph by the Author.
Most
of the fish were dead and all appeared to be Rainbow Trout or as they are also
known Steelhead Salmon, (oncorhynchus mykiss)2. Rainbow Trout and
Steelhead Salmon are the same species, but they look different and have vastly
different lifestyles. Rainbow Trout
spend their entire life in freshwater, and are green, blue, and yellow, fading
to silvery white on their bellies, with a horizontal pinkish-red stripe running
from their tails all the way to their gills, and with black spots along their
backs. Steelhead Salmon are anadromous, which
means that they spend the first two to three years of their life in freshwater,
before migrating to the ocean and then living for two to three years in saltwater,
before returning to the freshwater river of their birth to breed. They are silvery or brassy colored as adults
and are not as colorful as their fresh-water-only cousins. Adult Rainbow Trout and Steelhead Salmon
range in size and weight and while they can reach up to 45 inches (114 cm) in
length, they are usually much smaller. Larger
Rainbow Trout and Steelhead
Salmon can weigh more than 50 pounds (22 kilograms), but usually their weight
is 8 pounds (almost 4 kilograms).
Steelhead Salmon, since they spend part of their life in the ocean, however,
are usually larger than Rainbow Trout.
An excerpt from the signboard posted in the Casino Building at the Whirlpool State Park, photograph by the Author.
Interestingly,
Rainbow Trout and Steelhead Salmon are not native to the east coast and the
inland waterways of North America, they are originally native to the Pacific
Northwest coast of North America and according to Richard D. Moccia and David
J. Bevan, in “The Rainbow Trout”, it is “generally accepted that the first
movement of rainbow trout occurred to New York State in 1874 from a native
spring spawning stock from Campbells Creek on the McLeod River, California”
and that the person who first brought the fish to New York state was a fish
culturist named Seth Green. Rainbow
Trout are now found in eastern North America throughout the Great Lakes Basin
and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Nova
Scotia.
A picture of a live Rainbow Trout, captured in a rock pool by Bill Ziegler, before being released back into the Niagara River. Note the size of the fish. Photograph by the Author and used with the permission of Bill Ziegler.
Not
all the fish in the rock pools were dead, however, and we were able to capture five
and release them back into the Niagara River.
A video of a live Rainbow Trout swimming about in a
large rock pool.
All
in all, it was a great walk, the scenery and the weather were fantastic, and I
got to see things I had never seen before; I can’t wait to go back again!
Some of the scenery along the trail, photograph by the Author.
Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Never Give In. Never, Never, Never... ©”, where we will talk
about survival and the all-important will to live.
I
hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me
on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The
Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE,
and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free
to leave a comment on either site. I
announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at
bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.
That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Notes
1 From
“What is a seiche?”, by the National Ocean Service.
2
According to Richard D. Moccia and David J. Bevan, in “The
Rainbow Trout”, these fish used to be called salmo gairdneri.
Sources
Moccia, Richard D. & Bevan, David J., “The
Rainbow Trout”, [OAC Publication 1991, July 1991], https://animalbiosciences.uoguelph.ca/aquacentre/information/articles/the-rainbow-trout.html,
accessed March 29, 2021
National Ocean Service, “What is a seiche?”, [National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce], https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seiche.html#:~:text=Seiches%20are%20typically%20caused%20when,side%20of%20the%20enclosed%20area.,
accessed March 28, 2021
National
Park Service, “Coastal Geohazards—Seiches”, [U.S. Department of the Interior], https://www.nps.gov/articles/coastal-geohazards-seiches.htm,
accessed April 9, 2021
National
Weather Service, “Local Storm Report, Issued by NWS Buffalo, NY”, [National
Weather Service National Headquarters], https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&product=LSR&issuedby=BUF,
accessed March 28, 2021
The
National Wildlife Federation, “Rainbow Trout and Steelhead”, https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Fish/Rainbow-Trout-Steelhead,
accessed March 29, 2021
Yahoo.com,
“Buffalo Under Flood Warning as Strong Winds Cause Lake Seiche”, March 26, 2021,
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