When people from the Old World are asked what first comes to mind when they think of Canada, two of the most common refrains are Justin Bieber and the Niagara Falls. While popstars like the Biebs are a subject of controversy among Canucks, waterfalls have always held a place of reverence and wonder in the Canadian heart.
Long before Captain George Vancouver first plied the waters of the Salish Sea, or Simon Fraser dipped his paddle into the river that would come to bear his name, the Coast Salish of southwestern British Columbia believed that the cascades in their own countries were the abodes of slalakum – dangerous preternatural entities which exude an aura of mystery and power. This eerie notion is supported by the many dark stories and legends which surround waterfalls across the country, from the Canadian Shield to the Far North. In this piece, we will explore nine of the spookiest waterfalls in Canada.
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Niagara Falls
Undoubtedly the most famous of their kind in the country, the Niagara Falls are a collection of three massive cataracts over which the Niagara River plunges. As the river straddles the Ontario-New York border, so, too, do the waterfalls. The largest of the three are the Horseshoe Falls, also known as the ‘Canadian Falls,’ as two thirds of them lie on the Canadian side of the boundary line. The American Falls, as their name suggests, rest entirely on the American side of the divide. The Bridal Veil Falls, the smallest of the three, are also located on the American side. Taken together, these Niagara Falls comprise the largest waterfalls by flow rate in the world.
Over the years, a number of people and objects have tumbled over these cascades to crash into the misty chaos below. In 1837, in the wake of the failed Upper Canada Rebellion, a group of rebels led by William Lyon Mackenzie, who hoped to create a Canadian republic independent of the British Empire, took refuge on Navy Island just upriver of the falls. Their island camp was routinely supplied by an American steamboat called the SS Caroline, sent to their aid by the sympathetic U.S. government. When the British learned of this development, a party of Canadian militiamen sabotaged the vessel, killing a member of its crew and driving off the rest before allowing the current to carry it over the falls.
In 1901, a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor, in an effort to raise retirement money, went over Horseshoe Falls in a barrel. To the astonishment of onlookers, she emerged from her wooden submarine on the other side unscathed save for a minor head wound.
And every day, a number of fish go over the Niagara Falls of their own accord. According to some estimates, about 90% of them survive the fall.
According to an old Iroquois legend, the first person to go over the falls was a young Seneca widow named Lelawala. After losing her husband and suffering other misfortunes, the luckless woman decided to end her life. One day, she got into her canoe and paddled down the Niagara River with the intention of plunging over the Niagara Falls.
No sooner had her canoe began its descent into frothy oblivion than Lelawala was caught by Heno, the benevolent Iroquois god of thunder. The deity took the girl to his home behind the waterfall, where he and his sons nursed her back to health. Upon her recovery, the widow became the wife of Heno’s youngest son. Together, the couple raised their family in a cave behind the waterfalls. From 1846 until the present day, Lelawala’s epithet, the ‘Maid of the Mists’, has been the name of various ferries which carry passengers along the Niagara River at the base of the falls. Some say that if, if you look closely at the mist that drifts up from Horseshoe Falls, you can see the image of Lelawala.
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Virginia Falls
This magnificent 96 metre (315 foot) landmark, nearly twice the height of Niagara Falls, lies in the mountainous heart of northwestern Canada, at the edge of the Northwest Territories’ border with the Yukon. Christened ‘Virginia Falls’ in the summer of 1928 by British gentleman explorer Fenley Hunter, who named the landmark in honour of his daughter, this roaring cascade is perhaps the most spectacular feature in the storied Nahanni National Park – a place of myth and mystery more popularly known as the Headless Valley.
For centuries, the valley of the South Nahanni River, on which Virginia Falls lie, have been the setting of dark legends which tell of lost tribes, lost gold, evil spirits, and monstrous predators. One of the Nahanni’s many legends pertains to Virginia Falls itself, or, more specifically, to the limestone pillar which bisects its crown. Informally referred to as “Mason’s Rock” in honour of Canadian naturalist, canoeist and filmmaker Bill Mason, this iconic spire is supposed to house the spirit of one of the Naha, a brutal mountain tribe whose members raided the camps of the Slavey and Kaska Dene in the Liard lowland in ancient times. Legend has it that, in the mists of prehistory, when Dene warriors marched into the Nahanni Valley to put an end to the Naha predations once and for all, their ancient enemies were nowhere to be seen. All that remained of the alpine marauders were the ashes of their campfires, still warm and smoking, and a curious rock newly-perched atop Virginia Falls. Legend has it that Mason’s Rock is the last remains of a fleeing Naha warrior, perhaps turned to stone by the evil wailing spirit that haunts the valley.
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Bloody Falls
Another northern cascade with a gruesome history, this tundra rapid, located near the mouth of the Coppermine River in northwestern Nunavut, owes its sanguinary sobriquet to a massacre which took place there in the summer of 1771.
The previous December, Hudson’s Bay Company explorer Samuel Hearne set out on snowshoe from Prince of Wales Fort, a frozen stone fur trading fortress on the shores of Hudson Bay, Manitoba, with a band of Chipewyan Dene, tasked with exploring an arctic waterway which would come to be known as the Coppermine. During the course of their northwestern journey, Hearne and his native guides were joined by Yellowknife warriors who hoped to do battle with the Copper Inuit of the Arctic Circle. In mid-July, the combined party discovered an Inuit camp which they resolved to attack. Hearne was forced to watch with helpless horror as his travelling companions, on a mosquito-infested summer night, crept into Eskimo tents pitched on the banks of the chute that would come to be known as Bloody Falls.
“In a few seconds the horrible scene commenced,” Hearne wrote in his memoir. “It was shocking beyond description; the poor unhappy victims were surprised in the midst of their sleep, and had neither time nor power to make any resistance; men, women, and children, in all upwards of twenty, ran out of their tents stark naked, and endeavoured to make their escape; but the Indians having possession of the landside, to no place could they fly for shelter…
“The shrieks and groans of the poor expiring wretches were truly dreadful; and my horror was much increased at seeing a young girl, seemingly about eighteen years of age, killed so near me, that when the first spear was struck into her side she fell down at my feet, and twisted round my legs, so that it was with difficulty that I could disengage myself from her dying grasps. As two Indian men pursued this unfortunate victim, I solicited very hard for her life; but the murderers made no reply till they had stuck both their spears through her body, and transfixed her to the ground. Then they looked me sternly in the face, and began to ridicule me, by asking if I wanted an Esquimaux wife; and paid not the smallest regard to the shrieks of agony of the poor wretch, who was twining round their spears like an eel… My situation and the terror of my mind at beholding this butchery, cannot easily be conceived, much less described… even at this hour I cannot reflect on the transactions of that horrid day without shedding tears.”
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Montmorency Falls
Known as the Chute Montmorenci to the French-speaking residents of Quebec, this towering 83 metre (272 foot) cataract is located less than seven miles up the St. Lawrence from the heart of old Quebec City, just west of the southernmost tip of the Ile d’Oreans, at the mouth of the Montmorency River. For centuries, visitors of this breathtaking feature have spotted a woman in a white gown weeping in its vicinity, either sobbing on the heights atop the cascade or walking listlessly at its base, before vanishing into thin air. Some have purportedly watched this forlorn figure hurl herself from the precipice and disappear into the spray below, prompting phone calls to the local police.
Legend has it that this disturbing apparition is the ghost of 16-year-old Mathilde Robin, a local maiden whose tale is set in the Seven Years’ War, when France and Britain were locked in a deadly struggle for global supremacy. At that time, Mathilde was engaged to marry a local habitant named Louis, whose surname is variously given as Tessier or Gauthier. Their wedding was to take place in the summer of 1759, and in preparation for the event, Mathilde busily employed herself in sewing her own wedding gown.
By June, British troops had ensconced themselves at Point Levis, across the St. Lawrence from Quebec, in preparation for an imminent assault on the city. Louis patriotically enlisted in the Canadian militia, and spent his days building entrenchments on the banks of the St. Lawrence under the command of General Louis-Joseph de Saint-Veran, Marquis de Montcalm. When duty permitted, however, he and his fiancé rendezvoused on the heights atop the Montmorency Waterfall, away from the prying eyes of the soldiers on the hills below.
On the night of July 9th, 1759, General James Wolfe, who would famously clash with Montcalm in the decisive Battle of the Plains of Abraham two months later, landed 4,000 British regulars on the northern shores of the St. Lawrence and established a camp just east of the Montmorency Falls. On July 31st, the British launched their attack on French artillery batteries east of the city near the village of Beauport, bombarding them with cannon fire from their Montmorency battery and warships in the St. Lawrence while Wolfe’s regulars forded the Montmorency River beneath the waterfall. The redcoats who made it to the western shore marched uphill toward the French entrenchments, into a hail of musket balls fired by the Canadian defenders. During the attack, a heavy rain descended on the battlefield, dampening the gunpowder of both the French and the British, and rendering the hill too slippery for the recoats to climb. Recognizing the futility of further engagement, Wolfe withdrew his troops, conceding defeat in what would come to be known as the Battle of Beauport.
Legend has it that Louis was one of the sixty Canadians killed in this engagement. Upon learning of his fate, a heartbroken Mathilde is said to have donned her new wedding dress, climbed to the top of the Montmorency Falls where she and her betrothed had spent their happiest moments, and threw herself into the torrent. Ever since, her tortured spirit has wandered the vicinity of the waterfall, lamenting her lost love.
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Shawinigan Falls
Another Quebecois cascade, these waterfalls lie on the Saint-Maurice River about twenty miles upriver from the city of Trois-Rivieres. At their feet lies a whirlpool known as the Trou du Diable, or the Devil’s Hole, not to be confused with a cave of the same name which opens on the banks of the Sainte-Anne River 33 miles to the east. An old legend said to predate the arrival of the French contends that this infernal vortex is inhabited by a manitou or demon which imprisons all who fall into its clutches.
One unfortunate supposed to have been sacrificed to the demon of Shawinigan Falls was a Jesuit missionary named Jacques Buteux. Shortly after his ordination in 1633, Buteux’s superiors had sent him to Trois-Rivieres, then a tiny habitation still in construction, freshly-established by the great explorer Samuel de Champlain. The Jesuit would remain at the mission for nineteen years, becoming its superior in 1639, at the escalation of a ferocious inter-native conflict referred to today as the Beaver Wars.
In 1651, following the southerly Iroquois Confederacy’s genocide of the Huron nations, for whose conversion to Catholicism the Jesuits of New France had concentrated their efforts, Jacques Buteux decided to travel north up the Saint-Maurice River for the purpose of finding new tribes to baptise. After returning from a successful expedition to northerly Kesagami Lake, located a mere fifty miles south of James Bay, Buteux made plans for another expedition, this one to Hudson Bay. On May 10th, 1652, while undertaking this daunting expedition, the Jesuit and his native travelling companions were set upon by Iroquois warriors and killed. Legend has it that the Iroquois threw Buteux’s corpse into the Trou du Diable at the foot of Shawinigan Falls as a sacrifice to the manitou that dwelled there.
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Iroquois Falls
Located in the Canadian Shield about 34 miles northeast of Timmins, Ontario, this remote declivity of the Abitibi River is another cataract associated with a legend featuring Iroquois warriors. This story appears in the folklore of the Temiskaming Algonquin, Temagami Ojibwa, Swampy Cree, and Montagnais, and has many different versions. Every iteration is set in the late 1600s, in the twilight of the Beaver Wars, when Iroquois Confederacy was warring with the Ojibwa in a campaign that would ultimately end their northern expansion.
In this tale, an Iroquois war party headed north with the intention of fighting the Algonquin or Ojibwa Indians of Lake Abitibi. On the way, they came upon one or two of their enemies on the Abitibi River and captured them. In some versions of the story, the captive was an old woman, while in other versions, the prisoners were two men. Instead of executing them, the Iroquois told the prisoners to guide them to their village.
The prisoners knew their country well, and were aware that the Atibiti River plunged over a roaring waterfall roughly thirty miles upriver from the lake into which it drained. Muttering to each other in their own language, which the Iroquois did not understand, they decided not to tell their captors about the cataract.
At a point just upriver from the precipice, the captors leapt from their canoes and swam for the shore. In another version of the story, they quietly remained in the vessels, sacrificing themselves for the survival of their tribe. By the time the Iroquois realized they had been deceived, their birch bark canoes were the thralls of the current. The entire war party was swept over the brink, to be dashed to destruction on the rocks below. Ever after, the cataract was known as Iroquois Falls.
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Kakabeka Falls
Located on the Kaministiquia River just 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of Thunder Bay, Ontario, this so-called ‘Niagara of the North’ is connected with an old native legend bearing remarkable resemblance to the tale of Iroquois Falls. Set in the 18th or 19th Century, when the Ojibwa were at war with the southerly Sioux, this tale tells of an Ojibwa princess named Green Mantle, who learned that a massive Sioux war party was on its way to attack the camp of her father, identified in some versions of the story as Chief White Bear and in others as Ogama Eagle. Knowing that the invaders would wipe out her father’s village, the girl decided to sacrifice herself for the sake of her kin.
One night, Green Mantle slipped away from her village on Lake Superior and headed up the Kaministiquia River, from which the Sioux were supposed to arrive. After portaging around the waterfall, she came within sight of the Sioux camp and pretended to be unaware of its presence. She was soon perceived by a scout and captured.
Although the invaders initially intended to execute her, Green Mantle begged for her life, promising to take the braves to her village if they spared her. The warriors agreed, and placed the girl in a canoe at the head of their convoy before proceeding downriver.
Like the old woman in the tale of Iroquois Falls, Green Mantle led her captors to the edge of Kakabeka Falls, by which time escape was impossible. Recognizing that their fate was sealed, the Sioux warriors sang their death songs as they followed the girl over the precipice and vanished into the spray below.
Ever since, the legend says, Green Mantle’s slender figure, resplendent in rainbow hues, can sometimes be seen floating in the mists that enshroud Kakabeka Falls, while the faint death wails of the Sioux rise up from the waters below.
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Manitou Falls
The most remote waterfall on our list, this lonely cascade was located in northwestern Ontario, on the English River about seventy kilometres northeast of Kenora, and was destroyed when the Manitou Generating Station was built over it in 1956. According to Nipigon Ojibwa writer Josie Cormier, who learned the tale from her grandmother, those who encamped near the falls at night would often hear the sobs and wails of a woman issuing from the cascade. Similar to the visions reported at Kakabeka Falls, visitors to the cataract sometimes caught glimpses of a feminine figure peering out of the rushing water. “They used to see a picture,” Cormier’s grandmother said, “like a shadow of a woman in the falls, in the mist, and she was crying, and they never knew why…”
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Albion Falls
This final addition to our list brings us back to southern Ontario, to a section of Red Hill Creek roughly 40 miles west of Niagara Falls. Located in King’s Forest Park in Hamilton, Ontario – a city boasting over a hundred waterfalls – this aquatic curtain draped over the Niagara Escarpment is the setting of a haunting urban legend.
In either 1865 of 1915, depending on who is telling the story, a poor young woman named Jane Riley fell in love with her childhood friend, Joseph Rousseau, the son of a wealthy family. Joseph courted Jane for some time, contrary to the wishes of his mother, who despised the girl for her poverty. The star-crossed couple spent a single blissful summer together, making some of their happiest memories at their favourite picnic spot atop Albion Falls.
In the end, maternal pressure conquered natural affection, and Joseph found himself compelled to release Jane and cast his amorous net in waters more befitting his social station. Utterly devastated, the jilted girl is said to have spent her final days wandering through the woods at the edge of town, her eyes swollen and her hair unkempt, melting into a paroxysm of sobs whenever a passerby offered a helping hand. One cold autumn day, Jane is said to have climbed to the top of Albion Falls, held the skirt of her dress tight to her legs, and flung herself from the promontory’s heights. Her broken body was found by labourers at the base of the cliff.
Legend has it that Jane’s spirit returned to haunt the mother of Joseph Rousseau, and may have frightened her to death. Some say that Jane’s ghost still appears from time to time, standing atop Albion Falls on moonlit nights, or that soft weeping can sometimes be heard in the vicinity of the waterfall.
Remarkably, the suicide of Jane Riley is not the only tragic event to take place at Albion Falls. In the 1940s, it is said that truck careened off a road and plunged over the precipice, killing a young girl in the process. And in the spring of 1946, Canadian socialite Evelyn Dick pushed the headless and limbless torso of her husband, whom she was suspected of murdering, over the falls.
Sources
Niagara Falls
“Niagara Falls,” by Hammerson Peters, for the January 25th, 2016 issue of MysteriesOfCanada.com
https://www.recordonline.com/story/news/2012/04/23/tell-me-story-maiden-mist/49661210007/
Virginia Falls
Legends of the Nahanni Valley (2018), by Hammerson Peters
Ten Rivers: Adventure Stories from the Arctic (2005), by Ed Struzik
Bloody Falls
“HEARNE, SAMUEL,” by C.S. Mackinnon in Volume 4 of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1979)
A Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean Undertaken by Order of the Hudson’s Bay Company for the Discovery of Copper Mines, a North West Passage, &c. in the Years 1769, 1770, 1771, & 1772 (1796), by Samuel Hearne
Montmorency Waterfall
https://www.quebec-cite.com/en/businesses/parc-de-la-chute-montmorency
La Cote-de-Beauptre et l’Ile d’Orleans (1999), by Lambert Serge and Eugen Kedl
Histoires Paranormales au Quebec (2013), by Thomas Charles-Vachon and Eloise Trinel
Shawinigan Falls
https://troududiable.com/en/about/the-legend/
“BUTEUX, JACQUES,” by Albert Tessier, in Volume 1 of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1966)
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03089c.htm
Iroquois Falls
“Myths and Folk-lore of the Timiskaming Algonquin and Timagami Ojibwa,” by F.G. Speck, in Memoir 71 of the Canada Department of Mines Geological Survey (1915)
Some Legends and Myths of the Nipissing Tribal Indians (2000), by Wayne M. Couchie and Daniel M. Stevens
Kakabeka Falls
https://www.ontariocamping.ca/myths-and-microbes-at-kakabeka-falls/
https://www.streetdirectory.com/etoday/-ufjwfw.html
Mysteries Of Ontario (1999), by John Robert Colombo
Manitou Falls
https://northernontario.travel/superior-country/anishinaabe-legends-northern-ontario-indigenous-lore
Albion Falls
https://ghostwalks.com/articles/tragic-love-jane-riley-albion
https://cekan.ca/hamilton/lovers-leap-at-albion-falls-haunted-haunted/
https://hamiltonparanormal.com/albion.html
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