The Winter Festival of Lights

Regular followers of my blog have seen me turn up in Niagara Falls on more than one occasion. It's a mere 90 minutes by car from my home, and thus an easy place to whip over to for a quick visit. I've also discovered that Niagara Falls hotels get much cheaper on weekdays during the months from October to May, while the lack of crowding greatly enhances the experience of walking along the brink of the gorge or sitting down to eat in restaurants.

If there's one time of year when I would encourage one and all to spend a night in Niagara Falls, it's right now -- from November 12 through February 20. Each year, the Niagara Parks Commission stages a Winter Festival of Lights in the parklands from the Rainbow Bridge south, past the iconic Falls, and on to the Dufferin Islands nature reserve. Trees and lampposts are garnished with strings of lights, while other designs are created by building lightweight frameworks in all kinds of shapes and then decorating those with strings of coloured lights. The designs are a mixture of trees, both natural and holiday-decorated, animals of all kinds, and the occasional cartoon figure.

 

The entire spectacle involves over 3 million coloured lights, arranged artistically throughout the Niagara Parks, and all enhanced by the special seasonal show devised for the floodlights which illuminate the Falls after dark. In addition, there are fireworks over the falls on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm -- and daily from December 16 to January 1. Best of all, the Winter Festival of Lights -- like the parks themselves -- is free of charge to all, although donations are solicited at a couple of points to help defray the cost. If that sounds rather cheapskate to some people, it's good to remember that the Niagara Parks Commission has to maintain the entire chain of parks from Fort Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake, and do so without one single penny of support from any level of government.

 

Driving over to Niagara Falls for the Winter Festival of Lights has become a yearly tradition for me, and here I am once again. With that, I'm going to stop babbling and let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

 

There are two no-longer-used power plants upstream from the Falls. Here's the light display that the Niagara Parks puts onto the outside of the one farther upstream.

 

 

The Floral Show House, just across the road from that power plant, puts on a unique display of its own in the garden in front of the building, as well as a Christmas show of poinsettias inside the Show House.

 

The most striking part of the Festival is the display in the Dufferin Islands nature reserve, upstream from the Falls. Here, you get to enjoy not only the lights but also the reflections in the placid waters between the multiple small islands of this sanctuary. 

 

And after you've driven all around the one-way loop road through this Dufferin Islands holiday wonderland, this cute little tyke is waiting to point you towards the exit back to the Niagara Parkway.

To wrap up my visit, I indulged in one of my favourite Niagara Falls activities -- a night ride on the Niagara Sky Wheel. In spite of the rogue reflections off the windows of the gondola, this last pic gives an impression of the lights in the park combined with the floodlights on the American Falls.