20th Century History:  Hydro Generation

After several years of study, it was decided in 1927, to build a regulating dam at Ear Falls.  After break-up in the spring of 1928, work commenced on the regulating dam at Lower Ear Falls at the outlet of Lac Seul to benefit developments further downstream and on the Winnipeg River in Manitoba.

The dam was designed as a pier and stop-log structure, 44 feet high with gravity end walls. Its overall length was to be 601 feet with twenty sluiceways, each 14 feet wide. Once construction was completed the potential storage basin would have a capacity of 3,300,000 acre feet or 145,000,000,000 cubic feet; bigger than the capacity reservoir if either the Assuan dam in Egypt or the Elephant Butte dam in Texas.  The dam had a potential hydro electric power capacity of 30,000 horse power under a head of 36 feet.  The contract was given to the construction firm of Morrow and Beatty Ltd.

In order to transport all the heavy materials required at the dam site before the close of the navigation season, every available boat on Lac Seul was commandeered for the purpose.  The Triangle Transportation Company was contracted to bring in 2,800 tons of cement. It was shipped up on 110 scows, all loaded to the hilt. 

During that summer’s construction, Howey Bay Mine applied to the Ontario Government for hydro electric power and arrangements were made to install a generator at Ear Falls as soon as the dam was completed, rather than go through to the expense of building a second dam nearer Red Lake. Work commenced to clear a hydro right-of-way between Ear Falls and Red Lake and power line construction began.

The new dam was completed in the spring of 1929 and had conserved some of the spring run off.  Upper Ear Falls had been flooded out. That summer a single unit generating plant was installed at the Ear Falls dam to produce the 3,000 kilowatts required by the Howey Mine.  The power was turned on Christmas Day, 1929.

As the water rose, homes and warehouses were drowned beneath the lake. Water went back into the bush for miles and miles. All the beautiful Norway pines around Lac Seul were drowned out. Some of the best timber in the country was now underwater.

Even today, everywhere, like skeletons of past glory, dead wood still protrudes from the water.  The shores are piled with drift wood. In open stretches, clumps of dead heads can still be seen, which mark the grave of a once beautiful island.

To meet increasing demands for electric power, a second generator was installed in 1936 the third generator was brought into service in January 1940 and the fourth and final unit in 1946 which completed the generating capacity for which the Ear Falls Dam had been designed less than 20 years previous.

With the ever increasing demand for hydro power throughout Ontario and Manitoba, in the spring of 1946, Ontario Hydro investigated the feasibility of another dam and powerhouse at Manitou Falls. Construction of the Manitou Power Dam began in 1954 and by the summer of 1956 construction work was completed and the main construction camp was dismantled. The Manitou Falls Dam raised the level in the English River and Pakwash Lake to a level that Snake Falls was turned into only a ripple in the river that shows where the waterfalls once began.