For the next installment in our ongoing Mythbusting series, we’re going to be addressing one particularly widespread misconception regarding the stature of Alberta’s Panther Falls.

Is Panther Falls 600 feet tall / the 4^th Tallest Waterfall in Canada?

Unlike our previous article in this series on Della Falls, we don’t have to go anywhere as far in depth to address these claims.  Let’s start with the origins of this idea.  During the earlier days of our researching waterfalls, we frequently came across mention of Panther Falls being 600 feet tall in Almanacs, Encyclopedias and other such reference materials, but very little tangible evidence was presented to back this up.  Likewise the Atlas of Canada has listed – and continues to list – Panther Falls as dropping 600 feet (183m).

Figure 1: Panther Falls, allegedly 600 feet tall

As we discussed in our Della Falls article, sources of information such as a governing body are usually treated as trusted and accurate, so in continuing to list Panther Falls at 600 feet tall, readers would understandably come to believe that this was accurate information.  Additionally, the Atlas of Canada presents Panther Falls as the fourth tallest waterfall on this list, and though they do make the distinction that said list is selected waterfalls of Canada rather than the tallest waterfalls of Canada, some observers may not understand the distinction that the Atlas of Canada list is not all-inclusive right away and as a result may assume it to be a complete and accurate list.

So where did this idea come from?  The answer is not nearly as obvious as we’d like.  Our best guess stems from a hand-tinted photograph taken in 1907 by one Mary Schaffer which shows what appears to be nearby Sideways Falls – which itself is much taller than Panther Falls – and labels it as “Panther Falls?”, though we cannot confirm that it is indeed Sideways Falls (we can confirm that it is not Panther Falls though).  Considering the first time we visited Sideways Falls we attributed it a height of around 600 feet, it’s not unreasonable that a visitor at some point thought that waterfall to be around 600 feet tall and was confused about its name at the time and reported it to be Panther Falls.  This is merely conjecture though, and considering other photographs taken by the same photographer and dated at the same year show the correct Panther Falls labeled as such, we will operate under the assumption that Panther Falls has always been correctly identified as being along Nigel Creek.

Fortunately this is one case where we don’t have to spend a lot of time examining the evidence and presenting a case where we cannot provide specifics.  Survey members from the World Waterfall Database have visited Panther Falls on three separate occasions and were able to accurately measure the falls to stand 218 feet (66m) tall, so the idea that Panther Falls is 600 feet tall is pretty clearly wrong.  What is more puzzling however is that topographic maps very clearly show the drop of Nigel Creek to be nowhere near the suggested 600 foot loss that has been touted in the past, so the ultimate question becomes how did this idea of a 600 foot drop come to subsist for so long?  Unfortunately we simply can’t answer that question.

Figure 2: 1:20,000 scale Topographic Map showing Panther Falls. Notice the contour lines are 40m intervals and clearly do not account for 183m worth of drop on Nigel Creek at Panther Falls

On to our second point of attack, we address the more obvious.  If the Atlas of Canada’s list is indeed selected waterfalls rather than the final word, then we simply need to double check that Panther Falls is not the 4^th tallest waterfall in Canada.  Well, as is plainly seen by looking at our list of Tallest Waterfalls in Canada, Panther Falls doesn’t even come close to 4^th tallest – right now it lands around 190^th tallest, and that’s with data for only two provinces available (when Quebec, Labrador & Newfoundland, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are added, expect its placement to drop considerably).  Right now we have 46 waterfalls inventoried at over 1,000 feet in height in Canada, and more will undoubtedly be added, so right there this claim is way, way off base.  Even if the original idea was that Panther Falls was the 4^th tallest free-falling waterfall in Canada, the criteria still doesn’t hold up for two reasons; 1) Panther Falls isn’t a free-fall of 600 feet, it’s a free-fall of just over 200 feet, and 2) if the name Panther Falls was originally meant to be applied to Sideways Falls, that waterfall is not free-falling either.  So pretty succinctly both of these ideas get tossed out the window.

Myth(s): Panther Falls is 600 feet tall and the 4^th tallest waterfall in Canada.

False (on both counts)

Like the previous claims we addressed regarding Della Falls being considered the tallest waterfall in Canada, the primary point of propagation of the claims surrounding Panther Falls seems to stem from information being disseminated by the Canadian Government.  Unfortunately we cannot determine with certainty the point of origin of their data, but it is pretty clear that their information is incorrect.  That no effort seems to have been taken to correct the error simply refutes the idea that a single source of information should not be viewed as accurate without proper evidence to back up the claims being made.

In 1952 the United States Army Corp of Engineers began work on The Dalles Dam along the Columbia River, straddling the border of the states of Washington and Oregon.  The dam was completed and online by 1957 and the resulting impounded waters of which submerged the Columbia’s Celilo Falls.  Celilo Falls was, is and continues to be a location of great tribal significance for the Native Americans of the area.  The falls were considered to be sacred and functioned as one of the largest (if not the largest) Native fishing locations in the Pacific Northwest.  But even the historical and cultural significance aside, Celilo Falls was noteworthy if only for the fact that prior to being submerged, it was both the widest and most voluminous (on average) waterfall in all of North America.  Because of The Dalles Dam, this feature of global and cultural significance has essentially been lost for several generations.

There have been many pushes over the years to restore the falls to their natural state, but none have come anywhere close to fruition.  However, with the emergence of “going green” as both a political and pop culture mindset in the last several years, the idea of restoring Celilo Falls to its natural state may just become more realistic than it ever has in the past.  Some have suggested at least temporarily restoring the falls by drawing down the impounded waters behind The Dalles Dam, but such concepts have been met with resistance at the federal level and have largely gone ignored and unanswered.  The fact that The Dalles Dam has passed its half-century mark now, however, may start to sway opinions in the other direction.  Grassroots movements have started to emerge with a push towards restoration of the falls, which will hopefully gain momentum in the coming years.  The proposed formation of a Mount Hood National Park nearby could potentially also put pressure on the right people to start seriously considering the idea of restoring Celilo Falls.

In 2006 voters in Washington State passed Initiative 937, which mandated that by the year 2020, the state must acquire 20% of its energy needs from renewable sources.  Hydroelectric generation, however, was not a renewable source that qualified for this bill (oddly, considering it is by far the most abundant renewable form of energy in the Pacific Northwest).  This means the State of Washington, for its part, has incentive to push forward energy projects which could potentially replace the loss of generating capacity that would result in the decommissioning and removal of The Dalles Dam such as wind and solar farms.  The chances of the dam being removed by 2020 are completely nonexistent, but this sort of focus on renewable sources may push government agencies towards thinking about the impact that large-scale hydro projects such as those along the Columbia River and whether it may be possible to avoid the pitfalls (destroying Salmon runs, population displacement, submerging of notable cultural and geological features, etc) associated with them.

Further, starting in June of 2011, the US National Park Service began the largest dam removal project in the history of the United States in Washington where both the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams are being removed from the Elwha River near Port Angeles.  The Elwha was historically known to have one of the most abundant Salmon migrations in the Northwest, and when the dams were built they reduced the spawning area for the fish from as much as 35 miles to a mere 4 miles.  The simple fact that both the government and public are not only amenable to such a project, but fully support the removal of significant dams like these should signal that the concept is not as far fetched as may initially seem.  We may one day see Celilo Falls flowing again.