| Feature Type: | Falls - Perpendicular or steep descent of water. Variation of Waterfall. |
| Status: | Official |
| Name Authority: | BC Geographical Names Office |
| Relative Location: | N end Turner Lake, W of Lonesome Lake at S end Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, Range 3 Coast Land District |
| Latitude-Longitude: | 52°16'33"N, 125°46'14"W at the approximate centre of this feature. |
| Datum: | WGS84 |
| NTS Map: | 93C/5 |
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Origin Notes and History:
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Adopted 3 June 1947 on 93/SW. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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Total vertical drop 1300 feet according to BC Parks - the 2nd highest waterfall in British Columbia and in Canada (after Della Falls) Vertical drop 850-900 feet into a box canyon, then 400 feet to the Atnarko River. Photographs in Wildlife Review, September 1966 and again in Autumn 1975 issue; height given as 1300 feet. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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Called Mystery Falls by Don Munday and early climbers; Hunlen was the name of an [Indigenous] Chief who had had trap lines in the vicinity of the waterfall. Various spelling (see November 1938 letter, file O.1.46) "A notable but almost unknown waterfall exists in Bella Coola valley in British Columbia. This valley forms a deeper trench through the Coast Mountains than the better-known Fraser River canyon. Although Bella Coola river is fed mainly by glaciers of the Coast Mountains, its headwaters have cut gorges of considerable depth even where they extend into the lower plateau country on the inland side of the mountains." (from Geographical Journal, by Don Munday, Vol XCIII, No. 6, June 1939, The Royal Geographical Society, London.) Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |