Williston Lake

Artificially constructed reservoir in the northeast of British Columbia. With a surface area of 1,660 sq km/640 sq mi, Williston Lake is the largest freshwater body in the province and the biggest reservoir in North America. It stretches for over 190 km/120 mi northwest–southeast in the Rocky Mount Trench, and also has a 120 km/75 mi-long eastern arm.

The reservoir was created in 1968, when the W A C Bennett Dam, west of Hudson's Hope on the Peace River, was finished. This 180 m/600 ft-high barrier was named after a provincial minister who encouraged the development of the pulp industry in the British Columbia interior; it is of the largest earthfill dams in the world. Timber is milled at Mackenzie, on the southeastern shore of the lake.