Multnomah Falls: Six Hundred Twenty Feet and a Terminated Nation

The water falling in front of you drops six hundred twenty feet in two tiers. It is the tallest waterfall in Oregon and the most visited natural site in the entire state. The cliff it falls over is basalt, hundreds of feet thick, laid down by volcanic eruptions over millions of years and then carved into this shape by floods of an almost incomprehensible scale.

During the last ice age, a glacial dam in what is now Idaho repeatedly failed, releasing Lake Missoula, a body of water as large as Lakes Erie and Ontario combined, in a matter of days. The resulting floods, called the Missoula Floods, swept across what is now eastern Washington and Oregon at speeds approaching eighty miles per hour, carrying icebergs and boulders, carving the Columbia Gorge deeper and wider with each pass. Geologists who first encountered the evidence in the nineteen twenties refused to believe it was real: the scale was too large for any known process. The evidence eventually forced the conclusion. The Missoula Floods are now understood as among the most catastrophic geological events in the history of the continent. Multnomah Falls is one of their legacies.

The falls were a gathering site for the Multnomah people, whose territory covered the west side of the Columbia Gorge. The Multnomah are now part of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. The Grand Ronde Confederation brought together peoples from across western Oregon, including the Multnomah, Clackamas, Molale, and Kalapuya, onto a reservation established in eighteen fifty-five. Congress terminated that reservation in nineteen fifty-four, one of the most sweeping acts of the federal termination policy. The Grand Ronde fought for three decades to restore their recognition. Congress restored them in nineteen eighty-three.

The falls run year-round. In winter, the crowds thin and ice forms on the cliff face around the upper falls. It is, by any measure, spectacular. The nation whose people gathered here for generations fought the United States government to still exist, and won.