Football-field sized island drifts across reservoir

A boater first posted about the island on social media. At first, B.C. Hydro was skeptical.

“It didn’t seem real at first,” he said. “And so then we got a satellite view a few days later that confirmed it. So then we kind of took it a lot more seriously.”

Satellite images from July 21 showed the island in the main part of the reservoir, west of Finlay Bay and about 100 kilometres from the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. By August 5, it was no longer visible in satellite data. Gammer says this does not mean it sank; it may have settled in a sheltered area along the shore.

Before disappearing, Gammer says the island travelled about 30 kilometres and stayed intact the whole time.

“It’s staying in one piece, even though it’s moved all that distance,” he said.

Years in the making

Gammer believes the island probably began as a group of logs rotting in a quiet part of the reservoir. Over time, plants grew, and the mass became solid.

It remained in place until the water level rose.

“This island would have taken many years to form, but it wasn’t going anywhere until the water rose,” Gammer said.

Williston Reservoir is full for the first time in 14 years. Gammer credits a large snowpack last winter, along with a wet spring and summer. B.C. Hydro opened the dam’s spillways in June and July to let water out.

Look, don’t land

Gammer has a clear message for anyone thinking about stepping onto the island.

“It’s flimsy,” he said. “It’s like you can see trees rocking back and forth. So we would say, stay off this island.”

He says the island is now in a very remote spot, so almost no one will try to reach it. For those who might, he warns that curiosity is not worth the risk.

“You could fall through, potentially,” Gammer said. “There’s just no telling how unstable it is. And so it is a safety issue.”

He says people can boat near the island and look at it, but they should not step onto it. Not a threat to the dam. Gammer says the island is not a concern for operations. The wind has pushed it farther from the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, so it now sits about 130 kilometres away.y.

“There is very little likelihood it’s going to move towards it,” he said. Even if it did reach the dam, he says it would simply come to rest alongside it.

Too big to search

Williston covers over 1,700 square kilometres and is the seventh-largest reservoir in the world by volume. Gammer says it stretches about 250 kilometres from north to south and 125 kilometres from east to west.

Because of its size, searching by boat is not practical.

“It’s very hard to spot something that’s 100 metres long,” Gammer said. “You would think that’s a pretty big object. But when you’ve got a reservoir that’s 250 to the south and 125 K east to west, that’s almost a needle in a haystack.”

B.C. Hydro depends on eyewitness reports and satellite images to track anything unusual on the water. Gammer encourages boaters who see something to call or email the utility.

Strange here, not strange everywhere

This is the first time an island like this has appeared in Williston, but floating islands are not new to reservoirs in general.

“Floating islands are not unique,” Gammer said. “While this is the first time anybody can remember seeing something like this on Williston, these do happen elsewhere, other reservoirs or lakes.”

Interest in the island has spread far beyond northern B.C. Gammer says a professor from the University of Western Australia emailed him with more information and mentioned he had written a book about floating islands.

“So yeah, this is something that is studied,” Gammer said. “I used to think, well, all islands floated. Isn’t that what an island is? Of course, here it is now; what was in my childhood imagination is real.”

For now, the island has no name, and no process is in place to give it one.

“Nobody’s thought about that,” Gammer said. “Coming up with maybe a name for this island. If it kind of gains some new life and floats around again, maybe we’ll have to give it a name.”

by Dave Branco

Football-field sized island drifts across reservoir

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