John “Dave” Munday John David Munday was born in Caistor Centre, a small farming community in Southern Ontario in 1937.

A diesel mechanic by trade Munday was also an accomplished skydiving instructor with over 1,400 jumps to his credit, as well as a helicopter pilot.

John David Munday also had an obsession with Niagara Falls, and for many years had thought about going over the falls in a barrel.

On July 28th 1985 at around one o’clock in the afternoon Munday launched a silver and red aluminum barrel from the Canadian shoreline about two miles from the brink of the falls.

Unfortunately Mr. Munday was seen by a Niagara Parks Police officer, who quickly alerted Ontario Hydro. Within minutes the water level was dropped by over five feet marooning Munday’s barrel.

That fall Munday returned to Niagara Falls to fulfill his quest. Early on the morning of October 5th, 1985 a truck containing the barrel of Dave Munday, with Munday already inside, pulled up to the shore of the Niagara River near the American Falls.

The barrel was quickly launched into the river within one hundred and fifty yards of the brink of the American Falls and within seconds it had disappeared beneath the bubbling foaming waters of the Upper Niagara.

A small plexiglass window would allow Munday to videotape his ride over the falls. Munday survived his trip over the falls and was rescued 90 minutes later.