 Hello and welcome to Ride History with Amusement Insiders. I'm your host Jasmine and today I wanted to talk about a ride actually outside of Canada's Wonderland. So we're not quite at the end of our first season of this series but that said as we sort of veer into our second season I did want to start to branch away from Canadian themed rides and attractions and really start branching out as far as what we're looking at. So today I wanted to give you a little bit of history about another famous Canadian ride but a little bit closer to the US border. So many may know that in the early 1960s John Holler founder and owner of Marine Land started his business with just three sea lions in a tank on a small parcel of land in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Now these first tanks which eventually branched from just one tank to actually two were created by John himself. That is right John Holler the owner and operator of Marine Land actually welded these tanks and installed the portholes for visitors to view the animals inside. He then filled the parking lot with junk cars from a local wrecker to make it appear as though the park was full and to pique people's curiosity. He then opened the park with a 25 cent admission charge and an additional 25 cent charge to feed the animals. John's clever little plan was successful and Marine Land began to evolve from that point forward. Throughout the 1980s Marine Land went through a multi-billion dollar expansion and over the following years the park evolved into the over 1,000 acre amusement park that we know today. So this brings us to the main star of this episode, Dragon Mountain. So during that period of rapid expansion in the 80s that I just mentioned, Marine Land partnered with Aerodynamics then Aerohus to design, construct, and open its most ambitious project, the Dragon Mountain roller coaster. Dragon Mountain is a truly unique custom looping coaster and is often referred to as a terrain coaster because of its dependency on the man-made terrain on which it rests. Park owner John Hohler had a real vision for this coaster to stand on and interact with an actual mountain so he built an 18-story mountain on what was originally level terrain to be the setting for the Dragon Mountain coaster. Now as well as this towering man-made mountain, John Hohler had a unique creative vision for the theming of this attraction and intended for the ride to have many other immersive theming elements including two underground tunnels, a volcano, and a replica of the famous Niagara Falls waterfall which was actually located not too far away. And this replica of Niagara Falls would be roughly a quarter scale. So as I mentioned the theming plans for this ride were ambitious to say the least. While Hohler did get his mountain terrain and underground tunnels as well as some unique ride elements and world record breaking elements, there were also numerous budget cuts throughout the process and some theming elements had to be sacrificed. The most notable cuts included the waterfall and volcano theming elements. These budget cuts actually happened in the middle of production so the ride was left with some unfinished and really unattractive elements to the public eye for many years following its opening. Luckily the volcano feature was finished in 2006 around the helix and the abandoned structural elements for the Niagara Falls replica were removed after it was decided that the waterfall would not be completed. Though it's a shame that Dragon Mountain never saw the completion of all of its planned theming elements, there are still so many unique and interesting aspects to this coaster. First and foremost when Dragon Mountain opened it was actually considered to be a world record breaking roller coaster as the world's tallest full-circuit coaster. It actually held this title until Magnum XL 200 opened at Cedar Point in 1989. Interestingly Dragon Mountain was actually the last roller coaster to hold that record and include inversions. In fact two of the four inversions on Dragon Mountain take place in a ride element that is unique to that coaster called a bowtie. This element is aptly named since it actually does look like a bowtie and it's a really unique experience not only in the feel of the element when you're on the ride but also in the fact that it's the only ride with a bowtie element on the planet. Now this bowtie element is actually really similar to the batwing element found on other aero models however without the reversal of direction. So world's tallest is not the only record breaking claim to fame that Dragon Mountain has gone for over the years. To this day Marine Land still claims that Dragon Mountain has more tunnels than any other roller coaster in the world with a total of 1163 feet of tunnel length. And the final record breaking claim that Marine Land makes for this ride is that Dragon Mountain is the quote world's largest steel roller coaster. Though this is not necessarily believed by all coaster enthusiasts as a legitimate claim since there are longer and taller rides out there these days. This ride does spread over 30 acres of land and when the acreage and scope of the man-made mountain itself are considered it could be argued that this is a fair claim for Marine Land to make to this day. And I'd love to know what are your thoughts on this whole world's largest claim that Marine Land makes on Dragon Mountain. Do you agree? Do you disagree? And what's your reasoning for your thoughts? Please tell us in the comments down below. Now with all of that said let's dive into the ride experience of Dragon Mountain. At a top height of 186 feet, a first drop of 80 feet, a top speed of 50 miles per hour, and a total length of 5,500 feet, Dragon Mountain is aero's longest looping coaster by far and a really unique experience given all of the terrain elements and the lengthy runtime of three minutes and 30 seconds. Designed by Ron Tumor and costing a total of 9 million Canadian dollars, Dragon Mountain has remained operating since it first opened to the public in 1983. With three trains on this ride that have seven cars per train, the riders are arranged in two across seating in two rows per total of 28 riders per train. Now with all of that said the rider's experience actually starts well before they even board the train as they approach the ride on foot. Their experience starts when they stumble upon the looming dragon's head carving where they must enter the dragon's mouth and venture through the dark caves within in order to join the queue for the ride. Even the station for this ride is completely themed as the inside of the Dragon Mountain system of tunnels and caves. Now once they board their train riders begin their journey up two separate chain lifts to the top of the hill. Once they reach the top they turn to the left and dive down the 80-foot descent into the first two inversions back to back vertical loops. From there the ride mostly follows the man-made mountain terrain covering vast amounts of space over the park's property and entering the helix within the volcano element. After entering the first tunnel element riders continue around the ride terrain where the Niagara Falls element was originally intended to be and then into the second tunnel and finally into the bowtie element. The ride then continues along more track following close to the terrain before completing its cycle into the final break run. Now while I haven't ridden Dragon Mountain myself in quite a few years it was always a really great ride experience. It's definitely one of Arrow's most unique creations and a really quirky credit to add to your coaster count if you're into that kind of thing. It's definitely an experience you won't find anywhere else. Now I know what some of you are thinking no matter what I say or do you are never going to visit Marine Land because of the many controversies that this park has been through especially in recent years and though Marine Land has had that fair share of controversy over the years and though the future seems somewhat up in the air these days Dragon Mountain really is one of the best things to come from the history of this park. So here's to hoping that the park is either given the TLC that it deserves and needs for many years now or sold to another company that will preserve rides like this and bring Marine Land up to its full potential and full glory. It would be awesome to give enthusiasts and tourists much more of a reason to visit this park and to help bring it back to life. And whether or not you agree with Marine Land's history when it comes to animal captivity I hope we can all agree that the park the location and the rides within it could have so much more to offer to tourists and ride enthusiasts all over the world if it was properly maintained and properly invested in going forwards. And for those of you who don't know this is a specific topic that amusement insiders and our whole team here has become increasingly interested in in recent months especially since it was announced that John Hohler passed away and that the future of this park could potentially be up in the air because of that. So please stay tuned to Amusement Insiders as we continue to advocate for a much brighter future for Marine Land whether it's in the hands of Disney or Merlin or some other major contender in the amusement and theme park industry. So with that I will wrap up this video. Thank you for watching this ride history video on Dragon Mountain. I hope you enjoyed. Please make sure to share any thoughts ideas or fun facts that you might have about Dragon Mountain down below and I hope to see you in the next video. Bye!