Mysterious Island Emerges in Canadian Lake, Disappears, Reappears

[Glenn MacGrady]

A Mysterious Island Has Emerged in a Canadian Lake

A floating island loaded with green, healthy-looking trees has been spotted drifting around Williston Lake in Canada, and we've never seen anything like it.

www.sciencealert.com

"Technically, it's more like a raft than an island, with trees and other plants growing on something seemingly buoyant, like driftwood."

"The reservoir is managed by BC Hydro, a power company that harnesses electricity from the dam."

"It doesn't appear to be there in the days before, and it's unclear where it went in the days after."

". . . the floating island may have formed on the shore across several years, breaking off and floating freely when the water levels reached those record peaks."

"Williston Lake is massive – the seventh largest reservoir in the world – and as far as we know, that floating island could still be bobbing around out there somewhere."

We need some British Columbia canoeists to paddle out and investigate this mysterious island.

 

[Gamma1214]

Those are some pretty big trees. I'd still want to know where it goes when it disappears before I camped on it. Bermuda triangle's been pretty quiet lately but I'd hate to find out that it just relocated beyond 50° N latitude.

 

[Nick Pending]

I'd still want to know where it goes when it disappears before I camped on it.

Likely it just bumps into shore and sticks for a while, looking like any other innocuous peninsula until it breaks free and starts traveling again. It will eventually break up and truly disappear. Or, then again, maybe the huge turtle it's growing on the back of might really wake up and dive? < G >

I paddled a feeder stream to that lake, the Omineca River, with a small group back about 2013 if I remember right. I was hoping to get onto the Finlay River at one time but never made it to that one.