A floating island of trees in British Columbia’s largest reservoir was spotted in August, disappeared entirely from satellite imagery, then reappeared
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Out in the Williston Reservoir in British Columbia, Canada, a newly discovered island has been garnering worldwide attention for appearing, and then seemingly vanishing, before reappearing again some 30 kilometres from where it was first spotted.
The landmass, covered in forest, was originally seen by a boater in August in the province’s largest reservoir. Images and videos of it went viral online, with some raising concerns that the videos were AI-generated.
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But satellite imagery confirmed the island was entirely real, estimated to be around 70 metres wide and 140 metres long – roughly the size of one-and-a-half American football pitches and covered in trees.
‘It’s not like they’re just a bunch of little shrubs. This is an island with larger trees, and it’s something you really have to wrap your mind around,’ said a spokesperson for BC Hydro, Bob Gammer. ‘It’s not an everyday thing. This is really, really unusual.’
The island has also been confirmed to be home to birds and small animals.
However, by 5 August, this new island no longer appeared in the same location in satellite data. For ten days, experts were baffled as to where it had gone. Eventually, officials in BC said they were able to locate the island again after it had drifted about 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) from its original location.
‘Floating vegetated islands of this size are rare, but they can occur in large reservoirs like Williston, particularly when water levels are higher than they have been for some time,’ said Gammer. ‘Higher reservoir levels can lift material that may have been lodged along the shoreline or in a sheltered bay, allowing it to float free.’
Speculation has arisen about how the island formed, with some theorising that it formed over many years from the accumulation of driftwood, where plants and trees took root.
Similar islands have been spotted around the world, including the Forty Acre Bog in Wisconsin’s Lake Chippewa, thought to have formed when peat bogs detached from the lake bottom and surfaced. The Forty Acre Bog is protected by state laws and is home to a plethora of wildlife, from frogs to salamanders.
