Della Falls

Della Falls is a lofty horsetailing fall dropping 1,443 feet out of Della Lake in the upper Drinkwater Creek basin within Vancouver Island's Strathcona Provincial Park. Though there are technically three distinct vertical portions to the falls, Della isn't truly a tiered waterfall since there are no real pauses in between the vertical sections of the fall (and by proxy neither can it be considered a single-drop waterfall nor truly vertical in any sense). Though not commonly noticed, there are actually two distinct channels to the falls. At the bottom of the first vertical leap, part of the stream branches almost due west while the remaining volume of the creek turns northwest. The falls are fed by the waters of Della Lake, which is in turn largely fed by snow melt and a few small glacial remnants on the nearby peaks. Because the basin harboring the lake is largely composed of solid bedrock, there is not a whole lot of water retention in the soils and as a result Della Creek behaves similar to the waterfalls in Yosemite National Park, running strong in the late spring and early summer but when the seasonal snow has melted off the volume is reduced significantly. By September the falls are not terribly impressive and may slow to a trickle in low snowpack years. The height of Della Falls and claims related to which have long been the source of disputes. The Canadian Government recognizes Della Falls as the tallest officially measured waterfall in Canada, though when this measurement was taken and how is not known so the accuracy can't be verified. We have heard from one source that the falls may have been recently re-measured to stand 1,578 feet (480 meters) tall but we have not been able to verify this, plus topographic data backs up the figure of 1,443 feet. What can be said with certainty however is that Della Falls is not the tallest waterfall in Canada, or even in British Columbia, regardless of whether the criteria being used is total height, height of only free-falling drops or any other metric.Della Falls was discovered and named by prospector Joe Drinkwater in 1899. Though the valley and creek retain Drinkwater's name, the falls were graced with the name of his wife.