Big Manitou Falls is a

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

on the Black River, a tributary of the

Nemadji River The Nemadji River is a river rising in Pine County, Minnesota, United States, which flows through Carlton County, Minnesota, and Douglas County, Wisconsin, to Lake Superior. The river is long measured from its source in Maheu Lake in Pine Count ...

. The falls are within

Pattison State Park Pattison State Park is a Wisconsin state park south of Superior, Wisconsin. Situated on the Black River, the park contains both Big Manitou Falls, the highest waterfall in Wisconsin at , and Little Manitou Falls, which is . Pattison State Park w ...

Douglas County, Wisconsin Douglas County is a county located at the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 44,295 Its county seat is Superior. Douglas County is included in the Duluth, MN-WI Metropolitan Statistica ...

, about 13 miles south of Superior. At 165 feet, Big Manitou Falls is the highest waterfall in

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

. Native Americans who settled nearby believed they heard the voice of the

Great Spirit The Great Spirit is the concept of a life force, a Supreme Being or god known more specifically as Wakan Tanka in Lakota,Ostler, Jeffry. ''The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee''. Cambridge University Press, ...

within the roaring of the falls and gave it the name "Gitchee Manitou". In 1920, a state park was created around the falls, and it received a further level of protection in 2003 upon being named a unit of the

Wisconsin State Natural Areas Program The Wisconsin State Natural Areas Program is a conservation program created to highlight and protect areas with outstanding natural or archaeological resources in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. There are currently 687 State Natural Areas (SNAs) enco ...

External links

Big Manitou Falls and Gorge Natural Area

Pattison State Park

Landforms of Douglas County, Wisconsin State Natural Areas of Wisconsin Waterfalls of Wisconsin Protected areas of Douglas County, Wisconsin {{DouglasCountyWI-geo-stub