were to navigate the river. Most of the early vessels were wood-burning steamships, fueled by wood cut from the river's shore. The last cargo vessel was the Watson's Lake, retired in 1952. Hydroelectric development Hydroelectric development began on the Peace River in 1968 and continues to be an important source of renewable energy for British Columbia's main electricity provider, BC Hydro. The river’s first dam, the W. A. C. Bennett Dam, was completed in 1968 and is British Columbia's largest dam and the third-largest hydroelectric facility in Canada. It supplies over 30% of British Columbia's total power demand. Engineers took advantage of the W. A. C. Bennet Dam's large reservoir storage to further develop the river with the Peace Canyon Dam opened in 1980. The Site C dam is under construction and scheduled to be finished in 2025; it will further benefit from the upstream dams and generate additional electrical capacity to meet British Columbia's growing demand for green energy and reduce the carbon footprint of residents. both the Alberta government and private producers were studying the possibility of hydroelectric development on the Alberta stretch of the river with one run-of-the-river project currently being proposed. Geography Course This river is long (from the head of Finlay River to Lake Athabasca). It drains an area of approximately . At Peace Point, where it drains in the Slave River, it has an annual discharge of . A large man-made lake, Williston Lake, has been formed on the upper reaches by the construction of the W. A. C. Bennett Dam for hydroelectric power generation. Prior to its flooding, the confluence of the Finlay and Parsnip Rivers at Finlay Forks was distinct. A half mile east of that location were the half-mile long Finlay Rapids and a further seven miles east is the Peace Pass, which separates the Muskwa Ranges and the Hart Ranges of the Canadian Rockies. The only river cutting completely through the Rockies, it nowadays flows into Dinosaur Lake, a reservoir for the Peace Canyon Dam. After the dams, the river flows east into Alberta and then continues north and east into the Peace-Athabasca Delta in Wood Buffalo National Park, at the western end of Lake Athabasca. Water from the delta flows into the Slave River east of Peace Point and reaches the Arctic Ocean via the Great Slave Lake and Mackenzie River. Communities Communities located directly on the river include: