A problem early this morning with one of the two turbines at the Aishihik dam briefly blacked out part of Porter Creek, MacPherson and areas north of the city.

Yukon Energy spokeswoman Janet Patterson said power failed at 6:43 but was restored eight minutes later, at 6:51, when staff at the Whitehorse dam redistributed the load.

A crew was at the Aishihik hydro dam today to try to determine what caused the problem, she said.

Patterson said the Whitehorse-Aishihik-Faro grid was being powered by Aishihik's two 15-megawatt turbines and the 20-megawatt number-four turbine in Whitehorse when the problem occurred.

The troubled Aishihik turbine shut itself down after detecting a blimp in the operation.

A controller in Whitehorse replaced the Aishihik turbine with two of the three seven-megawatt turbines at the Whitehorse dam and power was restored, she explained.