While crossing across the Niagara River into Canada recently to view the falls from the Canadian side (the view really is better from Canada — they get the best falls, and the best view), we noticed a pillar at the Canadian end of the bridge a coat of arm with a lion and a unicorn (the Royal Arms of Canada), and an inscription from Genesis 9:12-17:
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15 and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
I had known the name of the bridge was the rainbow bridge, but I hadn’t known about the Bible connection. But as you see in the attached pictures, the rainbow is a prominent theme at Niagara Falls — the spray from the falls catches the light so you see them, often even double rainbows, from most any angle you look. And back in the 1940s when the bridge was built, they still remembered the source story of the rainbow to quote it on the bridge. Thank goodness no one has tried to have it updated yet in our modern age.
Pictures follow:
At The Rainbow 