Tethered Wallenda walks wire across Niagara Falls

Nik Wallenda walks over Niagara Falls on a tightrope in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Friday, June 15, 2012. Wallenda has finished his attempt to become the first person to walk on a tightrope 1,800 feet across the mist-fogged brink of roaring Niagara Falls. The seventh-generation member of the famed Flying Wallendas had long dreamed of pulling off the stunt, never before attempted. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)

Nik Wallenda walks over Niagara Falls on a tightrope in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Friday, June 15, 2012. Wallenda has finished his attempt to become the first person to walk on a tightrope 1,800 feet across the mist-fogged brink of roaring Niagara Falls. The seventh-generation member of the famed Flying Wallendas had long dreamed of pulling off the stunt, never before attempted. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)

Spectators and media gather to see the 550 metre-long tightrope that Nik Wallenda will use hangs over Niagara Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada., on Friday, June 15, 2012. Conditions appear good leading up to the nationally televised stunt scheduled for Friday night. When Wallenda leaves terra firm about 10:15, it should be in the low 60s with winds under 10 mph from the east, roughly at his back. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)

Nik Wallenda greets fans after inspecting the wire prior to his walk across Niagara Falls in Niagara Falls, N.Y., Friday, June 15, 2012. Wallenda will attempt what nobody has done before: A high wire walk directly over the precipice at Niagara Falls and 190 feet (58 meters) above the churning torrent below. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

The 550 metre-long tightrope that Nik Wallenda will use hangs over Niagara Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada., on Friday, June 15, 2012. Conditions appear good leading up to the nationally televised stunt scheduled for Friday night. When Wallenda leaves terra firm about 10:15, it should be in the low 60s with winds under 10 mph from the east, roughly at his back. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)

Bogumila Zbyszewska of Toronto photographs the tightrope that Nik Wallenda will use hangs over Niagara Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada., on Friday, June 15, 2012. Conditions appear good leading up to the nationally televised stunt scheduled for Friday night. When Wallenda leaves terra firm about 10:15, it should be in the low 60s with winds under 10 mph from the east, roughly at his back. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario (AP) ? Daredevil Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk on a tightrope across the Niagara Falls, taking steady, measured steps Friday night for 1,800 feet across the mist-fogged brink of the roaring falls separating the U.S. and Canada.

Afterward, he said he accomplished the feat through "a lot of praying, that's for sure. But, you know, it's all about the concentration, the focus, and the training."

The seventh-generation member of the famed Flying Wallendas had long dreamed of pulling off the stunt, never before attempted. Other daredevils have wire-walked over the Niagara River but farther downstream and not since 1896.

"This is what dreams are made of, people," Wallenda said shortly after he began walking the wire.

He took steady, measured steps amid the rushing mist over the falls as an estimated crowd of 125,000 people on the Canadian side and 4,000 on the American side watched. Along the way, he calmly prayed aloud.

ABC televised the walk and insisted Wallenda use a tether to keep him from falling in the river. Wallenda said he agreed because he wasn't willing to lose the chance and needed ABC's sponsorship to help offset some of the $1.3 million cost of the spectacle.

For the 33-year-old father of three, the Niagara Falls walk was unlike anything he'd ever done. Because it was over water, the 2-inch wire didn't have the usual stabilizer cables to keep it from swinging. Pendulum anchors were designed to keep it from twisting under the elkskin-soled shoes designed by his mother.

The Wallendas trace their roots to 1780 Austria-Hungary, when ancestors traveled as a band of acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, animal trainers and trapeze artists. The clan has been touched by tragedy, notably in 1978 when patriarch Karl Wallenda, Nik's great-grandfather, fell to his death during a stunt in Puerto Rico.

After he made it to the Canadian side of the falls, Wallenda said that at one point in the middle of the stunt, he thought about his great-grandfather and the walks he had taken: "That's what this is all about, paying tribute to my ancestors, and my hero, Karl Wallenda."

About a dozen other tightrope artists have crossed the Niagara Gorge downstream, dating to Jean Francois Gravelet, aka The Great Blondin, in 1859. But no one had walked directly over the falls, and authorities hadn't allowed any tightrope acts in the area since 1896. It took Wallenda two years to persuade U.S. and Canadian authorities to allow it, and many civic leaders hoped to use the publicity to jumpstart the region's struggling economy, particularly on the U.S. side of the falls.

A festive crowd gathered on both sides of the border to watch Wallenda, spreading blankets and setting up folding chairs under picture-perfect blue skies and summer-like temperatures.

Associated Press

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