Millions of years ago, retreating glaciers scratched a series of long, deep finger-like lakes—the Finger Lakes, in fact—into the center of New York State. The lakes are fed by networks of streams and creeks, many of which make their last entry into the lakes through streams filled with cascading waterfalls.
And then, about 200 years ago, some of those cascades became the power for early American industry, turning mills and both complicating and easing transportation: Hard to travel over waterfalls, but the falls were a ready source to keep canals filled and navigable.
No, she’s not fishing: there’s a dog swimming at the end of that leash!
Ithaca, New York grew up around some of those falls; it’s almost unique in how much falling water is within the city limits, short blocks from downtown and bordering its most famous campus, Cornell University. Despite their bucolic appearance today, they were once heavily industrialized.
And Cornell is part of the story. One of the major gorges (“Ithaca is Gorges,” is the local tourism slogan), Cascadilla, is part of the University’s Botanic Gardens. But the Cornell connection to gorges is far older than the University. Ezra Cornell, later to found the university as well as the Western Union company arrived in Ithaca as a 21-year-old and was hired to improve operations at a mill along Fall Creek, which flows over the top of Ithaca Falls.
His bold plan, to blast a tunnel through from near the top of the falls, provided a controllable and powerful stream of water at the bottom. It’s long out of service, but one of its outflows can still be seen near the trail entrance, in an area where mills and factories once stood.
While there’s no really visible sign of this past itself, other than the bore, there are modern signs that tell us, unfortunately, about a poison legacy left behind. The last industry in the gorge, the Ithaca Gun Company factory, closed in 1987 and was razed, but it left behind pollutants in the soil, mainly lead.
Despite Superfund clean-ups in 2002 and 2015, the problem is still there, and makes a jarring contrast to the hikers, picnickers, fishers and dog-walkers who come out to enjoy the short trail and the magnificent falls.
Most of the rock lining the gorges in Ithaca and the Finger Lakes area generally is sedimentary, and has been worn down and sheared off by action of the streams over millenia.
My grand-dog Luna, who turned out to have a surprising interest in moving water. She’s no fan of baths, but enjoyed playing at the edge of the streams.
