These were the incredible moments when Daredevil Nik Wallenda (left, inset) became the first person to walk on a tightrope 1,800ft across misty, roaring Niagara Falls on Friday night.

The seventh-generation member of the famed acrobatic group the Flying Wallendas took incredible, steady and measured steps along a 2in wire as estimated crowd of 125,000 people on the Canadian side and 4,000 on the American side watched.

Afterwards he said: “I got through with a lot of praying, that’s for sure. But, you know, it’s all about the concentration, the focus, and the training.”

He described wind “coming from every which way”, mist so powerful he had to blink it away to maintain his vision and a breathtaking view during the night-time walk illuminated by spotlights that “compared to nothing”.

“There was no way to focus on the movement of the cable,” said Wallenda, 33.

“If I looked down at the cable there was water moving everywhere. And if I looked up there was heavy mist blowing in front of my face. So it was a very unique, a weird sensation.”

Toward the end Wallenda dropped to one knee and pumped his fist while the spectators cheered. He broke into a playful run about 15 feet from the finish line, where his wife and three children waited.

Wallenda 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.

The walk was televised and Wallenda used a tether to keep him from falling in the river. 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.

Because it was over water, the 2-inch wire didn’t have the usual stabiliser cables to keep it from swinging. Anchors were designed to keep it from twisting under the elkskin-soled shoes designed by his mother.