Site C Dam in BC

On a warm and calm Sunday, Ken and Arlene Boon stood on the banks of the Peace River in northeast B.C. and watched the water rise — an event they had dreaded for more than a decade. It lapped near their former farm fields and a lodge where a beaver family was busy storing twigs, bark and leaves to eat over the winter. The water crept up a thick tangle of bushes along the shoreline where migratory songbirds nest, moving towards the fire ring around which the Boons spent many a cheerful evening with their extended family and friends. The Boons felt somewhat prepared for the rising waters; they’d received an email from BC Hydro three days earlier, on Aug. 22, saying reservoir flooding for the Site C hydro dam

project was about to begin, after almost a decade of construction. But it was still a shock, Ken Boon told The Narwhal. “It’s going to be pretty dramatic — and traumatic,” he said.