Tahquamenon Falls is one of the highlights of a visit to Michigan’s U.P. – Upper Peninsula.

Here the falls are in autumn…brilliant colors on a sunny day, with those wonderful streaks of brown cedar tannins that are in a continual flow over the falls.

Tahquamenon Falls

Tahquamenon Falls Flow

These are the third most voluminous falls west of the Mississipi River. The browns come from the tannins that leach into the river from the cedar swamps that the river continually drains.

Tahquamenon Falls are mentioned in Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, as the site where Hiawatha built his canoe.

You can get up close to the edge of the falls. Here you can feel the sheer power of the water – its sound, its vibration, its mesmerizing continual flow of life moving ever forward.

And, of course, what is any visit of mine without checking in with the nature spirits.

To the left is a nature spirit who lives in a tree near where I photographed the falls. He has taken the shape of a teepee with a face looking out. He commemorates the Native Americans who once lived here.