Two researchers have taken a new measurement of a remote waterfall that further suggests the seldom-visited falls in northern Manitoba’s rugged boreal shield are the province’s tallest.
Using a process known as digital photogrammetry, Alexander Martin and Lukas Olson measured Kapakaytay Falls on the Odei River.
Their preliminary findings suggest their height is 16 metres, slightly taller than the 14-metre height of Kwasitchewan Falls, southwest of Thompson, widely considered Manitoba’s tallest waterfall.
“We are fairly confident with this number, plus or minus one metre,” said Olson, a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia whose research focuses on photogrammetry, which involves reconstructing 3D objects using photos and videos.
Kapakaytay Falls was measured decades ago by the federal government.
The height is listed on topographical maps as 58 feet, or approximately 17 metres, but it hasn’t been widely shared, said Martin, a Winnipegger and PhD student in ecology at the University of Oxford in England.
He said because it’s not a well-established height, they were interested in finding out if it’s Manitoba’s tallest.
The falls are on the Odei River, approximately 40 kilometres northwest of Thompson, Man., and 690 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
“This is a very inaccessible waterfall,” said Martin.
Martin and Olson set out on their paddling expedition in July.
Getting there required careful planning, whitewater skills and backcountry experience.
The waterfall is hidden deep in wildfire-scorched forests, along a river with difficult terrain. They had to navigate rapids and logjams.
It was a 105-kilometre out-and-back journey for Olson and Martin, who got help from local guides in the Thompson area to make their trip possible.
After a couple of days of paddling, the pair was awestruck when they rounded a bend on the river and got their first sight of the waterfall.
“The sheer size of it and the volume of water moving over the rocks was breathtaking,” Martin said.
Olson said just reaching the site was a relief.
“Particularly because we’d been paddling for about two, three days by this point,” Olson said. “We were both exhausted. We were both bruised, cut up. This was a fairly challenging expedition.”
Martin and Olson’s expedition got inspiration from a trip Winnipegger Garrett Fache was part of in June 2019.
“We wanted to go look at this big tall waterfall,” Fache said on Thursday.
“I thought it would be kind of cool to see. Is this waterfall taller than Kwasitchewan, and what does it look like in person?”
After seeing the topographic maps and visiting the site with two fellow paddlers, Fache, now owner and operator of Wild Loon Adventure Company, thought it was Manitoba’s tallest.
“Once we got into view of it, it was truly incredible to see the size of this drop, or this set of drops,” said Fache, who’s also been to Kwasitchewan.
“It’s not something we get a whole lot of around here.”
Olson and Martin used more than 1,000 two-dimensional images captured with a drone to reconstruct and measure the waterfall in a process known as digital photogrammetry.
They also took laser measurements of the trees and natural features around the falls to put into their model.
“The federal government measured it originally at 58 feet,” Martin said. “Our modelling work shows that it might be closer to 52 feet, versus a 46-foot height of what we consider to be the tallest waterfall in Manitoba.”
Pisew Falls, southwest of Thompson, measures in at 13 metres, while Kwasitchewan Falls — widely considered the tallest — is 14 metres.
The researchers’ preliminary findings peg Kapakaytay at about 16 metres.
“It’s quite fulfilling,” Olson said.
“While we’re not the first people here — there’s a long tradition of this area being used for trapping, for hunting both by the First Nations that are here as well as later peoples — to actually be able to document this remote site, which not too many people see, does bring me a little bit of joy.”
In an emailed statement late Friday afternoon, the province said its data shows Kwasitchewan Falls is the highest.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Kapakaytay’s height has ever been captured and recorded in the province’s data.
Olson and Martin are now working to get their research published.
They hope their documentation of the falls can help with further research of the site in the years to come.
“It can feel like the entirety of the globe is mapped,” Martin said. “But there’s certainly still opportunities to explore and document.”
Two researchers recently travelled into a seldom-visited site in northern Manitoba’s boreal shield to measure the height of Kapakaytay Falls. Their findings suggest it might be the tallest one in the province.
