City of Port Colborne

Our Incredible Shrinking Mill is a strange phenomenon produced by interplay of light, shoreline, water and trees. The closer you get, the smaller it appears.

Take Cement Plant Road south to Lakeshore Road, turn left (east) and look straight ahead to the bend in Lakeshore Road. The mill looks almost close enough to touch, but as you approach the Gravelly Bay, it shrinks farther and farther away.

This is simply an optical illusion, much as the same as the Magnetic Hill in Moncton, New Brunswick where parked automobiles appear to roll uphill. As you drive west on Lakeshore Road you can see the Mill in the distance. At this point your view is framed by Sugarloaf Hill on the right and large trees and houses on the left. Suddenly you emerge into an open area with a large vertical structure (the Mill) standing on a fat horizon with the bay in front. Your perspective is thrown off and the vertical alignment of the Mill, in conjunction with the refraction of the light off the shallow water, creates an illusion that the structure has suddenly shrunk.