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Adventure Tourism – What Happens When a Visitor Gets Too Close to the Edge

Black and white photograph of the fall on the Metis River. The 90 foot waterfall is bordered by two steep rocky cliffs surrounded by forest. The photographer captured the waterfall from the top of the cliff on the left side. A few meters from where the photograph was taken, a man is sitting with his legs stretched out on the edge of the cliff. He is watching the waterfall and its rapid current. The photographer has made a long exposure, the river water flows from the top of the waterfall in a large white stream.

Photograph

Grand-Metis falls, About 1875

Alexander Henderson

McCord Stewart Museum

 

Summer residents did not always survive their stay in Metis. Newspapers over the years chronicle the occasional drownings, accidents and tragic deaths of summer residents or their guests.

High drama sometimes occurred without a fatality. One such incident occurred in July 1862 when a spirited horse took off with a frightened seven-year-old child in the carriage just as the Jenking family was leaving church. The horse ran a mile until local farmer Joseph Sims brought it to heel. The Jenkings gave him a hunting watch inscribed:

for his heroic conduct, at the risk of his own life, in stopping a horse at full galop, and being instrumental, in the hand of god, in saving the life of their dear child, Eliza L Jenking. Metis, C.W. July 27, 1862.

Local resident Mrs. Dugald Blue recounted an incident that nearly took the life of Miss Galt, one of eight daughters of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt, a Father of Confederation, during her visit in 1885:

…there was a very narrow escape from a fearful death at Metis Falls lately. Miss Galt of Montreal was with others at the falls and went too near the edge of the falls and the ground gave away under her feet and down she went for about 50 feet till she got a hold of a twig that was growing on the side of [the] precipice and held on till a rope was got and hauled her up. The twig gave way the moment she had the rope around her body…