Power from Winnipeg river to supply Winnipeg

WATER POWER in the

WINNIPEG RIVER

It Will Be Used to Generate Electricity That Will

Be Transmitted to Winnipeg.

Keewatin, like its neighbor, the little city of Rat Portage, is practically unknown to the world at large. The traveler who passes through it is impressed by the scenery viewed from the car window. If he pays close attention he may notice that the train is passing from island to island across the northern end of the beautiful lake of the wood, that the whole of the universe seems to be one great mass of rock, of timber and of water.

Such are the surroundings of Keewatin, Ontario. But it is none of these that constitute its chief claim to greatness. That comes from its water power. At Keewatin the Winnipeg river finds its source in the Lake of the Woods, and from here flows northwest to Lake Winnipeg, in Manitoba. Just at the point where the water flows out of the lake into the river has been built a great dam that has developed 30,000 horse power. The power that is possible of development at Keewatin is second only to that of Niagara, and this first 30,000 horse power can be doubled several times if it is ever needed.

So far this wonderful power has found but little use. A number of large sawmills use it, as also does a large flourmill and a stamp mill and gold refinery and a few smaller industries, but the power is ultimately expected to revolutionize the industrial conditions at Winnipeg, to which place it is to be transmitted in the form of electricity.

Winnipeg is not a manufacturing center. Fuel for power purposes has been too expensive in the past to make manufacturing industries profitable, but with cheap power there is much that might be manufactured in the Manitoba capital, and it is this want that Keewatin and the Keewatin dam are destined to supply.

The Lake of the Woods drains a territory of 30,000 square miles, and the water area of the lake itself is 3,000 square miles. In finding a way to the sea a greater part of this water passes over the dam at Keewatin, and it is from this that the power is developed. Like Niagara it is a power that will never fail for lack of water supply, nor does the river ever freeze to such an extent as to interfere with the operation of the power plant.

The dam at Keewatin is constructed of the native granite and cement, with a rock fill entirely of granite, the whole being founded upon granite and trap rock, and so strongly built that a washout is practically impossible. To get the power from this dam to Winnipeg it will be necessary to transmit it a distance of 120 miles, but it has been proven that this can be easily done with modern electrical inventions.

That electrical power can be successfully and economically transmitted for long distances has been demonstrated over and over again, and today such plants are in operation in a number of places in this country and elsewhere.

In 1892 the Westinghouse Electrical company successfully installed the first really long-distance, high voltage plant at Pomona, Cal. The electric current was delivered over this line at a distance of 28 miles.

Of the power developed at Niagara about 12,000 horse power is transmitted to Buffalo, a distance of about 25 miles. Nowadays we speak easily of large amounts of power, but how few realize what is meant by the expression 12,000 horse power. It is said that an army of 600,000 men, performing the hardest kind of physical labor, could not maintain a rate of working equivalent to 12,000 horse power for a single day. And there is 30,000 horse power at the Keewatin dam ready to be utilized. There would, of course, be a slight loss in transmission, but one of the foremost electricians in this country, who was electrical directory of the Niagara Falls Power company, is authority for the statement that a circuit of copper cable one inch in diameter will transmit 50,000 horse power with a loss in transmission of less than one-fifth of one per cent. per mile.

The Snoqualmie Falls Water Power company, at Washington, transmitted experimentally, with entire success, nearly 1,000 horse power a distance of 153 miles.

A plant is now under construction to deliver in the city of San Francisco electricity produced by water power 155 miles distant.

The distance from Keewatin to Winnipeg is about 120 miles, or considerably less than the distance over which electricity is now being transmitted at other places.

Such an experiment as this in the transmission of power is interesting not only to Winnipeg, but to hundreds of cities and towns in this country and Canada. All along the divide of the continent from which the waters flow both north and south, there are many streams capable of developing valuable water power if it can be utilized. A few cities such as Great Falls, Mont., Minneapolis, Spokane and other places are so fortunate as to have the power within their corporate limits, and so have never been called upon to solve the transmission problem. Other places have not been so situated that they could take advantage of the forces of nature without resorting to transmission, and Winnipeg will but add to the experiments that are revolutionizing American industries.

When the transmission line from Keewatin to Winnipeg is completed it is expected that the electricity so secured will be utilized not only for manufacturing purposes, but also as a means of running the street car system of the city, and for lighting purposes as well. - Wright A. Patterson