"The moment you cannot supply your youth with the means to make a living in the modern world, you are a candidate to become a ghost town."
- John Archer, author, historian and former president of the University of Regina
From coast to coast, Canada's ghost towns are a record of triumph and pain, pioneer stories embedded in the rotting wood frames and overgrown gardens of these forgotten burgs. Whether it's the tiny Atlantic outport that once protected itself from pirates' pillaging, the Québec quarantine station that greeted 98,000 immigrants during a single ghastly summer of typhus, the Ontario community that boasted the world's first underwater silver mine, or the BC asbestos town whose chief export lined Neil Armstrong's space suit for his first lunar step, Ghost Towns of Canada explores the history of high hopes and hard labour that characterize this country's beginnings.
This 13-part series introduces the bold characters who pinned their futures on the new world, often winning a niche in the world's temperamental markets, but losing hope of any enduring legacy to the sweeping changes of time. Ghost Towns of Canada reunites one-time residents with the towns they once called home, uncovering the human stories that lay hidden beneath the peeling paint.
Titles included in this series:
Ireland's Eye, Newfoundland
Grosse Île, Québec
Val Jalbert, Québec
Silver Islet, Ontario
Depot Harbour, Ontario
Creighton, Ontario
Ghost Town Trail, Saskatchewan
Rowley, Alberta
Nordegg, Alberta
Barkerville, British Columbia
Sandon, British Columbia
Ocean Falls, British Columbia
Cassiar, British Columbia