Peat extraction fundamentally alters the hydrology of peatland sites. The removal of vegetation, drainage ditch induced subsidence, and physical compaction from machinery lead to peat profiles with greater water table fluctuations and low specific yield. In addition, harrowing (tilling) practices create periods with a dry top 5 cm layer of peat that is hydrologically cut off from the layer below. Few studies in Canada have quantified the effect of these actions on evaporation dynamics. We thus monitored evaporation and the surface energy balance at two actively extracted peatlands in Alberta and Quebec, Canada for three years using the eddy covariance technique and associated meteorological measurements. Latent heat generally dominated the available energy, and despite the absence of vegetation and the site drainage, evaporation rates were close to those in natural peatlands. We observed significant interactions between the effects of vapour pressure deficit (VPD), surface moisture content, and water table depth (WTD) on evaporation, with VPD being the dominant control during moderate and wet periods (WTD > -50 cm) and moisture content being the dominant control during dry periods (WTD < -50 cm). A weighing bucket lysimeter experiment at the Alberta site showed that treatments with harrowed peat initially lost more water. By twelve hours, however, the dry harrowed layer was a barrier to further evaporation, leading to reduced evaporation over the next 40 hours compared to the control treatments. This work will further our understanding of bare soil evaporation dynamics, and will aid the peat extraction industry in site management.