Red Hill’s wife, Beatrice, was quoted as saying that she hated the river, that she was afraid of it. Perhaps rightly so.
Acknowledgments
A BIG, HEARTFELT THANK-YOU to the following: my agent, Dorian Karchmar, for believing in me, for pushing me, for astounding me with her extraordinary combination of editorial and business smarts; my U.S. publisher, Ellen Archer, and acquiring editor, Pamela Dorman, for saying yes; my editors, Kate Elton, Sarah Landis, Vanessa Neuling, and Iris Tupholme, for wielding hatchets or microscopes as necessary, always with generosity; my copyeditor, Susan M. S. Brown, for reading with diligence and skill; my first reader, Ania Szado (whose tears thrilled me), and early readers Brian Francis, Lesley Krueger, and my writers’ group, for encouragement and helpful suggestions; my boys, Jack, Charlie, and William Cobb, for their unflagging curiosity, particularly when it comes to cork suits, lifeline guns, and severed, tattooed limbs; my husband, Larry Cobb, for food, water, shelter, and love, and for telling me all those years ago it was all right to depart the workforce to write fiction and then never once suggesting my “two-year” leave was long ago used up; my parents, Ruth and Al Buchanan, for everything that brought me to this, including their choice of Niagara Falls as a hometown; and the rest of the Buchanans and Cobbs, my big, boisterous, loving family.
I would like to express my gratitude for the generous assistance provided by Dr. Norman R. Ball, author of The Canadian Niagara Power Company Story; Sister Caroline Dawson, Loretto Niagara, IBVM; Sister Juliana Dusel, archivist, Loretto Archives, IBVM; Cathy Simpson, local history librarian, Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library; and Scott Tufford, author of numerous Niagara histories including one on Glenview.
Many books were helpful in researching this novel, particularly, on the topic of faith, Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, Vintage Canada, 2005; C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, Fount, 1998; and Armand M. Nicholi, The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, The Free Press, 2002; on the topic of grief, Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006; and C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, HarperCollins, 2000; on the topic of cooking, Isabella Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s All-About Cookery, Ward, Lock & Co., 1915; and on the topic of Niagara Falls, Pierre Berton, Niagara: A History of the Falls, McClelland & Stewart, 1992; Andy O’Brien, Daredevils of Niagara, The Ryerson Press, 1964; Patrick McGreevy, Imagining Niagara: The Meaning and Making of Niagara Falls, University of Massachusetts Press, 1994; George A. Seibel, Ontario’s Niagara Parks: 100 Years, The Niagara Parks Commission, 1985; Sherman Zavitz, It Happened at Niagara: First Series, The Lundy’s Lane Historical Society, 1996; Sherman Zavitz, It Happened at Niagara: Second Series, The Lundy’s Lane Historical Society, 1999; Sherman Zavitz, It Happened at Niagara: Third Series, The Lundy’s Lane Historical Society, 2003; City of Niagara Falls Centennial Book Committee, Images of a Century: The City of Niagara Falls, Canada, 1904–2004, The City of Niagara Falls, Canada, 2005; and Niagara Falls, Canada: A History of the City and the World Famous Beauty Spot, edited by William J. Holt, The Kiwanis Club of Stamford, Ontario, Inc., 1967.
The newspaper account of Fergus’s rescue of the workmen stranded on Ellet’s bridge is taken nearly verbatim from a news report recounted in Niagara Falls, Canada, edited by William J. Holt. Grateful acknowledgment is made to The Kiwanis Club of Stamford, Ontario, Inc. for permission to reprint the account.
The description of the brink of the falls as “that thin line that separates eternity from time” comes from James K. Liston, Niagara Falls: A Poem in Three Cantos, printed and published for the author, 1843. Exact ownership of copyright is unknown.
An earlier version of chapter 5 appeared in Descant 138 (Fall 2007).
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Toronto Arts Council for their award of a writers’ grant.
About the Author
CATHY MARIE BUCHANAN was born and raised in Niagara Falls and lives in Toronto. Her short stories have appeared in many of Canada’s premier literary journals. She holds a BSc (Honours Biochemistry) and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario. The Day the Falls Stood Still is her first novel. Visit her online at cathymariebuchanan.com and facebook.com/cathymariebuchanan.
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P.S. Ideas, interviews & features
About the author
Author Biography
About the book
Meet Cathy Marie Buchanan
The Evolution of a Story
Read on
The Vulnerability of Niagara Falls
Web Detective
About the author
Author Biography
THE SECOND of five children, Cathy Marie Buchanan was born and bred in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Her father was a teacher, and her mother, a former teacher, was a homemaker.
She grew up in an area not all that different-looking from most 1960s suburban neighborhoods—though there were continual reminders that she was not living in just any town. The family made the trek to the falls whenever they had visitors—riding the Maid of the Mist, walking through Queen Victoria Park, gazing out over the Niagara Gorge—and regularly swam at Dufferin Islands, picnicked at Queenston Heights, and climbed in and out of the Niagara Glen, all favorite spots along the river. As a local she was, of course, privy to the never-ending stream of quirky Niagara Falls lore, stories like that of a high school boyfriend’s brother surviving the plunge over the falls in a barrel wearing only cowboy boots and a hat.
Often asked if she grew up wanting to be a writer, Buchanan answers with a definitive no and will tell you she spent her teenage years disgracing herself in high school English, often getting upwards of 20 percent deducted for spelling mistakes on exams. When it came time to head off to university, one of the criteria she used for selecting courses was not having to write—that is, spell—a single thing. She graduated with a BSc (Honours Biochemistry) and then an MBA, both from the University of Western Ontario, and spent the bulk of her non-writing work life at IBM, at first in finance and then in technical sales.
Her creative leanings were evident throughout her teenage years, however, in both her serious pursuit of classical ballet and her burgeoning abilities as a seamstress. Years later she would painstakingly bead her own wedding gown, an experience that informed the musings of her character Bess as she tackles the same on behalf of Miss O’Leary. After enrolling in a string of continuing education courses, always something with an artistic bent, she finally hit upon creative writing. She kept up the regime of full-time work by day and a writing class or bit of crammed-in scribbling in the evening for four years, all the while longing for more time to write than the tiny gap that existed between scrubbing her three young children clean and falling into bed herself allowed. After having a handful of stories published in Canada’s finest literary fiction magazines, she left her corporate position to take a serious stab at writing.
Before putting pen to paper, Buchanan spent four months researching The Day the Falls Stood Still, a task she describes as “purely pleasurable.” As she finished writing the first draft, her much-loved father died. It was then that her own grief-ridden struggle with what she believed found expression in the character of Bess. She completed the first draft in a year and a half and spent the next two rewriting the novel.
Within a week of sending out The Day the Falls Stood Still to publishers, Buchanan received the wonderful news that HarperCollins would publish it in Canada, Hyperion in the U.S., Random House in the U.K., and Sperling & Kupfer in Italy. More good news came shortly before the book hit the shelves. The Day the Falls Stood Still would be showcased in the U.S. as a Barnes &?
Noble Recommends Selection, a designation awarded to only four or five books each year. It debuted on The New York Times bestseller list and has been named an Indie Next pick by the American Booksellers Association, a Best Book of 2009 by Barnes & Noble, and a Canada
Also Reads finalist.
Buchanan is a founding member of the conservation organization Friends of Niagara Falls (see “The Vulnerability of Niagara Falls,” page 11). She lives in Toronto with her husband and three sons.
She is at work on a second novel. Visit her at cathymariebuchanan.com.
About the Book
Meet Cathy Marie Buchanan
Tom’s character in The Day the Falls Stood Still is modeled on that of real-life riverman Red Hill. What other aspects of the book are grounded in history?
The river stunts (Captain Matthew Webb’s fateful swim, Maud Willard’s suffocation, Walter Campbell’s gondolier-like navigation of the rapids, Charles Stephens’s daring plunge with an anvil tied to his feet) are based on actual events. The accidents (the careening trolley car at Queenston, the collapse of Table Rock) and the rescues (Ellet’s bridge, ice bridge, and scow) are as well. Loretto Academy, Glenview, the Windsor Hotel, the Clifton House, and the power companies are described as they were during the time frame of the book. The story details surrounding the development of hydroelectricity at Niagara Falls are factual. True to history, the term “the day the falls stood still” was coined back in 1848 to describe the day the river became jammed up with ice and ceased to flow. And last, Archbishop Lynch did, in fact, see a picture of the falls as a boy and conjure up prayers floating heavenward with the mist, a notion that years later would lead to the tradition of perpetual adoration at Loretto Academy.
How do you approach blending fact and fiction?
When I set out to write TDTFSS, I read books surveying Niagara’s history, and by the time I put pen to paper I had a thousand tidbits of lore percolating in my mind, all of which I wanted to use. Throughout the rewriting process I often chopped anecdotes that I thought slowed the pace of the story. But once I began working with my agent and the editors at the publishing houses, they wanted more of what I’d left on the chopping block. Much of it came back in the form of the newspaper stories that appear throughout TDTFSS. To decide what to reincorporate, I had to be sure the lore served a purpose. Did it illuminate a character? Create a mood? Move the story along?
You say the research necessary to write your novel was “purely pleasurable.” On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you rank research, and where writing?
I’ll rate researching a 10. Reading the historical accounts of the stories I grew up with was consistently fascinating. Almost always there were details to be gleaned or bits of misinformation to be cleared up. I consulted many experts—librarians, archivists, historians, curators—and found myself, time and again, warmed by their generosity and inspired by the treasure-troves of information they imparted. When it comes to the “research” hours I spent walking the meandering pathways of the glen or watching the mist rise above the falls, I cannot really claim a single one as work. Not so for writing. While composing a story is mostly pleasurable—I’ll give it an 8—there is nothing pleasant about cutting a passage it took a month to write or reworking a chapter for the tenth time.
Do you see the character Bess as a heroine,
At one point in the story, we hear from Bess, who has just watched Isabel brazenly flirt with a boy: “I envy Isabel. I envy her nerve, her get-up-and-go, her readiness to shape her world. I only watch for Tom. For over a week. From the veranda, from the yard, from the window of the sewing room.” Bess longs to be more like Isabel and is critical of her own lack of pluck. As the story moves forward, readers see Bess developing a resolve in keeping with Isabel’s. In fact, after Bess goes to the newspaper, Kit tells her she is getting to be more like Isabel. With this brave act Bess becomes a true heroine.
Bess struggled with her faith after losing Isabel. Can you discuss?
At one point, after the loss of Isabel, Bess says, “It is in these moments of despair I most miss the idea of God, the idea that life has meaning, the idea that we are something more than the products of the random variations and natural selection Charles Darwin put forth.” Her faith has disappeared, and she is anguished. By the end of the book, she is leaning toward again accepting the existence of the mystical and glimpses “the flickering sliver of light that says Isabel has been with us all along, that Tom is with us still.” This notion is reminiscent of Tom’s conviction that Fergus was, in some way, always with him. In my mind, it’s what Tom wants for Bess—for her to continue to feel his presence—when he says, “Believe in me, Bess,” and, knowing the odds are stacked against him, plunges into the whirlpool.
Was the theme of nature’s power and fragility a part of your novel from the start?
Once I’d decided the main male character would be a riverman loosely based on Red Hill, it set the story during the period when the Queenston powerhouse was built. I grew up hearing terms like “the harnessing of the Niagara,” and with my many school field trips to the powerhouses, I understood from an early age that the river had been tamed. And yet, every year there were violent deaths—mishaps, suicides, botched stunts. It seems I have always known the dichotomy of the river, and, yes, it was something I set out to capture in TDTFSS.
What is your writing routine?
I write every day, sitting down at the computer as soon as my boys leave the house for school. There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to when I write well. The objective is always the same, to lose myself in the words I am setting on the page. And I have had moments when I look up from the computer, dazed. It takes a second to grasp that I am sitting at my desk, a further second to decide: Is it morning or afternoon? Have I had lunch? My head is lost in another time, another life. That’s when the best writing has come.
What’s the best writing advice you ever received?
Write every day. Don’t wait for inspiration or a certain state of mind. It might never come.
The Evolution of a Story,
an essay by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Erly on I intended to write a story that more closely paralleled that of real life riverman William “Red” Hill and his family. In the first bit of the book that I wrote—it was long ago scrapped—Bess Heath was an old woman, bitter and hateful of the river. I had conjured her up from the little I knew of Red Hill’s wife, Beatrice, a woman quoted as saying that she hated the river, that she was afraid of it.
In what I envisioned as a prologue to the book, the reader heard from an aged Bess about the long hours she endured waiting for her husband to come home from his beloved river. At times it was a daring rescue that kept him away, but on more than one occasion Bess waited, same as Beatrice Hill, for her husband to return from undertaking a glory-seeking stunt. The prologue laid out other particulars of Bess’s life, all gleaned from what I knew of Beatrice’s: There were four sons, all raised to be rivermen. Two shot the lower rapids and later attempted the plunge over the falls, one plummeting to his death. The youngest was killed by a falling rock while working in a hydroelectric tunnel. The first line of that prologue read, My husband is bewitched by a hateful river, lost to me.
The final scene of that book, as I conceived it, would take place at the whirlpool. As had unfolded in 1931 when Red Hill was shooting the rapids a third time, the barrel of my fictional riverman would become trapped in the whirlpool and eventually be hauled to shore by the oldest of his sons. The book would close with that fictional boy being paraded about the stone beach of the whirlpool on his father’s shoulders, much as had come about for Red Hill’s brave boy. The reader would contemplate the scene knowing from the prologue that the same boy would years later die attempting the “big drop” in nothing more than a contraption of inflated rubber tubes, canvas, and fishnet. Readers, I anticipated, would ponder the role a well-intentioned father played in determining his own son’s tragic fate.
Plainly, The Day the Falls Stood Still deviated greatly from the initial plan. The Tom Cole I found myself setting down on the page was deeply reverent of the river. Its trivialization, whether by the daredevils or the power companies, was offensive to him. For my riverman, shooting the rapids in
a barrel was not a possibility.
And for Bess that meant a dramatic shift, away from the bitter woman of my earlier tale.
Read on
The Vulnerability of Niagara Falls, an essay by Cathy Marie Buchanan
By mid-nineteenth century, the falls were cordoned off, reserved by hucksters for the paying few, and gristmills overwhelmed the natural beauty of the place. But then, in 1885, after a groundswell of public conservation sentiment, the New York State Reservation at Niagara Falls opened to the masses. Canada followed suit two years later, establishing Queen Victoria Park at Niagara Falls. Yet, despite the prudence of our forefathers, today the natural beauty of the place is threatened once again, this time by yet another hydroelectric diversion tunnel and rampant development at Niagara Falls.
In 2006 the world’s largest rock-boring machine began cutting another diversion tunnel under the City of Niagara Falls, Ontario. When that tunnel—six stories in height—is completed in 2013, Ontario’s capacity to divert water away from the river and falls for the production of hydroelectricity will increase by 30 percent. In the words of Ontario Power Generation, “Excess water above and beyond what is required for tourism is now ‘spilling’ over the falls some of the time.” Offensive as the statement is, it is true that Canada is currently unable to siphon off all it is allowed under the 1950 Niagara Diversion Treaty, which set the minimum flow over the falls at about 50 percent of the natural flow of the river during the daylight hours of tourist season and 25 percent at all other times. Water in excess of the minimums is available for diversion. While the power companies continue to be bound by the treaty’s restrictions, it is worrisome that with the new tunnel, total diversion capacity—from both the Canadian and the American power installations—will reach a whopping 186,000 cubic feet per second, enough to divert 93 percent of the river’s average natural flow. Our history of relentlessly reducing the volume of water flowing over the brink, through a succession of progressively more lenient diversion treaties, underscores the falls’ vulnerability.