Officials Find Canada's Vanished Floating Island Again

The utility's spokesman, Bob Gammer, initially doubted the footage was genuine, noting that advances in artificial intelligence have made online images increasingly hard to verify. Rocky Avery, a local resident who shared the boaters' photographs, said he had never seen anything comparable in forty years in the country and wanted to warn others before an approaching fishing derby. BC Hydro estimates the island at about one hectare, or 9,800 square metres, which the BBC compared to one and a half American football fields, while the New York Post described it as closer to two. Gammer's team believes driftwood accumulated along the shoreline over many years, allowing plants and trees to take root, before the mass broke away this summer as water levels rose to their highest point in fourteen years.

The reservoir has been unusually full after heavy winter snow and steady summer rain, and BC Hydro opened the spillways of the WAC Bennett Dam in June and July to release water. The utility does not expect the island to disrupt operations but is monitoring the reservoir in case it drifts again. Gammer cautioned that the structure is not stable and urged anyone tempted to visit to stay off it, warning that it could break apart. Floating islands are not unique to Canada: a mass of peat known as the Forty Acre Bog drifts on Lake Chippewa in the American state of Wisconsin, where boaters occasionally push it away from a local bridge.