In mid-August 2026, BC Hydro started getting photos and video of something strange on Williston Reservoir in northern British Columbia: an island covered in trees, apparently floating. The footage seems to date from around July 21. “We weren’t entirely convinced,” community relations manager Bob Gammer said later. Some coverage noted the utility had wondered whether the clips were AI-generated.

The island was real. BC Hydro puts it at roughly 140 metres long and 70 metres wide, about two football fields, with established vegetation growing on top. It was first seen west of Finlay Bay. Then, in mid-August, it disappeared from view.

On August 31 the utility confirmed where it had gone. Satellite imagery from August 15 showed it resting against the shore of the Ospika Arm, about 30 kilometres northwest. BC Hydro estimates it drifted that far in roughly two weeks, pushed by wind.

The likely explanation is ordinary, if unusual. Williston, created by the W.A.C. Bennett Dam in 1968, is B.C.’s largest reservoir and is full of old timber. BC Hydro suggests logs and woody debris collected in a sheltered spot over many years, decayed, and gave plants somewhere to root, until high water lifted the whole mass free.

“Finding the island has answered one question, but it has raised several others,” Gammer said. BC Hydro is telling people to look from a boat or a drone, and not to climb onto it: the ground is loose, rotting wood.