[ Up-tempo music plays ] -Escape with us on an epic journey along one of North America's legendary rivers, world-famous for its majestic Niagara Falls.

-A million bathtubs full of water are rushing past here every single minute.

♪♪ As we venture up close, we find a waterway churning with discoveries... ...ancient and spiritual landscapes... -Every time I paddle, I feel that energy from the spirits from my ancestors.

-...places of unspoiled beauty and adventure.

♪♪ We'll ride some of the most extreme rapids in the world... -She's looking big today.

-...and dangle precariously over a hypnotic whirlpool... -It's breathtaking.

You're not gonna get this kind of view anywhere else.

-...alongside the people most connected to these waters.

-There's just a lot of power and magic in the Niagara River.

-This is one of the most scenic river journeys in the world -- the Niagara River.

[ Theme music plays ] ♪♪ [ Up-tempo music plays ] The Niagara River is a legacy of the last ice age, dramatically carved out of the landscape 18,000 years ago.

♪♪ A remarkable three-quarters of North America's surface water passes through this 58-kilometer river, making it a formidable barrier -- and not just because of the 68-kilometer-per-hour rapids.

These waters also serve as an international border.

♪♪ -[ Indistinct yelling ] -So for the first leg of our journey, we've arranged for a special escort -- the U.S. Coast Guard, who is taking us downriver from Buffalo, New York.

-2690.

We're just about at the Peace Bridge.

Ops normal.

I've always been fascinated by bodies of water, you know, hence, I'm in the Coast Guard.

But certainly the Niagara River is special.

♪♪ It is part of a greater system, and that greater system being the Great Lakes.

It's just an amazing amount of water -- oceans inside of the United States and Canada.

To me, that's what's mind-boggling.

All of that has to flow out to the sea, and this is the choke point for that to happen -- the mouth of the Niagara River.

♪♪ You see the current wrapping around the abutment of the bridge.

That is an incredible amount of flow.

It's probably 7 to 8 knots.

And you see it's taking us past there in mere seconds.

-This is the Peace Bridge, the first of six border bridges over the Niagara River between Canada and the United States and one of the busiest border crossings in all of North America.

-The name symbolizes the peace between our two nations.

♪♪ The Niagara River is a part of the longest stretch of peaceful border anywhere in the world, where there is absolutely no conflict.

We realize between our two countries that it's on us.

This is a joint effort to keep this waterway going and flowing in the way that we want it to.

♪♪ Being a part of that is really special to me.

♪♪ -Connecting Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, the Niagara River is a short but vital cog in the Great Lakes Waterway, and our journey will be packed with attractions.

From the Peace Bridge, we travel north through the Chippewa Channel, past the International Control Dam and a shipwrecked scow and on to Niagara Falls.

Then, traveling through an 11-kilometer gorge, we pass a whirlpool and a glen, tackle the Devil's Hole Rapids, and finish our journey with a visit to New York's stellar Niagara and Canada's wine country.

[ Engine humming ] Six and a half kilometers downstream from the Peace Bridge, the waters have slowed.

Avoiding an international incident, we hop over to the Canadian side to catch a stunning sunrise.

[ Birds crying ] [ Down-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ [ Ducks squawking ] Enjoying it are a raft of ducks, a retiring fox, and a lone paddler on the water.

♪♪ This is the shoreline of the Chippewa Channel, named for some of the First Nations who populated these riverbanks.

-"Nibi" means "water" in Anishinaabemowin.

And water is life.

Knowing that my ancestors paddled the same river 5,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago -- It's incredible.

Every time I paddle, I feel that energy from the spirits from my ancestors.

[ Bird cries ] It's just magical.

-We joined Michele-Elise Burnett in a traditional birch-bark canoe, much like the ones her Métis/Algonquin ancestors would have used.

She is paddling downriver, past Grand Island towards Niagara Falls.

♪♪ -I'm telling you, my ancestors, they were engineers.

This birch-bark canoe, it's a one-man canoe for hunting and fishing.

But they did make different canoes for different waters.

It was something that the whole family did together as a collaborative.

And then they would pass that tradition on to their children.

The canoe was very, very important to us, and we held it with very high respect, because really, the canoe was our means of hunting and fishing and transportation.

-At this point in the river, we must come into shore.

Just like Michele-Elise's ancestors, we cannot navigate the Niagara the entire way.

Downstream, he falls must be bypassed by land.

But a little portaging didn't stop this from being a superhighway for Indigenous peoples for hundreds of generations.

-The Niagara was a crossroad.

It was an area that our Indigenous people would come from the north, and then they would come down here and then cross over, and they'd meet with other Indigenous nations and do trades.

-The function of the river changed dramatically once North America was colonized.

The Niagara quickly took on a new role, as a border.

But it's a role that Michele and many others with Indigenous heritage refuse to recognize.

-It's an imposed border from our point of view, because our ancestors basically roamed all of this area.

♪♪ Once a year, we go across the Niagara Falls bridge with flags and march.

As Indigenous people, we're proud to walk across a border and say we don't recognize borders.

♪♪ I look at this river, and I see that it binds us together.

Water is something that we are all connected by, and it unifies us, and it brings us together.

This river...is our lifeline.

It really is.

♪♪ [ Dramatic music plays ] -The next stop on our river will bring us to the brink of Niagara Falls... ♪♪ ...and the engineering that controls it.

-Through each one of those gates is approximately 200 cubic meters per second of water, and it takes a heck of a lot of force to get one of these gates to operate up and down.

♪♪ -Twenty-six kilometers into our journey along the Niagara River... ♪♪ ...the water restlessly rushes us towards its famous midpoint... ...Niagara Falls.

♪♪ A breathtaking sight, Niagara Falls is a wonder of the natural world.

♪♪ For millennia, almost 18% of the world's fresh water has thundered over the 180-foot drop.

♪♪ But what many don't know is that for the last 70 years, the water going over the falls has been meticulously controlled.

♪♪ This structure, just 1.5 kilometers upstream, determines whether the water gushes or trickles over the falls.

-I can tell you that we have about 3,800 tons of water going through this structure and around the structure.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] -We take a moment here to explore the International Control Dam, built by Canada and the U.S. to regulate the flow of the Niagara River.

♪♪ Jim is showing us around.

♪♪ -Here on the control structure, we have 18 hydraulically operated sluice gates, and we can operate each of them individually to regulate how much water goes over the falls and how much water that we can hold back.

Through each one of those gates is approximately 200 cubic meters per second of water.

The hydraulics are all contained within each pier, and it takes a heck of a lot of force to get one of these gates to operate up and down.

♪♪ -The sheer power of a portion of the water here is harnessed and diverted to two large hydroelectric plants further downriver.

On the Canadian side, enormous underground tunnels carry the diverted water down under the city of Niagara Falls so that it can be used to generate power for 3.8 million homes.

-Can you imagine if there was no regulation and everybody could use as much water as they wanted?

They could have conceivably dried up Niagara Falls many years ago.

-This is exactly why the dam was put in place.

The international treaty mandates that during tourist season, a minimum of 100,000 cubic feet per second of water must be sent over the falls.

But after hours and off season, the flow is reduced to half that.

-Sometimes when people come to visit, I say, "You know, if you ever come back to Niagara Falls, give us a call and we'll put a little extra water over for you."

[ Down-tempo music plays ] -It is just under two kilometers from the Control Dam to the falls... ...which the raging torrents travel in just two minutes.

So we certainly aren't boarding any vessels on this part of the water.

But just above the thunderous falls is a surprising sight -- the rusting hulk of a wreck.

♪♪ It's the relic of a century-old rescue story where the stakes were high -- 188 feet high, to be precise.

-In the river behind me is what's left of the scow, which was a boat.

It was towed by a tug.

And it was working on a project on the American side for a hydrocanal, and there was two men on board.

And on August 6, 1918, it broke away from its tug and started heading for the Great Horseshoe Falls.

♪♪ -As the scow was swept downstream towards the falls, the two unfortunate souls on board managed to open the doors and flood its compartments, slowing its progress.

-If you want to know how much water is going over the falls, the best way to picture it is a picture of bathtub full of water and multiply it by one million.

So a million bathtubs full of water are rushing past here every single minute.

And the fact the scow grounded about 600 meters from the brink -- These guys didn't have a lot of time to react.

It would have been just a few more seconds and they would have gone over.

♪♪ -The scow got caught on a rock shoal in the middle of the Canadian Channel, near the edge of the falls.

The men were marooned there, knowing that any second the torrential water could knock them loose and plummet them over the falls.

♪♪ -Back then, nobody had a helicopter, so they had to rescue these guys.

And the United States Coast Guard brought over a cannon, which doesn't sound very friendly.

But it was a rescue cannon.

They put it on top of a big hydroelectric plant here and fired a line out to the guys on the scow.

-But the lines became tangled, and it was another 12 hours until a local hero managed to travel along the line in a canvas sling and rescue the men.

[ Down-tempo music plays ] The scow has sat in the middle of the river for over 100 years, stubbornly refusing to be tossed over the falls... ...a reminder of the heroics of those involved in the rescue.

♪♪ -People care about the story of the scow, I think, because it has a happy ending.

It's a great good-news story on our river.

Everybody survived, and there was some nice international cooperation.

♪♪ -Next on our journey, the river's most famous landmark and the daredevil who took it on.

-You're walking across the Niagara Gorge on something that is that thin, like it's a Sunday walk in the park.

♪♪ -We have arrived at the Niagara River's piece de resistance -- Niagara Falls.

♪♪ With upwards of 20 million visitors per year, this is one of the most popular sites in the world.

People flock here to take in its immense power and stunning beauty.

♪♪ And today, we're getting up close and personal to appreciate the pure thrill of it.

♪♪ ♪♪ Below the falls in Canada, we board the Hornblower cruise ship.

During peak season, more than 25,000 people a day take this journey to the bottom of the falls.

♪♪ But be warned, this experience might just leave you a little misty eyed.

♪♪ -Guests that come to Niagara Falls, they're going to experience one of the most iconic boat rides in the world.

♪♪ You'll board a catamaran with open deck 360-degree view.

You'll have your iconic red Canadian rain poncho that will keep you mostly dry.

There are dry zones, so if you don't want to get wet, you can stay dry.

-The catamarans two 450 horsepower engines take us to within 28 meters of Niagara Falls.

No small maritime feat.

♪♪ And here in the wheelhouse, we meet the expert helmsman who takes on this challenge every day.

-My name is Sam Neale.

I am a captain with Hornblower Niagara Cruises.

This is my sixth year working with the company.

Maneuvering a boat down here is a very unique experience.

The water dropping from such a height and striking the water down here in such great volumes really makes for a strange and interesting current.

Sometimes it's really easy -- it feels like you drift right in -- and sometimes it does take a little bit of effort.

You have to use some engine power to get up there.

♪♪ -As we reached the climax of the tour, the Canadian Horseshoe Falls... ♪♪ ...those red ponchos are put to good use.

♪♪ -It's something that really gets the hair in your arms standing up once you get into the horseshoe and pause there.

♪♪ You try and take your pictures as best you can, but really it's about enjoying the moment, enjoying that experience as it's happening.

♪♪ The world is constantly changing, and sometimes it takes a place like this for people to come and realize that this has been here for thousands of years, unchanging.

♪♪ -It's hard to imagine a more exhilarating way to experience Niagara Falls than by cruising underneath it.

♪♪ But over the years, there have been a colorful collection of characters who took the thrill of the falls to new heights.

To the locals, they are known as the Daredevils.

-Blondin, really, he's the first.

He's an accomplished acrobat, comes here in 1858, gets mystified by Niagara Falls, then says something has to happen here.

♪♪ This is when tightrope walking became the thing of Niagara Falls.

♪♪ Blondin makes many passes and does lots of crazy things.

He makes an omelet on the tightrope at one point, he walks backwards, he carries his manager across the rope, and this is where he really got fame.

And after that, we have all these people that start imitating them, and all of them just trying one up themselves.

This is really the era of the daredevils of Niagara Falls.

-People come from all over the world to take on the danger of the Falls.

They tightrope, they go over the Falls in barrels and in tires.

But one of Clark's favorite 19th century daredevils, was Canadian tightrope walker Stephen Peer, who we can learn more about with a visit to the local history museum.

-So we've got a few things in here that I'd like to show you.

We have the costume from Stephen Peer.

This is actually the wire from his tightrope walk.

Blondin was using a real rope, and Peer was one of the first ones to use wire.

And the neat thing about Peer was that he was using a wire that was that small, about 7/8 of an inch wide.

You're walking across the Niagara Gorge on something that is that thin, like it's a Sunday walk in the park.

♪♪ -Peer successfully completed his walk across the Niagara River just downstream from the Falls in 1887, but his victory was short lived.

♪♪ Three days later, he was mysteriously found dead at the bottom of the gorge.

♪♪ -The family believed that some jealous of him -- jealous of his fame and fortune, and what he was able to accomplish -- actually murdered him.

The police reported as suicide, but at this stage we will never know.

♪♪ -As we continue our river journey, we'll switch our watercraft and take to the air above a giant whirlpool.

♪♪ -It's breathtaking.

You're not going to get this kind of view anywhere else.

♪♪ ♪♪ -We are just over half way along our journey on the Niagara River, the fast flowing border river between Canada and the United States.

♪♪ And as we leave the timeless sight of Niagara Falls, we see that time has taken its toll on the landscape around it.

♪♪ 12,500 years ago, the Falls was more than 10.5 kilometers downstream.

Slowly receding upstream, eroding the limestone riverbed, it has left a spectacular scar on the landscape -- The Great Gorge.

We reach an unnavigable part of the river, funneling frantically through the top of the gorge as class six whitewater.

♪♪ From the banks, we can admire the Himalayan waves named for, you guessed it, their height.

These are some of the largest rapids on Earth, and the gorge has another dramatic effect on the river.

Just 5 kilometers from the falls, it makes a sudden, sharp turn, creating a mesmerizing natural phenomenon -- a giant whirlpool.

♪♪ [ Bell rings ] Here, in lieu of getting on the water, we'll float above it, hitching a ride on the antique Aero Car.

-Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Lori.

We've been running since 1916, so way over 100 years.

It was built and designed by a Spanish engineer by the name of Leonardo Torres Quevedo.

The Aero Car itself was built in Spain and then they brought it over and they assembled it on our 500 meter cables.

-Powered by a 50 horsepower electric motor and suspended 250 feet above the river on six sturdy cables, The Aero Car crosses the gorge directly over the whirlpool.

-You can hear the power of the water here.

♪♪ 170 million liters of water comes through this per hour.

♪♪ Right now the whirlpool is going in a counter clockwise direction.

That's its natural direction.

But between 12:00 and 8:00 a.m., it'll actually change direction to a clockwise direction, because more water is diverted to our power plants.

-We crossed the international border four times during our 8.5 minute trip on the Aero Car.

[ Bell rings ] But no need to pack a passport, our trip begins and ends on the Canadian side of the border.

-Believe it or not, I've worked here for 31 years.

I never get sick of it.

Never.

Oh, you're welcome.

Let me get the gate for you.

It's the beauty of it.

Fall is my favorite time here with the colored trees.

It's breathtaking.

You're not going to get this kind of view anywhere else.

♪♪ -From its source at Lake Erie, we have followed the Niagara River on its short but tumultuous 32 kilometer journey so far through a channel, a dam over a waterfall and a whirlpool to the Niagara Glen.

♪♪ Here, the current almost seems to pause to appreciate the view as we pass through a very special landscape.

♪♪ We leave the water for a moment to explore this pocket of pristine Carolinian forest.

-The tree species here is stuff we will find in the Carolinas of the United States.

The topography, the river have created a microclimate that creates temperatures that sustain these trees.

♪♪ -With 4 kilometers of hiking trails, over 400 species of birds, rare plants and endangered animals, and 600 year old trees, this is a naturalist's paradise.

♪♪ And don't get Corey started on these prehistoric geological formations.

-The boulders behind us are interesting because they actually show you a 400 million years of natural history.

We have evidence of a seabed about 250 million years ago.

We have fossilized coral and different sea creatures such as trilobites and crinoids.

♪♪ Long after the ancient sea receded, these gigantic boulders formed part of the Niagara riverbed.

They would have been pummeled by the falls that once stood here 8,000 years ago.

And now, ghosts of those falls, they provide one of the most unique recreational activities on the Niagara River.

-The line I'm working on right now is called Black Eagle.

It's rated V9, which is just a difficulty grade for bouldering.

Misty and Ethics have driven 14 hours from Quebec to go bouldering here.

♪♪ -Yeah.

♪♪ There's a technical section where I need to invert and try to get my feet above my head to escape the roof of the cave and be able to finish the boulder.

♪♪ So, that's where I'm stuck at right now.

-Do you wanna try that again, or do you want to try it from the bottom?

-I'll try from the bottom.

-Climbing and just having the sound of the water behind you, and when you look back and you see that blue water rushing, it's beautiful.

The setting definitely changes how nice the climbing area is.

-As we continue our journey, we get back on the water with a splash.

♪♪ -Everybody on the trip gets very, very wet.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Just downstream from the Niagara Glen, we are back on the water.

Our pilot today is John.

He takes us under another international border bridge at Queenston, Lewiston, and we find ourselves at a part of the river ominously called The Devil's Hole.

♪♪ Named for its extreme depths, this is where the Falls originally stood 12,000 years ago.

-Water depths here -- 210 feet.

The deepest part of the entire gorge because that's where the original plunge pool of Niagara Falls was 12,000 years ago.

-Here we are going to interrupt our journey downstream and go against the flow for a moment.

♪♪ Quite literally.

We are going to take a ride back up some of the most powerful rapids in the world, because why not when you have jet power on your side?

[ People screaming and cheering ] ♪♪ -This is just a big vacuum cleaner of water.

That's what a jet boat is.

It sucks water up into it, the engine pressurizes it and shoots it out the back, and that gives you both your propulsion and your steering.

♪♪ -Today, we are riding on one of John's fleet of nine jet boats that he designed specifically to take on the class five rapids of the Devil's Hole and carry visitors up the gorge to the Great Niagara whirlpool.

-If you're looking for big waves, big whitewater, the Niagara Gorge is certainly one of the world's foremost.

There's just so few places in the world that water is channeled into such a tight area like that.

And that's what we have here in the gorge.

Going up the rapids, it's so smooth.

But when you come back down river, the waves crash back upriver onto the nose of the boat, and that's where the water starts to fly.

♪♪ And everybody on the trip gets very, very wet.

♪♪ -It's certainly "refreshing" to get back on the water.

♪♪ -All right, folks, how we doing?

[ People "Whoo!"

] Perfect!

-Irina and Ruslan are from Russia.

It's their first time on the Niagara River.

-It was wonderful and it was exhilarating, I would say.

-Immensely enjoyed it.

-Yes.

-Terrific.

-Did you like being soaked?

-I did, of course I did.

-It was fun.

-It was very fun.

-The restless waters of the Niagara River push on and just as we reach the end of the gorge, we see perched on the cliff at a place called Queenston Heights, a grand monument that looks strangely out of place in this new world wilderness.

Carved from local limestone, it stands a full 16 feet taller than Nelson's Column in London.

The figure on top is also a hero of the British Empire.

♪♪ His name is Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, and he is the man credited with helping stop an American invasion that would have seen Canada erased from the map completely.

-The river is a pretty good defensive boundary.

Like any good moat, kind of keeps the other side outside of your castle.

The Falls and the gorge in many ways also limit where you can cross the river.

So as long as you can control some of those crossing points, you get to control this chunk of North America in this chunk of Canada.

-Today, the Niagara is part of the longest undefended border in the world.

But that wasn't the case in 1812 when American forces invaded British Canada.

There was a force defending these heights, and in command was General Brock.

-General Brock is a British soldier.

He'd been in Canada for about 10 years.

He has a very small army, which is a mix of his British Redcoats, local Canadian guys, and native allies who make a very small but very motivated force.

In the Canadian militia, there's even a group of black soldiers who actually petition General Brock to raise their own fighting unit.

-On the morning of October 13, close to 1,000 American soldiers, having crossed the Niagara under cover of darkness, managed to climb the gorge and launch a surprise attack on the small army led by Brock on the Heights.

♪♪ -They scale the gorge, get up on the heights and take over, and it's in trying to take the heights back that General Brock gets killed.

For a while, the only defenders of Canada are about 100 native warriors.

-A little way away from General Brock's column is another monument, less imperially grand in nature, but just as significant, commemorating those native warriors who held off the American invaders for hours that day.

-This is the landscape of nations.

This is a relatively new memorial that was put up to honor the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee and their Anishinaabe allies, who not only fought throughout the War of 1812, but of course, their ancestors have been here for thousands of years where we're standing today.

These two gentlemen represent two of the leaders who fought here, even though they knew that all their British and Canadian friends had ran off, that General Brock was dead, that they probably wouldn't be taken prisoner by their American adversaries, and they knew they were up number 10 to 1, they still fought on.

-The tide of the battle turns when the British and Canadians reform up on the heights and capture almost all the American troops.

-If this battle had gone differently, we'd be part of the United States, which for some people back then may not have affected their lives.

But for the people that were of loyalist stock, certainly the black population and the native population were highly motivated to fight.

♪♪ -The 1812 war waged for another 28 months, but this was one of its pivotal battles, one that ensured that the Niagara River remained the trusty, fast flowing border between two countries.

♪♪ In the next part of our journey, we'll visit the little miracle chapel that survived the power of an ice jam on the Niagara.

♪♪ -Ice surrounded the chapel, water level kept rising, Docks, homes, started getting destroyed along the river.

♪♪ -We are entering the last 8 kilometers of our journey along the Niagara River.

These calmer waters and banks are a destination for sport, play, and enjoying nature.

Here at Stellar Niagara, a half kilometer nature reserve is teeming with waterfowl and gulls who enjoy the river year round.

Because it's so fast flowing, the river doesn't freeze, but the lakes at either end do.

And before booms were installed, that ice could be devastating.

♪♪ -The appalling weather that has recently swept much of America and Canada has frozen this vast area of the Niagara River.

-In 1955, there was a storm in Lake Ontario pushing the ice upstream.

There was a storm on Lake Erie breaking up the ice, sending the ice downstream.

Ice dam formed, water level kept rising.

All the ice started jamming up.

Docks, homes, started getting destroyed along the river.

-On the banks of the nature preserve, sits a small historic chapel built by the Sisters of Saint Francis.

It's known as the Miracle Chapel because in 1955, it was right in the flow of the ice jam.

Sister Maura Fortkort witnessed the events and remembers them well.

-There was a rumble and then the ice just jumped up in the air.

-The ice was 40 feet thick in places.

There was talk of dynamiting it to break it up, but that was deemed useless.

So people watched helplessly as it caused the river to rise by up to 15 feet, flooding freezing water and huge chunks of ice over its banks.

-The water came over what would have been the shoreline, and normally that would have been like 10 to 12 feet down, and the ice had built around the chapel.

Everybody was praying for the chapel to survive and asking Our Lady's protection for the chapel and for all of us.

♪♪ -The jam lasted a week and caused quite a stir across Western New York and the globe.

-There was a steady stream of cars along here.

I read one newspaper article that said, with the highest volume of traffic that they've ever had on the River road, you know, that was pretty exciting.

I mean, we were just excited to know that we were really witnessing history and that we were there.

-And they may have been witnessing something else, too, because once the water receded, the nuns discovered that their beloved chapel was somehow still standing.

-We do believe it was a miracle that it survived.

♪♪ Everybody felt that it was our prayers to Our Lady that saved the chapel.

♪♪ -The ice took out docks and homes all along the river, not the chapel.

♪♪ You know, I can't really explain it myself, but, you know, I know there's just a lot of power and magic in the Niagara River here.

♪♪ ♪♪ -We are almost at the end of our incredible journey along the Niagara.

As the river flows into Lake Ontario, we arrive at its most affluent, lush region.

♪♪ Here, the river and the lake work together to physically influence the climate.

They create mild temperatures, extending the season and making this an attractive destination for tourists, whether exploring by boat or on land.

♪♪ And at the center of it, nestled between the lake and the river, is one of the most picturesque towns in Canada, best visited by horse drawn carriage.

♪♪ Once the capital of British Upper Canada, Niagara-on-the-Lake is famous for its historic buildings, quaint bed and breakfasts, and theater festival.

♪♪ -Coming up on the right is the first provincial courthouse in Upper Canada.

This is used for live theater by the Shaw Festival and is known as the Courthouse Theater also.

♪♪ -Visitors flock here to enjoy carriage rides, fine dining, to soak up the culture, and to sample a refined local specialty -- ice wine.

♪♪ No one knows ice wine better than this man.

-Klaus is a 13th-generation winemaker whose family immigrated from Germany to establish a vineyard here on the banks of the Niagara.

♪♪ ♪♪ Klaus prefers fancy cars to riverboats, but the waterway is vital to his wine business.

♪♪ -Niagara River, for me, means life.

♪♪ It provides water for my plants.

It provides winter protection for my plants.

It's a very important part in our winemaking process and our growing process.

♪♪ We have actually our own terroir, which is a combination of soil and climatic conditions and which gives a very specific characteristic to our wines.

♪♪ -What a sweet way to end our river journey amongst the vineyards of the largest ice wine producing region in the world.

♪♪ Klaus grows 16 varieties of grape here.

And much of the crop is being harvested right now before the winter.

♪♪ Unless it's destined for ice wine, those grapes need special treatment.

-A little bit goes a long way.

-Ice wine is made from frozen grapes.

The leaves of grapes until it's cold enough and it's 10 degrees Celsius.

The water in a grape is a solid now, so you squeeze it and you have this liquid which is almost like honey-like.

Just follow me.

That's an actual wine press we use for ice wine making.

They do look antique, but actually they are new and the best and most modern technology right now to press ice wine.

In a regular wine, out of one kilogram of grapes, you get about 700 milliliter of grape juice.

On ice wine, out of one kilogram of ice wine grapes you end up with about 70 milliliters.

So it's effective to 10.

Hence, ice wine is very expensive.

And we call it liquid gold.

♪♪ Mm.

Tasty.

People ask me, "So how do you like your work?

How do you like your job?"

Then you realized I never worked a day in my life.

It's a lifestyle.

It's a passion, what you do.

♪♪ Living here in Niagara River, it's just so stunning.

I could live anywhere in the world.

But I choose to live here.

♪♪ ♪♪ -It has been an enlightening and awe-inspiring 58 kilometer journey along the Niagara.

♪♪ From border river to natural wonder.

Through waters spiritual and fierce.

We have witnessed a larger than life river teeming with surprises, unforgettably unique, and full of adventure.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪