Unusual Discovery in Northern B.C. Reservoir

A massive, tree-covered land mass recently startled local residents and officials after it was spotted floating in the Williston Reservoir north of Mackenzie. Local resident Rocky Avery obtained video and photographic footage of the island captured by a boater, which quickly gained wide attention after he posted the material online.

“It was a pretty amazing sight to see, never seen anything like that in my 40 years in this country,” said Avery, who shared the footage ahead of a local fishing derby to alert both boaters and utility officials.

Satellite Imagery Confirms Floating Mass

The report initially drew skepticism from B.C. Hydro, given the prevalence of AI-generated content online. “It’s certainly something we’ve not heard of before,” said spokesperson Bob Gammer. “And with not very many people reporting it, it was difficult to locate.”

However, satellite photos taken July 21 verified the object’s existence in the main body of the reservoir, roughly 100 kilometres west of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and west of Finlay Bay. Measurements indicated the island spanned approximately 70 metres by 140 metres, covering roughly 9,800 square metres—an area comparable to two NFL football fields.

Vanishing Act and Possible Cause

By Aug. 5, updated satellite images revealed that the land mass had disappeared from view. “We’ve been taking more updated snapshots and we can’t see the object anymore. So it’s disappeared now,” Gammer stated. “It doesn’t mean it’s gone to the bottom of the reservoir. It may have returned to a more sheltered area along the shoreline.”

High snowpacks during the winter alongside steady summer rainfall filled the man-made lake—the seventh-largest reservoir globally—to capacity, prompting B.C. Hydro to open spillways at the dam in June and July. Gammer explained that accumulated driftwood over many years likely allowed trees and plants to root along the shore, and high water levels finally detached the mass. “We haven’t had a full reservoir in 14 years,” Gammer noted. “We can’t pinpoint the origin of this floating island [but that’s] one explanation that seems reasonable.”

Local Impacts and Safety Concerns

The record water levels have significantly altered the local environment, washing away sand dunes often used for quad-biking and sweeping extra debris into the lake. “There’s areas we would never even drive a boat on before, and now we’re going up over top of it,” Avery said, warning that choppy water makes floating logs difficult to spot. “Some are full-size trees and it’ll do a lot of damage to your boat. So you got to be super careful.”

While rare for Williston Lake, floating islands occur regularly in dam construction worldwide, such as Wisconsin’s Lake Chippewa and Lake Victoria in Africa. B.C. Hydro does not anticipate operational disruptions but will continue monitoring satellite data for any reappearance of the island, relying in part on public reports to track conditions on the vast reservoir.