Map location is approximate and may not reflect the exact location.

For 255 years, a dam has locked migratory fish out of Williams Lake. That’s about to end. The old dam is being replaced, and the new one has a fishway, required under the federal Fisheries Act, that will let salmon, trout, gaspereau and eels come up Lawson’s Creek from the Northwest Arm and into the lake for the first time since the 1700s.

Advisory: don’t swim at the east end of Williams Lake. The Williams Lake Conservation Company found E. coli above the safe swimming limit there on Aug. 5.

The new dam also has a split spillway with a second, higher section that only comes into play in a hundred-year storm. The concrete walls on either side get buried and planted over, so the spillway is the only part you’ll ever see.

The dam it replaces was built of earth, rock, wood and a little concrete to power mills on the Northwest Arm. Build Nova Scotia says it’s in poor condition, though not about to fail. The Province is spending $4.965 million on the replacement.

The lake refills once the temporary cofferdam comes out this fall. Trail cleanup and tree planting follow. Everything is due by spring 2027, and then HRM takes over the dam. More at buildns.ca and williamslakecc.org.