Churchill Falls
After two
days at Labrador City, we got back onto Hwy 500, making sure the gas tank was
full, and drove to Churchill Falls as we had booked a tour of the Hydroelectric
facility for Tuesday morning. With no RV
campground available, we were told to park at the local arena parking lot for
the night and use an electrical plug there for cars in winter if we needed
electricity. Churchill Falls is a
company town according to our tour guide Karen.
Nalcor Energy is two thirds owned by Newfoundland and Labrador and one
third by Qué
bec. Most people in Churchill Falls work for the
company with the exception of the school teachers, store clerks and gas station
staff. Everyone either lives in a rented
house ($100.00 a month rent and free electricity) or company dorm.
From looking at some of the earth dams (there
are 88 of them with a total length of 64 km ) and the switching yard at the
surface it does not look very spectacular. Opening in 1971, it is one of the
largest underground hydroelectric facilities in the world, with 11 turbines, 11
transformers (the older ones were built by Canadian General Electric in Guelph
), producing up to 5,428 megawatts of electricity at full capacity. All this is housed in enormous tunnels cut
out of the granite rock, including 16 Km of road to get equipment and people in
and out. On the surface the main hydro transmission lines from the power plant
immediately span 6,000 feet across the Churchill River gorge. It was a three hour tour and well worth doing.
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| Huge reservoir area |
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| Earth dam that you can drive on |
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| Entrance to the facility noting amount of power being generated |
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| Turbine hall the size of 3 soccer fields |
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| Transformer Hall, note the size of the truck |
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| Safety bus to get workers out in case of need |
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| One of six pylons on each side supporting lines going across the Churchill River |
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