called the cascades the, as the Churchill River at that time was usually still known as the Grand River as a calque of its indigenous name. The Innu had a separate name for the falls, Patshishetshuanau. Captain William Martin's 1821 renaming of the river after Labrador's colonial governor Charles Hamilton gradually became more common but the falls continued to be known as the "Grand Falls" or less often as the On 1 February 1965, the provincial premierJoey Smallwood renamed the river and the falls after the former British prime ministerWinston Churchill ahead of approving its large hydroelectric project.
History
The falls were a significant landmark for local indigenous peoples. The Innu believed that to look on these awe-inspiring falls meant death and maintained a strong taboo against visiting into the early 20th century. In 1839, a team under Scoto-Canadian trader John McLeanseeking a riverine route between Fort Chimo in northwest Labrador and Fort Smith on Lake Melville in southeast Labrador for the Hudson's Bay Companywere the first Europeans to reach the area. He was mostly annoyed that the falls meant abandoning a direct route along the Churchill and retracing his path back north, but still overwhelmed by the falls' majesty. In 1894, Albert Peter Low of Canada's Geological Survey reached the falls. Plans were made as early as 1915 to divert the river above the falls for power generation, but they were abandoned as unfeasible at the time. Following the development of the iron ore mines in western Labrador and the construction of the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway in 1954, the project became workable and surveys and planning began. The Churchill Falls Generating Station started construction in 1967 and, in 1970, almost all of the Churchill's water was diverted into a reservoir upstream of the falls. Only a small stream remains; even when the reservoir hits its maximum water levels, usually a once-a-decade event, the controlled releaseover the falls amounts to only about 10% of the falls' former flow.
Legacy
The nearby company town of Churchill Falls is named for the falls.
