About Kakabeka Falls
Kakabeka Falls was the main reason why we bothered to make the long out-and-back detour from Duluth to Thunder Bay along the North Shore of Lake Superior.
It was a massive 40m high split waterfall on the Kaministiquia River, which was said to be Ontario’s second highest.
The waterfall might also claim the title of the largest waterfall draining into Lake Superior.
As a result, we’ve seen Kakabeka Falls often referred to as the “Niagara of the North”, especially since it had a volume and size that rivaled other high volume Canadian waterfalls (e.g. the Chute Montmorency in Quebec).
Although the river would have its highest flow during the late Spring months when the snow and ice would have maximal thaw, as you can see in the photo above, the falls still exhibited a lot of force during our late September visit.
In fact, there was so much volume that we could still feel some of the spray from the most distant lookout well downstream of the falls.
Such spray reach also meant that the waterfall produced impressive displays of morning rainbows seen from both sides of the river.
Experiencing Kakabeka Falls
Our visit was very easy as we were immediately able to walk from the large parking lot and picnic area (see directions below) to the nearest lookout decks.
This afforded us semi-frontal and close-up angled views of most of the Kakabeka Falls.
The looping boardwalk further downstream from this deck allowed for more downstream views of the canyon while providing a longer trail back towards the village of Kakabeka (if driving to the park was not desirable).
That said, we were able to extend our excursion by taking the boardwalks and trails upstream of the falls.
Then, we crossed the bridge traversing the Kaministiquia River before the trail skirted the opposite side of the river.
The trail eventually led us downstream to perhaps the lookout with the most comprehensive and frontal view of the Kakabeka Falls (see picture at the top of this page), which was near a Visitor Center.
It took me about 15-20 minutes to walk to this lookout from the most distant lookouts on the other side of the river.
Overall, we spent a little over an hour to get the full experience of the Kakabeka Falls.
By the way, this Visitor Center on the far side of the river also had a couple of campgrounds nearby as well as a separate parking area.
So if you had a cooperative partner, you could conceivably have someone drive to the other parking area to cut the walking distance in half.
Extending a visit to pursue the Little Falls
From looking at the park maps, it was possible to really extend our visit here by doing a much longer like from the Visitor Center at the opposite side of the Kaministiquia River downstream to the Little Falls.
This would involve hiking along a combination of the Mountain Portage Trail and the Little Falls Trail.
We didn’t bother doing it given the time commitment (it appeared to take at least a couple hours to do) so we can’t say anything more about it.
The “Niagara of the North”
Finally, as you might have gleaned from this write-up, we had heard that Kakabeka Falls was given the name the “Niagara of the North”.
This was probably due to its impressively high volume and size.
However, geographically, the falls was only 5 degrees of lattitude north of the mighty Niagara Falls itself.
Moreover, we’re aware of larger waterfalls in the Northwest Territory (Virginia Falls being one of them) that probably deserve the moniker more than this waterfall.
Nevertheless, like with Niagara Falls, the Kakabeka Falls has been said to have been tapped for hydroelectricity further upstream.
So that made us wonder what a spectacle this place would have been had it been allowed to flow unchecked!
Authorities
Kakabeka Falls resides in Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park near Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. It is administered by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
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