Virginia Falls, located in the Northwest Territories Nahanni National Park is an impressive waterfall that flows down a long stretch of rapids and drops then its flow encounters a massive 120 metre tall lime stone rocky spire known as Mason’s Rock. The section of the falls to the south drops 90 metres to the river below, while the section to the north flows steeply to a bend, then falls about 50 metres to rejoin the south section in the river below. The falls are commonly cited as being 97 metres in height, but the NRCanada Topographical Maps state their height at 90 metres. The falls are more than 243 metres in width and the span nearly 4 acres in surface area.
The indigenous inhabitants of the area, the Dene, name the falls Na’ili Cho which means “big water falling down” in their native language. An explorer named Fenley Hunter, under the employ of the Geological Survey of Canada, explored the region in 1928 and named the falls after his daughter Virginia Hunter.
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