Ootsa Lake revisited
December 01st, 2016
From 1905 to 1952, there was an agrarian settlement on the north shore of Ootsa Lake in central B.C. about sixty kilometers south of Burns Lake. During the ‘20s and ‘30s, George and Else Seel raised their children towards the western end of the lake near the largest village of Wistaria. Elsie and her son Rupert remained there until 1952 when Kenney Dam construction, as part of the Alcan project, raised the level of Ootsa Lake, flooding their property, also forcing the evacuation of the Cheslatta First Nation. Jay Sherwood’s seventh book, Ootsa Lake Odyssey: George and Else Seel – A Pioneer Life on the Headwaters of the Nechako Watershed (Caitlin $24.95), retrieves the history of that vanished, mixed community. 978–1987915211
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