The water is noticeably brown in color from the tannins leached from the cedar swamps which the river drains, leading to the nickname "Root Beer Falls".

The island can be reached by rowboat from the basin below the Lower Falls, or by a foot bridge constructed in 2022.

The falls take their name from the river, which appears to come from Tahquamenon Island in Whitefish Bay, near the mouth of the river; the first written record of the name identifies the island as "Outakouaminan" in a 1671 French map.

[4] The Tahquamenon River is mentioned by name in Longfellow's 1855 epic poem The Song of Hiawatha, as the protagonist builds a birch-bark canoe "In the solitary forest, By the rushing Taquamenaw".

A song by Sufjan Stevens on his album Michigan is titled after Tahquamenon Falls.