Floating forest vanishes, reappears 30 km away with wildlife still aboard

British Columbia reservoirRepresentative image from Canva In the summer of 2026, workers and residents around the Williston Reservoir in northern British Columbia witnessed something that sounded like folklore: a large, forested island broke free from the shoreline, drifted across the lake, disappeared from view, and then turned up again about 30 kilometres away, still carrying mature trees, nesting birds and other wildlife. The “ghost island,” as some locals began calling it, had broken loose from saturated, peaty soils along the reservoir’s edge and been carried by wind and currents before grounding again downstream. As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, the event has captivated the public and prompted scientists to study how climate change, reservoir operations and fragile northern soils may be creating more of these drifting landmasses.A reservoir in a remote, changing landscapeThe Williston Reservoir, formed by the W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River, is one of the largest man-made lakes in North America. It stretches more than 170 kilometres through a rugged, boreal landscape of spruce, pine, wetlands and peatlands. The region is remote, sparsely populated and rich in wildli...