Kettle Falls, Washington — Falls Are Under the Lake

Kettle Falls no longer has visible falls.

The reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam drowned them.

For thousands of years, the falls were one of the great salmon fisheries of the upper Columbia, drawing Indigenous peoples for fishing, trade, ceremony and social life.

Water churned through rocky channels hard enough to inspire the English name.

The Hudson's Bay Company later established Fort Colvile nearby.

Then Grand Coulee Dam blocked the river downstream.

Lake Roosevelt rose over the falls and the old fort site, while the dam's lack of fish passage ended salmon runs to the upper Columbia.

Tribal communities gathered for the Ceremony of Tears in 1940 as the reservoir approached.

The modern town moved to higher ground.

Its name came with it.

Kettle Falls now preserves a vanished landscape feature in ordinary language.

The falls still exist geologically.

They are simply underwater.