Bring back Niagara Falls’ moonbow
On rare misty nights a lucky few in the entire world have seen in the sky one of the rarest of atmospheric phenomena, a shimmering silvery-white arch or bow. It is a moonbow — a nighttime rainbow — formed when a full moon’s rays refract water particles in mist.
For the luckiest of all, even the rainbow’s hues appear, as they did for Mark Twain on shipboard in the Pacific in 1866. “Splendidly-coloured lunar rainbow to-night,” he wrote in his notebook, considering himself exceptionally fortunate to see this “wonder.”
You have to plan well to see one. Track the phases of the moon, pick a cloudless night, and find a fortuitously positioned waterfall, one that throws out plenty of mist. Wait! Don’t we in Buffalo, Toronto and vicinity have one just like that near us?
Well, yes, as 19th-century visitors have told us. In William Barham’s Description of Niagara (1847), “The lunar bow, seen at night, in the time of the full moon, appears like a brightly illuminat- ed arch, reaching from side to side, and is an object of great attraction.” Poetically quoted in the book: “Hung at the curling mist, the moonlight bow/ Arches the perilous river”
Tunis’s Topographical and Pictorial Guide to Niagara (1856) tells us that it is from Goat Island that this “belt of saintly hue” is best seen. Other guidebooks from 1856 and 1918 declare that the best vantage is Luna Island. Visitors get there today over a stone bridge. Perched on the precipice between thundering flows, this three-quarteracre islet is in fact named for the shimmering lunar spectacle it once displayed.
Those romantic enough to still want to glimpse the moonbow need not despair. They just have to plan well and leave our region. They could carefully time a visit to Kentucky’s Cumberland Falls, which bills itself the “Niagara of the South,” and even offers water vantages from a “rainbow mist ride.” Cumberland may be correct on its webpage that it’s the best place in Kentucky for a selfie, but wrong that it is the only place in North America for a moonbow.
Visitors to Upper Yosemite Falls in California who are determined enough to wait there at night have brought back magnificent photos of the nighttime rainbow. For the first time ever, there is even a moonbow forecast, calculated for Yosemite by astronomers. Up the West Coast is still another North Amer- ican stage for the elusive sightings, Brandywine Falls in British Columbia.
So what about the moonbow over Niagara? Residents who have lived there all their lives have never seen it. For an explanation, we have to look to Niagara’s upstart rival, that other binationally situated natural wonder, Victoria Falls. Whatever one’s opinion about the relative wondrousness of our spectacle as compared to theirs, they’re more wondrous in still being moonbow-blessed.
A Zambian-Zimbabwean website that boasts of their falls’ moonbow tells us the sad truth and rubs it in: moonbows “used to occur at Niagara Falls but do not occur any longer because of,” as savvy North Americans will have guessed by now, “the surrounding light pollution.”
Let us not dwell on the hotels, casinos, honky-tonks, street lights and ferris wheels, whose garish lights have darkened our nighttime wonder. Let’s ask, how can we solve this glaring problem? It wouldn’t take much.
It’s not about doing more or spending more, but lighting less. The two city governments, the state or provincial parks people, and the businesses would have to douse their most offending lights, just for three-or-so nights a month of the full moon, for a few hours after dark.
In economic terms, it would not be in vain. What greater reasons than gossamer moonbeams for an evening at the falls? What finer honeymoon memory than a kiss under the moonbow?
So let’s make this real: A binational moonbow coalition committed to bringing us dark skies for a few hours a month. If the national governments can’t co-operate, two cities could, or should. In striving to revive those dark nights, let’s keep in mind that wondrous scene: the silvery arch connecting across the chasm from shore to shore. Our moonbow has always been a continental, unifying wonder.