KEMANO

KEMANO
Is an abandoned community situated on the Kemano River, where it drains into the Gardner Canal. Kemano was originally the home of a massive, hydroelectricity station built specifically to provide power for the Alcan Aluminum Smelter in Kitimat, some 75 kilometers to the north. It began producing power in 1954 and was made attainable by damming the Nechako River and diverting its headwaters westward via a 16 kilometer-long tunnel, the same width of a two-lane highway, inculcated under the mountains. A second stage of the diversion, the Kemano Completion Project, was initially approved by the Government of British Columbia in 1987, but cancelled in 1995 because of environmental concerns. From 1950-2000, the community had a guesthouse, a shop selling everything from socks to hats to candy and also had a golf course and a church. In 2000, the community was shut down and residents were moved out and the community was shut down and eventually burnt down as a training exercise for fire departments from all over British Columbia, In its heyday, Kemano was accessible only by air and never had a road connecting it to the outside world.