One October morning in 1995, Jay Cochrane stepped onto a thin steel wire a quarter mile above the Yangtze River in China's legendary Qutang Gorge.

In 53 minutes he skywalked 2,098 feet to the Lion's Face of the gorge, an accomplishment recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest wirewalk in history.

"When I looked across the gorge, my first thought was `Holy shit! You want me to walk across that?'" Jay said. "It was the first time I ever had to talk myself into a walk," he admitted. "Then I started thinking about how it could be done. I knew I would do it."

The skywalk over Qutang Gorge was the pinnacle of a life spent overcoming obstacles -- and exceeding expectations. And it sparked his desire for bigger, bolder achievements.

Could the great Niagara Falls be next?

Jay spent a month in the city of Fengjie as the wire was strung. "My biggest regret in Fengjie was that I was so busy I didn't see the effect the skywalk had on the people," Jay said.

The walk was viewed by 200,000 who trekked to the remote site, and 200 million more on China TV. The skywalk made Jay a celebrity, but he only realized how famous he'd become when he arrived back in the large cities and was recognized instantly wherever he went.

Commemorative stamps, envelopes, watches and phone cards chronicled his daring and are eagerly collected in China. He was serenaded by school children with Chinese love songs and mobbed each time he left his hotel.

As the skywalk approached, the crowds which flocked to Jay's hotel for autographs and photographs grew steadily. "I wasn't prepared for the kids," he said. "They would get all dressed up and come night after night. Perhaps I changed their lives, but I know they had a profound effect on me."

As the strains of Ravel's "Bolero" carried through the chasm, Jay paused at the middle of the wire.

"I stopped just to see where I was," he said.

"I thought, `Here we are again.' I felt alone on the wire. Then I saw one of the Yangtze River cruise ships pass underneath me and I just went, `Wow.'"

The walk also generated controversy. Western journalists questioned Jay publicly about his role as a propaganda tool for the Chinese government. The Chinese wanted the walk to bring international attention to the Three Gorges Dam, the largest of its kind to ever be constructed.

The project, now underway, is expected to create a 400-mile long lake, filling Qutang Gorge to half its height and inundating over 1,000 cities with water, including Fengjie.

Jay took the politics in stride. "Who are we to tell the Chinese that they can't build it? They didn't tell us not to build Hoover Dam. We saw all the new cities, bridges, and roads they are building."

"They have an innocence of life and an incredible sense of their culture and heritage, but they also see what they don't have. If electricity is the answer from this dam, who are we to tell them no? People look at the kids in the interior and say - look at these poor kids - but they don't feel poor or act poor. It's a way of life. Could Donald Trump live like you or me?"

Jay Cochrane has spent his life meeting the challenge of the wire and perfecting the art of skywalking.

Working outdoors, he must overcome brutal temperatures and high winds. Cochrane holds several world records, including distance (2.5 miles) and time on the wire (21 straight days).

A native of Toronto, Canada, Cochrane became an entertainer at the age of 14, when he ran away from home and joined Toronto's Royal Hanneford Circus.

Taken under the wing of Mrs. "Struppi" Hanneford, aka Princess Tajana, a well-known aerialist, he quickly moved from cleaning after the animals to walking and cycling on a wire.

"The first thing she taught me was self-respect," he said. "Whatever I become, I owe it all to her. She never judged me, and she has always been there for me."

In 1965, a poorly built tower collapsed during a performance in Toronto. Cochrane's life and career almost ended as he fell 90 feet to a concrete floor. At the time, doctors said the best Jay could hope for was walking with two canes for the rest of his life.

But after nearly four years in hospitals, Jay was back in the air. He thanks the Anglican nuns who cared for him for bringing him back to life -- and the wire. "They were determined to make me walk again because they couldn't stand the thought of me staying there," he said.

During his convalescence, Jay earned a master's degree in bridge and structural engineering from Toronto University. "At the time, I never thought that studying structural engineering would be such a pivotal choice for me," Jay said. "I talk to engineers as we prepare for walks and we can speak the same language." He now designs and rigs all his walks.

After his recovery, Jay moved straight to skywalking. His first skywalk took place in Toronto in late 1070 between two 50-story buildings. "The first time, I was scared to death," Jay admitted. "When I finished I went, `Hum. what's next?'"

Arriving in Shanghai for his second skywalk, friends noticed the buzz throughout the entire customs force at the airport. Shanghai cemented Jay's relationship with the Chinese people.

"They have changed my life. My personal regret is that I didn't start here 20 years ago. I do hope that our western influence doesn't change their culture and philosophy."

Jay's walk drew the largest crowd of the eight-day Shanghai Tourism Festival as more than 250,000 spectators lined the streets below. The skywalk was a cause for parties in skyscrapers all over Shanghai with prime viewing available in the Pearl of the Orient Tower, Shanghai's tallest structure.

"It was thrilling to be the showpiece of an event that featured over 4,000 performers," said Jay. "Shanghai is incredible, what a marvel." The 600-foot walk, 525 feet above the ground, set a world record for the longest and highest building-to-building nighttime skywalk.

Jay's lifelong dream is to walk over Niagara Falls.

"That has always been my goal," he said. Jay spent the last year trying to win approval for a walk over North America's largest cataract, something that hasn't been done in a century.

French acrobat Charles Blondin captivated the world in June 1859 by stringing a rope over the Niagara River Gorge below the falls and easily making his way across. During that summer, he made  repeated crossings, each more difficult than the last. The last man to cross the gorge made the journey in 1897, just before a ban was put in place on thrill-seeking at the falls."

Jay still hopes someday he'll walk not over the gorge -- but above the falls themselves. "For me, it is the epitome of skywalking," Jay said. "What I do is an art form, it is not thrill-seeking. To compare me to the people who take barrels over the falls is crazy. Walking on the wire is my life. A hundred years from now, I want someone to look in a book and say, I wish I had seen that or I remember my grandfather talking about that."

"I feel that is what I was put here for -- to walk across Niagara Falls."