Dickson Dam is a flow-regulation dam constructed in 1983 which impounded the

Red Deer River The Red Deer River is a river in Alberta and a small portion of Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a major tributary of the South Saskatchewan River and is part of the larger Saskatchewan / Nelson River, Nelson system that empties into Hudson Bay. T ...

creating a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

known as Gleniffer Lake. The dam is west of the town of Innisfail and southwest of the city of

Red Deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or Hart (deer), hart, and a female is called a doe or hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Ir ...

. The dam was created to control for floods and low winter flows, to improve quality of the river, to create a recreational resource and to provide a reliable, year-round water supply sufficient for future industrial, regional and municipal growth.

Generation

All water control structures at the site, including the dam, intake, headgates, and spillway, are owned by the Province of Alberta and administered by Alberta Environment and Water. Algonquin Power owns a small hydropower station that was added to the dam. It consists of three 5 MW Barber turbines with Ideal Generators. Commercial operations began on January 16, 1992. Water management of the reservoir is directed by the provincial Ministry of Environment and Water. Under the Dickson Power Purchase Agreement signed in 1990, all electrical power generated by the facility was sold to

TransAlta TransAlta Corporation (formerly Calgary Power Company, Ltd.) is an electricity power generator and wholesale marketing company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is a privately owned corporation and its shares are traded publicly. It o ...

Utilities Corporation. The 20-year contract expired on January 16, 2012. Low reservoir water levels were a concern in 2010.

Gleniffer Reservoir Provincial Recreation Area

In the summer of 2009, Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation consolidated six provincial recreation areas (PRAs) at Dickson Dam and around Gleniffer Lake (Dickson Dam–Cottonwood PRA, Dickson Dam–Dickson Point PRA, Dickson Dam–North Dyke PRA, Dickson Dam–South Dyke PRA, Dickson Dam–North Valley PRA, Dickson Dam–South Valley PRA) into one PRA renamed Gleniffer Reservoir PRA. Motorboating, waterskiing, swimming, and sailboarding are allowed. There are

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

in a trout pond.

Northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (pikes). They are commonly found in brackish water, moderately salty and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). T ...

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', Synonym (taxonomy), synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the walleyed pike, yellow pike, yellow pikeperch or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern ...

mountain whitefish The mountain whitefish (''Prosopium williamsoni'') is one of the most widely distributed salmonid fish of western North America. It is found from the Mackenzie River drainage in Northwest Territories, Canada through western Canada and the northwe ...

, and

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...

are also found nearby.

References

Dams in Alberta Dams completed in 1983 {{Dam-stub