Although it’s been more than 10 years since Nik Wallenda made history crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope, the aerialist says he wants to recreate the career highlight before he retires.
Wallenda was born into a long lineage of circus performers and acrobats.
“My mom was six months pregnant with me and still walking the wire, so I’ve been walking the wire longer than I’ve been walking on terra forma, if you will," Wallenda told CTV News Toronto in an interview Friday.
His dream to walk across the Niagara Falls started when Wallenda was just five years old, when his parents were performing at a friend’s circus in Buffalo, N.Y.
“I sort of had this vision of walking across the Falls. I even think that I recall, and maybe I’ve just dreamt this up, but thinking why my parents haven’t done it already,” he said.
“Wire walking to my family is life. My grandfather said it best, he said, ‘Life is on the wire, every thing else is just waiting.’”
At 13, he began performing on wires.
“I think back to that time, I was very excited, obviously nervous too – what we do is dangerous and risky,” Wallenda said.
“There were nerves. I wouldn’t say fear, you know, what you would call fear I call respect. I respect what I do, and I respected the fact that the wire was dangerous," he said.
At 44 years old, Wallenda holds 11 Guinness World Records, but he says his hair-raising walk across Niagara Falls was the stunt that turned him into a household name.
HOW HE GOT TO WALK ACROSS HORSESHOE FALLS
About a dozen funambulists made the jaunt across Niagara Falls before the practice was banned more than a century ago.
Jean Francois Gravelet, better known as Charles Blondin, was the first to tightrope across the Gorge in 1859 and made 21 crossings on a 1,100-foot long rope. In 1876, Maria Spelterini became the first woman to cross the Niagara Gorge as part of the U.S. Centennial celebration.
But nobody, before Wallenda, had crossed Horseshoe Falls.
“I live by the words, never give up,” Wallenda said, recalling the arduous process it took to get permission from both the Canadian and American sides for his aerial stunt.
Wallenda said he first reached out to a state senator, submitting an economic impact study on the proposed walk.
At the time, he claimed his performance could generate up to $125 million in revenue for the region.
“I used that ammunition by sitting down with a senator and eventually going to speak in front of the U.S. Senate, the House," Wallenda said.
After a months-long effort, he eventually obtained signed legislation by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that would allow him to attempt the walk.
When it was signed into law in June 2011, the legislation stated he would have until the following August to perform the walk – and he still had to gain approval from Canadian officials.
“From what I was told, there were about 13 line walkers that tried to get permission to walk over the Falls since the Blondin walk over the last 30 years – 110 years now, plus – and none of them were able to get permission,” Wallenda said.
When he first met with the Niagara Parks Commission, they declined his request to perform because they didn’t want to set a precedent that would make it difficult to turn down future, similar requests. But after some back and forth, the commission gave the green light for Wallenda’s daredevil stunt in February 2012.
‘DREAM COME TRUE’
On June 15, 2012, at about 10:15 p.m., Wallenda stepped onto the 457-metre wire and started his walk from the U.S. side. He successfully crossed the border 25 minutes later.
“I remember there was so much heavy mist in the air that it was almost hard to see the Canadian side from the U.S.,” Wallenda recalled.
“It was surreal, it was a dream. I was like a kid who always wanted to go to Disney World their entire life and finally, at 16, their parents bring them – it was a dream come true.”
About 120,000 spectators, alongside his wife and three kids, cheered on Wallenda. Over nine million Canadians tuned into CTV News’ live special on his high wire walk, becoming the third most-watched non-sports special of the year behind the Academy and Grammy awards.
ABC News also broadcasted the stunt, after adamantly pressing Wallenda he be tethered for the duration of the walk out of consideration for the viewers – something Wallenda was against.
“I’m upset,” Wallenda told The Associated Press at the time. “I never wore a tether before so it’s just something else I have to contend with when I’m out there.”
When Wallenda got off the wire on Canadian soil, he said he couldn’t believe how quickly he'd completed the walk after months and years of planning and training.
“One of my dreams now is to actually recreate that walk for my final retirement walk," he said.
In the 11 years since his cross-country walk, Wallenda has accomplished many firsts — he’s crossed the Grand Canyon, an active volcano, and even walked on a wire between two Chicago skyscrapers completely blindfolded.
The sentimentality of his Niagara stunt, coupled with it being his only tethered walk in his career, has sparked a desire in Wallenda to make Niagara Falls his swan song.
“I don’t know when that is,” he said. “But I could see it, you know, 55 years old, or even 50, saying, ‘You know what, let’s do this. Let’s kind of put the exclamation point on the career.'"
"I think there’s something about that, I walked out of the country, and now I’m walking back home essentially.’”
With files from CTV News staff and The Associated Press
