BIG FALLS, WILD RIVER
This particular river is geologically eccentric. It began as a meandering prairie river but, as the mountains formed, the Nahanni maintained its course and cut canyons into the rock.
Our bush pilot offers zero warning before treating us to a heart-stopping banked flyover of falls twice the height of Niagara. Minutes later, the floatplane touches down on calm waters above the remote 96-metre-high waterfall and we taxi to a pontoon positioned barely more than a kilometre upstream from where every last droplet plunges into thunderous confusion. I’m obviously back in the North – a place of few words and great intensity.
Ahead of me is a week-long journey down the South Nahanni River in Canada’s Northwest Territories, starting from the base of what Europeans named Virginia Falls but is really Náįlįcho (nigh-LEECH-oh) meaning ‘big falls’. Turtle Island – the lands known as North and Central America – has got under my skin over the years, especially these northern extremes, but
