Power from the Churchill River

Electrical power is a necessary and integral part of the development of mineral resources. The large orebody at Flin Flon is partly within the bounds of Saskatchewan, and the power needed to develop the orebody came from Saskatchewan, from the power station at Island Falls on the Churchill River, about 60 miles northwest of the big mine.

Pelle Hagberg went to Island Falls in 1930 . . . .

I went up as an operator of the plant. I started on the lowest rung as a third operator, and from there to the second operator and then first operator. Then I became a statistician, and I designed the houses for the company.

The first trip was on the 12th of June, 1930. We went by "Dinky", a little steam engine used to bring sand to the smelter over a narrow gauge track, out to Mari Lake, and then by barge to Camp 4 across Mari Lake where we stayed overnight.

So I took out my fishing line - it was afternoon and I started to catch pickerel. I never saw anything like it, they bit one after the other, so I fed the whole camp.

The next day we continued by canoe, at one point we had two canoes hooked together. We walked the portages and packed the stuff, these were pioneer days. It was over 60 miles to Island Falls from Flin Flon.

When we arrived there, all that was there were log buildings and tents. They had started the power units. The number 1 unit was started up on the 8th of June, 1930. Number 2 came on the 17th of June. Number 3 on the 11th of July. Then they built Number 4 in 1937, when they needed more power and Number 5 got in on the 22nd of May, 1939. Number 6 went on the 26th of May, 1948, then Number 7 went online on June 5th, 1959. In the end, the total capacity was 109 megawatts, at that time the largest plant in Saskatchewan.

My education before I came to Canada was as an architect, but I took what I could get and got involved in house building. At Island Falls the material was brought in by Lynn tractors and on sleighs. The roads were iced, and there was one trip when we went through the ice, with the whole set-up, but no life was lost. I didn't like it very much, that was in 1935.

The houses were quite good. No insulation, just tarpaper and asbestos siding. I argued about this. I wanted insulation.

They were electrically heated. We had one heater for the basement, a five kilowatt size, I think, and a larger one for the main floor. We produced power at 110,000 volts and transformed it down for local use.

There are 29 houses there and a staff house. And we built a community hall, all volunteer local labor. We seemed to have more interest in doing something in those days. The company supplied the material and equipment and we supplied the work.

They shut the townsite down when the plant became automatic. Now there's nobody living there except the caretaker, and he serves meals to operators who go up there once a week. So there are 29 modern homes, sitting there empty, rotting away.

Bob Ash spent some time at Island Falls, in the "early days" . . . .

I went to Island Falls - and I can still remember the exact date; it was October the 20th, 1935. The reason I went up there was because the company was enlarging the plant to about twice the capacity. Up until 1935, Island Falls had been a fairly small community, but with the enlarging of the plant it became a much bigger centre.

Island Falls dam. — **Island Falls dam, power house, and community from the air. Summer. circa 1957. Photo by Earl Dodds.**

**Sandy Bay from the air. Summer, circa 1957. Photo by Earl Dodds.**

**Whitesand Dam, Reindeer River. March, 1953. Photo by Earl Dodds.**

I was working in the office, as a kind of liaison guy between the company - Churchill River Power, a subsidiary of Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting and Fraser Brace Company, the construction outfit.

At that time, they were milling about 3000 tons a day in Flin Flon and they were enlarging the plant to about 6000 tons per day capacity. And that's what it pretty well has stayed at since. At that particular time, I think they had three large units at Island Falls, but I'm not an electrical engineer. They did the underwater structure for an additional three or four units, which in a matter of a few years were all turned on.

THE ISLAND FALLS POWER PLANT.

The completion of the Island Falls power plant on the Churchill River marks the entrance of the province of Saskatchewan into the field of hydroelectric development, as this is the first plant of that nature to be placed in operation in that province.

The plant has been constructed mainly for industrial purposes by the Churchill River Power Company Ltd., and will not be used for the distribution of electrical energy for municipal purposes, as there is no market at present available for the sale of the power, other than the mines in the vicinity of the plant. The power being developed, which amounts to 44,000 h.p., is used by the Flin Flon mine of the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company, Ltd., and by the Sherritt Gordon Mine at Cold Lake in Manitoba.

Before proceeding with a description of the construction of the plant, it may be of interest to give some particulars of the source from which this hydroelectric energy is produced.

CHURCHILL RIVER.

The Churchill River basin lies in the central and northern parts of the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and extends into the province of Alberta. The greater part of the area is included in the pre-Cambrian peneplain of northern Canada and has a gently rolling surface characterized by rounded outlines that have resulted from long-continued and profound erosion. The river is peculiar in that it is composed of chains of lakes connected by falls, rapids and stretches of swift water which makes it difficult to navigate and numerous portages are necessary to pass these points. In earlier days the river was used to a considerable extent by the fur traders, but traffic has practically ceased since the advent of railway transportation. The river rises in Churchill Lake in western Saskatchewan, but some of the tributary headwaters are in Alberta, and the total length from Churchill Lake to Churchill, where it enters Hudson Bay, is approximately 1,325 miles. In this distance there is a fall of over 1,300 feet which is well concentrated in the numerous falls and rapids along its course, making it a very valuable stream for power purposes, particularly so as the large lakes in the drainage basin and extensive areas of swamp and muskeg afford means of natural regulation. The total drainage area is about 114,500 square miles of which possibly 80,000 square miles is above the power site. Crosse Lake may be mentioned, and it would be a comparatively simple matter to dam the outlets of these lakes and impound large quantities of water.

In the drainage basin above the power site, the rock formations consist mainly of granite or gneisses which are exposed along the river channel.In the areas away from the river the rocks are covered with glacial drift, sometimes to considerable depths, and these consist of till, clay, and sandy formations; where suitable cover exists the country is covered with thick growths of poplar, spruce, birch and jack pine. Some good stands of merchantable timber are to be found in the valley bottoms, but most of the timber is too small for commercial use.

At present, little information has been obtained as to the flow of the stream, but a minimum of 10,000 c.f.s. and a maximum of 35,000 c.f.s. was recorded during the years 1928-1930 and there is reason to believe that a much higher maximum flow has been attained at some time in the past, which may have amounted to as much as 100,000 c.f.s., judging from old high water marks.

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATIONS.

The Flin Flon mine was first discovered in 1915 and some efforts were made to develop the property, but little success attended these efforts owing to lack of transportation facilities and a successful method of treatment of the ore. Sufficient work was done however, to reveal the presence of a large body of copper-sulphide ore and an option on the property was secured by the Whitney interests in 1925. Experimental work was carried on during the years 1926-1927 and the results were sufficiently encouraging to warrant the purchase of the property. Arrangements were immediately concluded for the construction of a railway from The Pas to Flin Flon and investigations of possible water power sites were started. A considerable amount of study was given to the power possibilities of both the Churchill and Nelson Rivers and the site at Island Falls was finally selected as the one most suitable to the needs of the company.

PRELIMINARY CONSTRUCTION.

The location of the power site was in a region remote from the point where power was to be used and the only means of access was by canoes with frequent portages between lakes. No roads existed in this area and the distance from the mine to the power site was about 70 miles.

It was therefore obvious, that a transportation system would have to be built to connect the job with the railhead, which would be capable of handling a large amount of material and supplies needed by the construction crews, during both the summer and winter seasons and this work was started during the summer of 1928 and completed the following winter.

During this period a total of 43 miles of forest road had been cleared and graded. Camps were established along the route, docks built at the end of each lake, and several large scows of 20 to 30 tons capacity had been constructed. A bush telephone line connected the camps and terminal points.

Winter transportation was handled by trains of sleighs hauled by tractors of 100 h.p. Each train was made up of about six sleighs, a tractor and heated caboose, and operations were carried out on a definite running schedule, the time for the round trip varying from thirty-six to forty hours. The average load per train was 77 tons but loads up to 120 tons were hauled.

The total amount of freight handled during the construction period was 35,000 tons, 70 per cent of which was handled during the first winter.

The work of erecting the construction camp was started during the winter. Operations were also commenced in connection with the location and clearing of the transmission line.

The permanent camp buildings were erected during the winter of 1928-1929, and the two sawmills were busily engaged in preparing lumber for building and construction purposes.

Power for construction purposes was first supplied by portable engines, but a small power site had been located at Spruce Falls, about 14 miles from the job, and a temporary power plant was constructed at this point, with a transmission line to Island Falls. Power was transmitted at 26,000 volts and stepped down at a substation to motor and lighting voltages.

This small plant was in operation for over a year and supplied 4,700,000 k.w.h. of electrical energy. The dams and powerhouse were of timber construction and the plant consisted of two 1,250 h.p. units coupled to 1,000 kv.a. vertical type generators, 600-volt, 3-phase, 60-cycle, speed 400 r.p.m., 40-foot head. The transformers were located apart from the building and consisted of a bank of three 667 kv.a. units 600 to 6,600/26,400 volts with lightning arresters for protection purposes.

CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGN.

The design of the plant was based upon the use of local material as far as was possible, to save transportation of structural material, and the layout of the plant was so arranged that space was also economized to keep the cost of construction within reasonable limits.

From start to finish the whole of the work was completed in a little over two years, but the actual construction of the permanent works was completed in sixteen months and power was being supplied to the mine twelve months after the first ground was broken.

Construction of the works was carried out by the Fraser Brace Engineering Company Ltd., of Montreal, which was also responsible for the general design, and the cost of the undertaking was approximately $7,100,000. - (Excerpts from Marshall, 1931)

We had a third operator, he was on night shift, and his duty was to clean the water screens before he went off shift.

Around seven o'clock in the morning, he came rushing up. "Where's the water coming from? Where's the water coming from?"

I said, "Take it easy. What's the matter?" "There's water coming in," he said. So I went down to see what was the matter, he had taken off both screens, upper and lower, so the water was pouring through.

"Get in there and get that water shut off," I said, "turn that valve on the left-hand side and put everything back the way it was."

Once I told the same guy to go down and measure the oil in the sump. He took the lid off the sump pump and broke the rule. So I told him he better go down and get it before it did any damage.

"How do I get it?" "Make yourself stark naked and wade in there!" So in he went, up to his waist in oil.

That same guy died up there, he was accident-prone, I guess, we had an arrester tower, there were two sections to it. You went up to the first platform to inspect the arrester power and then up to the high tension. You were only supposed to go up with clearance and there had to be two operators together. Shortly after seven o'clock, we felt this "bump" on the line, and I couldn't find the cause. A fellow came in and asked what was wrong at the arrester tower.

We went out. This man had been up there dusting the insulators, he must have dusted five, the sixth one got him: 110,000 volts shorted right through him - Pelle Hagberg.