Step by step, suspended 200 feet above Niagara Falls, Nik Wallenda took just 25 minutes on June 15 to traverse a 2-inch wire from the United States into Canada.
When it was over, he had become the first person to walk across the falls on a wire, had established his sixth world record and was one of the most talked-about daredevils since the “gee-whiz” exploits of Evel Knievel during the 1970s.
Wallenda said the walk along the 1,800-foot-long wire while balancing a 40-pound pole was a childhood dream come true after months of “intense preparation and years of anticipation.”
“When I was 6 years old, my family went to Buffalo to see the falls for the first time; that was my first glimpse of it,” Wallenda, 33, said Monday from Branson, where he is performing with his family. “That’s when the dream set in; that’s when it became a lifelong goal.”
Others have walked across wires above the Niagara River, but never had anyone walked across the falls — in this instance, the raging waters of Horseshoe Falls.
“We’ve worked on this for a little over two years,” Wallenda said with a chuckle. It was an endeavor that caused him more than a few “headaches,” he said. Securing permission from U.S. and Canadian authorities — ending a 128-year-old ban on the Canadian side — proved the toughest. He also had to make a concession with ABC, which insisted that he wear a safety harness before the network would agree to televise his walk. The broadcast drew more than 13 million viewers from around the globe.
“Never in my life have I worn” a safety harness, he said. “I was more nervous about that safety harness than I was about the walk.”
During the walk, he put all the bureaucracy and the rules out of his mind.
“I was relaxed,” he said.” All the permitting was gone from my mind. All the financing was out of my head. It went very fast. I was in the zone, focused entirely on” the wire.
“It was very peaceful.”
On the far side, the paperwork returned. After he greeted his wife and family in Canada, a customs agent asked him for his passport, which he presented.
Flying Wallendas
Wallenda is a seventh-generation member of The Flying Wallendas, a family of aerialists. His ancestors were circus performers in the 1700s. Some family members — most notably Karl Wallenda — have died during their acts. Karl Wallenda fell in 1978 while walking a wire between two hotels in Puerto Rico.
“For 200 years, this is what my family does,” Nik Wallenda said. He began wire walking at the age of 4.
When he was a child, his parents would throw objects at him as he practiced — they even shot at him with a BB gun — to train him to deal with distractions.
“My mother says it’s in my blood, in my genes,” he said.
Wallenda is known as “The King of the Wire.” In 2001, he appeared with other family members in Japan to make the world’s first eight-person pyramid across a 30-foot-high wire. He has ridden a motorcycle across a thin wire 30 feet in the air. In 2008, he bicycled across a wire suspended 135 feet above the ground between two buildings, pausing halfway through to speak live to a television audience. In 2009, he walked 200 feet above the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, Pa. — a 25-minute walk. In 2010, he did a combined high-wire bike ride and walk at the Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas.
In 2011, Wallenda performed his act hanging from a helicopter 250 feet above Silver Dollar City in Branson. He used his legs, arms and even teeth to hang from a trapeze.
Wallenda said high-wire performance is not a daredevil act and not a stunt, but rather an athletic feat requiring physical training. A “stunt,” he said, is getting into a barrel and going over a waterfall. For his thrills, he practices daily. He spends two hours a day in the gym and four more atop a wire.
“It’s a little bit of everything — mental, athletic, physical,” he said. “It takes a bit of everything to make it work.”
Branson and beyond
NIK WALLENDA is now performing at Silver Dollar City with his family, including his wife and children. The show is being put on daily through Aug. 4.
HE SAID HIS NEXT CHALLENGE will be his greatest ever: crossing the Grand Canyon atop a 2-inch wire. It will be three times as long as his 25-minute Niagara Falls walk. Permits and funding are in place, he said. “It could happen as early as next summer,” he said.
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A time-exposure photo presents a roaring Niagara Falls as a backdrop curtain June 15 as Nik Wallenda became the first person to perform the daredevil act. AP | THE CANADIAN PRESS
Discussion
Daredevil Nik Wallenda talks about world record Niagara Falls walk
Performer to be in Branson through Aug. 4
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