the river intermittently for many years, although fluctuating water levels and natural barriers (rapids and sandbars) hampered efficient operation. With the arrival of the railroad in Western Canada, steamboat shipping on the North Saskatchewan tapered off, but steamboats operated in the Edmonton area until the economic crash of 1912-14. Dams and hydroelectric development A number of dams have been planned and constructed on the North Saskatchewan River and its tributaries. No singular purpose has dominated dam planning in the basin, indeed, hydroelectric development, flood control, and water diversion schemes have all underpinned proposals to construct dams on the river. Planned dams The first hydroelectric development on the North Saskatchewan was planned in 1910 near the Town of Drayton Valley. Funding for the plan came from a British syndicate; design and construction were to be carried out by the Edmonton Hydro-Electric Power Scheme. The development was shelved after the outbreak of World War I. The La Colle Falls hydroelectric project east of Prince Albert was a half-built failure. Construction began in the 1910s and was later abandoned. The city remained in debt from financing the project until 1960, and the site still attracts tourists today. During the 1960s and 1970s, a major dam was planned on the North Saskatchewan near the Hamlet of Hairy Hill, Alberta, about downstream from Edmonton. This dam was part of a larger interbasin water diversion conceived by the Alberta Government to transfer water from the Peace, Smoky, and Athabasca rivers to the Saskatchewan River Basin. The planned dam had a maximum height of , with a crest length of , which would have created a reservoir capable of holding over of water. The reservoir would have affected municipal water works in the City of Fort Saskatchewan, was likely to inundate part of the Saddle Lake Indian reserve, and would have flooded a number of oil and natural gas fields in the area. The plan was later shelved in light of economic and environmental concerns. Constructed dams The Bighorn Dam was constructed near Nordegg and created Abraham Lake, one of the largest reservoirs in Alberta. The dam was constructed in 1972 by Calgary Power. The Bighorn Plant has a generating capacity of 120 megawatts (MW), and has an available water supply that allows it to be the largest producer of hydroelectric electricity in Alberta, with an average of 408,000 megawatt hours (MW⋅h) each year. One of the