Road Trip - Revelstoke Canyon Dam

This morning we woke up to another rain and dew soaked tent. Our tarp had survived the deluge from the night before and left us with a nice dry area out the back of the car. We fired up the stove, pressurised the Aeropress, and had an excellent breakfast under the trees.

The next stop on the journey is Revelstoke Campground, about an hour and a half deeper into the mountains. The road we took wound its way alongside the Canadian Pacific railway, passing lots of beautiful little lakes, and awe-inspiring mountains on either side.

We pulled over at the Last Spike monument rest stop which commemorated the place where the last railway spike was driven into the CPR, way back in 1885. The rest stop was a favourite place for RV'ers to take a break, so the parking lot was full of ridiculous houses-on-wheels.

From there, we carried on to the Revelstoke Canyon Dam. I took a wrong turn, and we ended up at the end of a road on the wrong side of the river, our path blocked by a big BC Hydro "No Trespassing" sign. 20 minutes later we were through the dam security checkpoint and parked outside the visitors' centre. We just managed to catch the start of a guided tour of the dam!

The dam is mind-bogglingly massive. The penstocks (the pipes that the water flows in from the dam to the turbines) are wide enough to drive two buses side by side in. At the minimum flow (required by law, to make sure the river keeps moving), the dam dribbles out a mere 142 cubic metres of water per second. At max flow, 2125 cubic meters of water can roar through the turbines, generating 2480 Mega Watts of energy. Enough to power 800,000 homes! Each of the five penstocks can channel enough water to fill an Olympic swimming pool every 3 seconds!

The dam only generates as much power as is required at any time. Each turbine has variable vanes that can stop the flow of water, and can be opened to spin the 188-ton turbines up to full speed in only 10 seconds! The visitor centre was full of interactive exhibits that helped illustrate the raw power of nature, and educate people on how the dam works, and about electricity in general.

The dam was originally build with four turbines, but they had provision to build an additional two when future growth necessitated it. Turbine 5 was completed in about 2008, and plans are underway to build Turbine 6 sometime in the next few years. You can see the place on the dam where the penstock will go once they're ready for it.

We left the dam in an incredible-feat-of-engineering-induced daze, and made our way back to Revelstoke town. Revelstoke itself started life as a railway and mining town and is named after Lord Revelstoke whos company saved the Canadian Pacific Railway from bankruptcy in the year it was completed. More recently it has been reinvented as a ski town, with the population booming in Winter months with backcountry skiers and patrons of Revelstoke Mountain Resort on Mount Mackenzie.

Revelstoke Campground is part of the KOA association and is very children and family oriented. There's a heated pool, duck pond, and petting zoo with little goats that you can feed. Tonight there's a screening of Moana, and tomorrow there's a pancake breakfast! It's one of the biggest campgrounds we've stayed at, and definitely the least private. There are lots of trees, but we aren't separated from the other sites like how we have been at all the other campgrounds we've stayed at. It's also the closest to a town that we've stayed, only 10 minutes away from Revelstoke city centre.

While I've been writing this, two groups of people have come over to talk about our rooftop tent, and several more have stared as they walked by, or slowed down as they drove past. I like that it's an interesting conversation starter, but Katie's still a little uncomfortable, feeling like a Burmis sales rep whenever she talks to people about it.

Today is also Canada day! Lots of campers have Canadian flags, and little maple leaf decorations. We heard some fireworks tonight and last night, but couldn't see them through the trees.