The Churchill River has the greatest hydroelectric potential of any river in North America because of its volume and steep descent to the sea. The main obstacle to constructing the station was the distance of Churchill Falls from the network of transmission lines that could deliver the power to towns and cities.

The island of Newfoundland badly needed cheap power. But in order to access power from the generators, a tunnel would have to be drilled through the Churchill River seabed to route transmission lines under the Strait of Belle Isle, an impossibly expensive task.

The power of the Churchill River could be tapped only if Churchill, in co-operation with Quebec, built transmission line towers across Labrador to northern Quebec. A deal was made between the provincial governments of Newfoundland and Quebec.

The Churchill Falls dam and underground power station was completed in 1974. At the time, it was the most ambitious engineering project ever undertaken on the continent. Upriver of the dam itself, 88 dikes were built to pool the water of the Labrador Plateau into the Smallwood Reservoir.

A cavern was blasted from solid rock to hold the array of huge turbines and generators. These would convert the river's flow into electricity. To force all of the water through the turbines, the river's natural channel was diverted away from the most rugged waterfall on the continent, now a dry outcrop of granite.

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The power station is two-thirds owned by Newfoundland and one-third by Hydro-Québec. Newfoundland has a contractual obligation, upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, to provide more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity to Hydro-Québec at prices agreed upon in 1969. The price paid to Newfoundland will actually decline greatly as the agreement approaches its expiry date in the year 2041.

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