When Vermilion Was Under Threat By Beavers

Back in early August 1950, Vermilion suddenly found itself in a situation where it was dealing with a power shortage.

And it was all because of some beavers in the Vermilion River.

Beavers had been working on their dams so much that the Vermilion River suddenly had a highly reduced flow rate.

This reduced flow rate meant that the Canadian Utilities power plant at Vermilion didn’t have the needed water supplies to keep power student. The plant used water from the river to condense for re-use the steam which turned the turbines at the plant.

But with 50 dams built by beavers, that presented a serious problem. The other issues is that there was not as much rain as usual, leading to the river almost running dry in some places because of the beaver dams.

It was reported that by Aug. 18, 1950, only a little stagnant water remained in the river where it went past the power plant. This was not enough for plant operations.

To deal with the beaver issue, officials with the utility company met with officials from the provincial lands and forests department. They decided that the best thing to do would be to capture the beavers and move them to a different place. The beavers were captured by two workers and relocated 70 kilometres upriver on the North Saskatchewan River.

The beaver dams were then destroyed, and the plant once again had enough water to operate normally. For the people in Vermilion, it was good news to know that they would not be dealing with power shortages in the coming autumn and winter seasons.

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