Nik Wallenda successfully completes Niagara Falls highrope walk before spectators, television viewers

Tightrope walker Nik Wallenda walks across Niagara Falls from Buffalo, New York to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Friday evening June 15, 2012. It has been the seventh generation Wallenda family daredevils dream to make the historic walk. Emerging out of a cloud of mist, Nik Wallenda ran the last few steps to become the first man in more than a century to cross Niagara Falls on a high wire and singlehandedly bring the Wallenda name back into the public consciousness. Although the walk was mostly free of theatrics, thirty metres from the finish, he bent down on one knee. As spectators gasped, suspecting he had fallen, he raised a fist in triumph. The crowd chanted his name as he cleared the last few meters to a raised lift, moving past the lights, cranes and news vans of what had become a multi-million dollar operation. “Welcome to Canada, Nik!” screamed a spectator.

From the Canadian side, the early stages of the walk were almost completely obscured by mist from the falls, although the crowd, the largest seen in Niagara Falls in recent memory, cheered whenever someone caught a brief glimpse of Mr. Wallenda, clad in a bright red shirt.

Thousands of iPhones, iPads and video cameras were hoisted over heads to capture the walk, although most spectators would go home with photos of a tiny red dot in a white mist.

Mr. Wallenda appeared calm and steady as he walked slowly through the swirling mist during the first leg of the wire walk.

“It’s a beautiful view… A dream in the making,” he said, speaking via his headset in an interview mid-walk, and broadcast on CTV.

However, he said that the turbulent waters below made it difficult for him to see the tightrope sway.

“Water actually becomes a challenge because I can’t prepare for [the wire] as it moves. But so far so good.”

Crowds push forward to get a look at Nik Wallenda's tightrope walk over Niagara Falls in Niagara Falls, Ont., on Friday, June 15, 2012When asked about the harness – which he was required to wear by ABC, who broadcasted his daredevil feat – that tethers him to the tightrope, he said: “I feel like a jackoff, er, jackass wearing it.”

After he successfully crossed the gorge, Mr. Wallenda said that he was thinking about his grandfather as he walked the wire.

“That’s what all this is about. Paying tribute to my ancestors and my hero, Karl Wallenda.”

His father Terry Troffer, who is also his safety co-ordinator and was speaking to Mr. Wallenda through his headset throughout the walk, said he was “proud” of his son’s accomplishment.

“Nik, I’m very proud of you,” he said. “You made history and made the family proud.”

Mr. Wallenda also called his grandmother after the walk, as he promised.

“I promised you would be the first person I called,” he said.

Mr. Wallenda also said he has the permits to cross the Grand Canyon, and that’s what he will do next.

For most of the spectators grasping binoculars, taking photos and manning a sea of lawn chairs lining the lawns of the park, it was a chance to see what many described as a ”once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“I want to see history being made, the Wallenda name being brought back to the forefront,” said a Toronto man in a lawn chair, smoking a cigar.

In a city renowned for its tackiness, the massive crowd lining the Canadian side for the event was surprisingly wholesome: Indian grandmothers dressed in saris, young mothers pushing strollers and Mennonite families, all earnestly hoping to see the 33-year-old daredevil succeed.

“It’s not a nice sight seeing somebody falling to their death,” said spectator Sam Seepersad, from Toronto.

A section of fence which was visible to Mr. Wallenda when he completed his walk is decorated with a bedsheet spray-painted with the words “You made it, Nik.”

“It’s a congratulations, to let him know we care,” said Harvey Watters from Hamilton, Ont., the banner’s creator.

A tightrope stretches over Niagara Falls into Canada from Niagara Falls, New York. Tightrope walker Nik Wallenda began his attempt Friday night to become the first person to attempt to cross directly over the falls from the U.S. into Canada. Mr. Wallenda is the seventh-generation of the Wallenda family of circus artists, and has been schooled in the family business since he was two years old. Plenty in his family have been killed or maimed by the profession, including most recently his grandfather Karl, who in 1978, tumbled to his death in front of TV cameras.

“I was 14 years old when Karl fell,” said Michael Hills, a self-described daredevil fan from Southampton, Ont. His blanket on the Niagara lawn was outfitted with a handmade poster featuring a quote from the fallen Wallenda patriarch, “being on a tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.”

Technically speaking, Mr. Wallenda is a “wire walker,” not a “tightrope walker.” The wire is anything but tight. Even before he took his first steps, the cable could be seen swaying in the breeze. And, like anything else near Niagara Falls, it was slick from the perpetual mist.

A tour boat heads past Niagara Falls on the U.S.-Canada border June 15, 2012 as seen from from Niagara Falls, New York.Niagara Falls is downriver from a hydroelectric facility and according to one spectator, “they’re carefully controlling the flow so the mist doesn’t bother [Mr. Wallenda].”

Hotel rates have skyrocketed for the occasion and the Niagara Parks Commission has bumped parking from $10 to $40. A Coca-Cola is $2.50, a bottle of water is $3, and there is not a drinking fountain in sight.

Of course, Mr. Wallenda was made to make the crossing with a piece of equipment unthinkable to his 19th century predecessors: Although Mr. Wallenda had promised to keep it on, pre-walk, most spectators assumed  – or hoped – he would tear it off.

“It kind of takes away from what he does for a living,” said spectator Judy Watters. “What are they going to do? Go out into the middle of the wire and arrest him?” said another.

“He should tear it off, it’s way more badass to walk across without a harness,” said Dustin Rivait, a professional poker player from St. Catharines, Ont. Mr. Rivait knows risk – only steps from the Falls he has seen $13,000 disappear in a matter of hours. “I can appreciate risk, I am definitely one that likes to walk a thin line, but nothing like this,” he said. “Some things are just in your blood.”

Below, rescue crews were on full alert in expectation that Mr. Wallenda would detach his harness and then tumble into the river.

Mr. Wallenda did not take off the harness, but did not think that diminished his feat.

“This is something that no one in the world has ever done,” he said in his post-walk interview on CTV. “And I’ve completed it safely. Even though I had a tether, I didn’t use it.”

Tightrope walker Nik Wallenda walks the high wire from the U.S. side to the Canadian side over the Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, June 15, 2012Reportedly, Niagara Parks officials were wary bringing a wirewalker back to Niagara Falls fearing it could resurrect the days when amateur daredevils were routinely getting themselves killed, injured or trapped in illegal stunts off the waterway.

In 1995, a man zoomed off the falls in a jet ski, with the hare-brained plan that he would jump off, deploy a parachute and glide safely into the river below. The chute did not deploy, and a “loud bang” was the last bystanders heard of him.

Nevertheless, Niagara Falls’ adventurer past still looms large in local lore. Local motel rooms are decorated with grainy black and white photos of adventurers. Three years ago, a “Daredevil Exhibit” opened next to the city’s IMAX theatre with a collection of the various barrels, metal cylinders and reinforced boats that have taken daredevils over the falls or through the adjacent whirlpool. Two of the craft, a red, white and blue barrel and a jury-rigged collection of inner tubes, killed their occupants.

“One misstep of the foolhardy adventurer would have hurled him from his precarious footing and he would have disappeared from mortal eyes, until his mangled body could be picked up from below,” says a recorded voice at the museum’s wire walker exhibit.

An estimated one billion television viewers tuned in to watch Mr. Wallenda’s walk, which was held after dark in order to make it as accessible to a global audience as possible. It was also one of the first international news stories out of Canada in several weeks not involving a dismemberment or murder.

“He’s a guy with a stick and he got the world’s attention,” said Wayne, at The Drink Shop, just off the city’s main drag.

National Post, with files from Armina Ligaya