Peace Canyon and Bennett Dams

These two dams are located about 20 minutes apart. We’ve seen a bunch of dams before, and weren’t really sure we wanted to see these. We did, and they were both really interesting. If any of you are going to be nearby, be SURE to stop.

The Peace Canyon Dam is the smaller one, but it used four really huge turbines made in Russia. Each weighed 220 tons. There is a film showing the difficulty of moving the turbines that was simply fascinating. They had to actually make some roads, create bridges and you should see them go thru the cordoned off towns. The rig to move each one was specially built, and had 120 tires under it! In 1922 the site was famous after the footprints of seven species of dinosaurs were discovered there. Think there must have been some outcry against putting in that dam! There is another dam in the planning stage, and there is a current protest.

The Bennett Dam uses 10 turbines, half the size of the Peace. The tour takes you from a short film, then load onto a bus and drive into the dam where we get off, don helmets and the guide narrates all the functions and explains how electricity is made. Our dam tours in the past were pretty superficial. This one is terrific. Once you’ve been about everywhere inside the dam, we were loaded back onto the bus and returned up to the visitor center. Pictures were prohibited, so all we have is the shot from across the dam. Impressive.