Nahanni National Park Reserve
— — a river that falls twice the height of Niagara, with nobody watching.
Not only on a wall.
“The South Nahanni River cuts four canyons through the Mackenzie Mountains and drops over Virginia Falls roughly twice the height of Niagara. The park sits north of the 60th parallel, reached by float plane from Fort Simpson. There are no roads in. Paddlers put in at Rabbitkettle or Virginia Falls and take a week or two to come out at Nahanni Butte. The Dene people of the Dehcho region have known these waters as Naha Dehé for far longer than the park has held its name. UNESCO listed it in 1978.
Nahanni National Park Reserve, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Nahanni National Park Reserve protects the watershed of the South Nahanni River in the Mackenzie Mountains of the Northwest Territories, north of the 60th parallel. After a 2009 expansion, the reserve covers roughly 30,000 square kilometres, more than six times its original area, making it one of the largest protected areas in North America. It is managed by Parks Canada in cooperation with the Dehcho First Nations, whose name for the river is Naha Dehé. UNESCO inscribed Nahanni as one of the first natural World Heritage sites in 1978, citing its river canyons, karst landforms, and Virginia Falls.
Virginia Falls, called Náįlįcho in the Dene language, drops about 96 metres in a single plunge, almost twice the height of Niagara, around a sandstone pillar known as Mason's Rock. Below the falls the South Nahanni cuts through four named canyons whose walls reach more than a kilometre above the river. The water carries glacial silt in early summer and runs clear by August. The river drains into the Liard, then the Mackenzie, then the Arctic Ocean.
There are no roads into Nahanni. Most visitors fly in by float plane from Fort Simpson, about 145 kilometres east of the park, landing at Rabbitkettle Lake, Virginia Falls, or Glacier Lake. Most paddle the South Nahanni in canoes or rafts on trips of one to three weeks, ending at Nahanni Butte. The park requires registration with Parks Canada and an orientation session in Fort Simpson. The paddling season runs from late June to early September. Numbers are small — typically a few hundred river travellers a year.