Kettle Falls ( Salish : Shonitkwu , meaning " roaring or noisy waters " , also Schwenetekoo translated as " Keep Sounding Water " ) was an ancient and important salmon fishing site on the upper reaches of the Columbia River , in what is today the U.S. state of Washington , near the Canada – US border . The falls consisted of a series of rapids and cascades where the river passed through quartzite rocks deposited by prehistoric floods on a substrate of Columbia River basalt . The river dropped nearly , and the sound of the falls could be heard for miles away . Kettle Falls was inundated in 1940 , as the waters of the reservoir Lake Roosevelt rose behind Grand Coulee Dam , permanently flooding the site
prehistoric floods
Missoula Floods
Kettle Falls