Helmcken Falls is a waterfall on the Murtle River in Wells Gray Provincial Park. Just before the river joins the Clearwater River, it falls 141 m from the Murtle Plateau. This makes this waterfall in southeastern British Columbia the fourth highest in Canada.
Sediments of igneous rock once formed the Murtle Plateau layer by layer. It was flooded in the last ice age, and this is how the rugged walls on the banks of the Murtle River were formed.
The protection of the waterfall was one of the main reasons for the creation of the partly forested nature park inhabited by bears. Another reason for the establishment of the park, i.e. against the settlement, is the volcanic activity in this extensive, approximately 5000 square kilometers large wilderness in the middle of the Wells-Gray-Clearwater volcanic field.
The waterfall was named after the German-born doctor John Sebastian Helmcken, who worked on behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company in British Columbia and helped to incorporate the country into the Canadian Confederation. Helmcken himself never saw the waterfall.