ifelse() to create new factor vector from two other factor vectors fails to return expected value

I am using conditional statements and ifelse() to create a new factor with four levels. However, only three of the four levels are correctly returned. What am I doing wrong?

Here are my data:

arf <- structure(list(Location = structure(c(1L, 2L, 3L, 5L, 4L, 6L, 
7L, 8L, 9L, 10L, 11L, 12L), .Label = c("FORT ERIE", "GRIMSBY", 
"LINCOLN", "NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE", "NIAGARA FALLS", "PELHAM", 
"PORT COLBORNE", "ST. CATHARINES", "THOROLD", "WAINFLEET", "WELLAND", 
"WEST LINCOLN"), class = "factor"), Canal = structure(c(2L, 2L, 
2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 1L, 2L), .Label = c("Canal", 
"No canal"), class = "factor"), QEW = structure(c(2L, 2L, 2L, 
2L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L), .Label = c("No QEW", "QEW"
), class = "factor")), row.names = c(NA, -12L
), class = "data.frame")

Here is my code:

 View(arf)
arf$QEWcanal <- "test"
arf$QEWcanal <- with(arf, 
  ifelse(((Canal == "Canal") & (QEW == "QEW")), "Both",
  ifelse(((Canal == "No canal") & (QEW == "QEW")), "QEW only",
  ifelse(((Canal == "Canal") & (QEW == "No QEW")), "Canal only",
  ifelse(((Canal == "No Canal") & (QEW == "No QEW")), "Neither", "perdition")))))
View(arf)

It works for the first three cases, but the last case returns "perdition" instead of "Neither". However, when I replace the last line with ifelse(((Canal == "No Canal") & (QEW == "No QEW")), "perdition", "Neither"))))), it works.

This is confusing because ??ifelse says the useage is ifelse(test, yes, no). However, when I follow that useage (i.e., my first block of code above), my last ifelse() statement returns "perdition" and not "Neither." Why?

For the fourth condition you code says No Canal, but the values in that column say "No canal" (small caps c in canal). It works if you adjust that.

Furthermore, I'd recommend not to use ifelse() whenever you have more than one condition. dplyr::case_when() is much more suitable for these occasions. Here is what that could look like for your code:

library(tidyverse)
  
arf |> 
  mutate(QEWcanal = case_when(
    Canal == "Canal" & QEW == "QEW" ~ "Both",
    Canal == "No canal" & QEW == "QEW" ~ "QEW only",
    Canal == "Canal" & QEW == "No QEW" ~ "Canal Only",
    Canal == "No canal" & QEW == "No QEW" ~ "Neither",
    TRUE ~ "peridition"
  ))
#>               Location    Canal    QEW   QEWcanal
#> 1            FORT ERIE No canal    QEW   QEW only
#> 2              GRIMSBY No canal    QEW   QEW only
#> 3              LINCOLN No canal    QEW   QEW only
#> 4        NIAGARA FALLS No canal    QEW   QEW only
#> 5  NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE No canal    QEW   QEW only
#> 6               PELHAM No canal No QEW    Neither
#> 7        PORT COLBORNE    Canal No QEW Canal Only
#> 8       ST. CATHARINES    Canal    QEW       Both
#> 9              THOROLD    Canal No QEW Canal Only
#> 10           WAINFLEET No canal No QEW    Neither
#> 11             WELLAND    Canal No QEW Canal Only
#> 12        WEST LINCOLN No canal No QEW    Neither