That town was created for people working in the molybdenum mine. Once the mine closed, there was no other job in the town, so no salaries. That's why people left. You asked, "Why wouldn't they build a Walmart or something", but how can someone go and buy something at "Walmart or something" if they don't have a job and no money?
@@TomHuston43 Exactly. That, and his burning interest in the UK and Norway keep him comfortable. Why else would he react to the same content over and over and over as if it's the first time, right?
This isn't as mysterious as it seems when you consider where it's located. Kitsault is just E of the Southernmost tip of Alaska. The only road access is a single very long winding road through the mountains to get to it, and it connects to a highway that is closed in the winter. When the highway is open, you're a 20 hour drive away from Vancouver. Even if the land, buildings, and infrastructure were all free, few people could afford to live there because the remoteness makes the cost of living horrifically high.
Mining boomtowns like this are all over Canada and the US. Some are fully abandoned, some are shells of their former selves. One of my home province of Saskatchewan's examples of the latter is Uranium City. Established in the 1950s to mine its namesake nuclear metal in the farthest north of the province, Uranium city remains one of the northernmost communities in Saskatchewan. Its population peaked in 1981 at just over 2,500, but sadly, just a year later, its mines shut down, leaving nothing for the town's economy. Today, 45 years after its peak population, the community has just 91 residents, with most of its buildings, including a supermarket and a hospital, completely abandoned.
The most surprising thing in this whole video is that you’ve never heard of a ghost town before. They’re not uncommon across Canada and the US, often created specifically for a mining site. Like he said, what is special about this one is the level of preservation, not that it’s a ghost town (that’s not special on itself). What you’re missing is that those towns are hundreds of miles away from civilization.
Tyler. My husband had private access to the town in 2020 when on an overlanding expedition. It is amazing. There is a husband and wife caregiver who actually live in one of the houses. The property is privately owned by an American because it was never really a town ...it was owned by the mining company. That is why everyone left; they were forced to leave.
And then they drive from their small towns like Smithers or Houston, 2+ hours to shop at Walmart in Terrace, or 4+ hours to do their shopping at Costco, Walmart, Home Depot, Pine Centre Mall, or shop online via Amazon (instead of their local merchants, who are "too expensive"). Most small towns have at least an A&W, Subway, DQ, or Tim's these days.
the british and the norweigens and the japanese are asking the same thing as he has 3 other channels as well so canadians are not the only ones asking that question.
Tyler will never leave his comfort zone his bubble and he has a lack of social awareness. He has 3 TH-cam channels and his reactions across all 3 are exactly the same as Tyler but with a different surname for all 3.
Molybdenum is used in a lot of things, the one most people would recognize is hand tools. Wrenches, screwdrivers, socket wrench sets, etc. Many will be marked as "chrome-moly" steel/alloy
Wilf Watson (of Smithers, BC) was there from the 70s until he died there in 2003. He maintained the buildings and grounds. I'm not sure who's done so since he passed, but someone (or more than a couple of people) live in Kitsault, year-round.
0:47 you’ve never heard of a ghost town before? They exist all over the world. I don’t know where the closest town is to this one, but apparently it’s pretty far. 1:43 either it’s done on purpose or the power also is used for something important that still there but is not a residence.
Being from BC, I've heard about Kitsault but didn't know all this history about the place. It's truly weird that it was just left but maintained for 40-ish years. They should absolutely do something with it. A bit strange that it was bought as private property and then just nothing happened with it. Thanks for this video, Tyler. I'm just an average Canadian gal learning from your YT channel all the time about "us Canadians, eh" 😉 Keep 'em coming!!
We had an old mining town that closed in the 70s in Quebec near Fairmont... They kept the maintenance going and after about 20 years, they auctioned off all of the houses. My brother bought two for fishing/hunting for his bush pilot business... It's near the Quebec-Labrador line... Typical 1970s semi-Arctic bungalows....They last forever the way they built them for up north...
Do you mean Gagnon? It was spooky the first time we drove from Goose Bay to Baie-Comeau and came upon this stretch of pavement, driveway entrances that led nowhere, and a boulevard in the middle of nowhere. Not a structure to be seen because the mining company had left nothing behind. I was shocked when I stumbled upon pictures of the town as it had been in its prime and realized that stores, church, school and many homes had once stood there and now … nothing.
@@Lavolanges I think it was Shefferville when it was still closed, before they sold most homes, gave or sold (I don't know) the rest to the local First Nations and it started being viable again as a settlement... It had mining again, even rare earth stuff worth a LOT of money. My brother knew a geologist who told him that they'd found deposits enough to start mining again and the homes happened to be on sale at the time (around 1984-5). It was NOT like Gagnon... They had caretakers to keep everything heated just enough in winter and repairs done. Same with utilities, sewers, water, etc...
@@TheJimprez - I never knew that Schefferville had closed down like that. Always thought it was an active community. But I wasn’t in Labrador between 1980 & 1991, so a lot of what went on during that time wasn’t on my radar. Didn’t get much Labrador & Northern Quebec news in Saskatchewan.
Kitsault was a company town. The company that owned the mine owned everything in the town. So when the mine closed down, everyone was given just a few days to leave.
There are plenty of ghost towns in both Canada and the USA - some farming and some mining or other single industry. That this one is well-preserved makes it a capsule in time. Bruce Springstein's My Home Town is about a ghost town in the making. Narcisse, where the Narcisse snakes are from, is technically a ghost town. Charlie Angus / Grievous Angels has tons of mining songs. Some of them are about miners leaving town after a mine closes.
We have an abandoned town in Western Australia called wittenoom, it used to mine blue asbestos. Blue asbestos being one of the most lethal minerals to humans, all roads have been rerouted around it, no services going to it. The area fenced off to prevent entry, the name has been removed from maps. The last person left there in 2021, demolition continues on the site. If infected with asbestosis or mesothelioma it's may take up to 20 years to appear, but will kill you in 5. Incurable
It was a mining camp. Everything was created by the mining company to attract workers. If mine wouldn’t make money then people were told to leave. Check out a map. No roads in. Everything was shipped in with possible sea plane access. This is the northern coast of BC close to Alaskan border in the middle of nowhere. This is also not the first time”town” created in this manner. Check out Cassiar for another example. Though Cassair had road access. Basic flow - mineral discovered to make someone richer, that person needs workers to get minerals so creates town with services and activities. Person make shitload of money. The value of resource plummets in value. Person evicts workers from property. BC is a resource province like many places in the world. Eventually the ride ends.
You have got to wonder how many more years that town has left before it starts falling apart. Soon, things like roofs will start to leak, and other major structural repairs may be required to keep these buildings functional. I hope the town has a future full of new people in it, even if they have to sell buildings at cost to some retirees just to kick start the town's economy.
I live south of Kitsault in a town called Kitimat on the north coast of British Columbia. I can tell you Kitsault is not a suitable place for most retirees. In the winter nights are a bit longer than 16 hours long. And, while the change of climate means winters are less severe than they used to be, there frequently is a lot of snow to deal with, as both towns are in the north coastal temperate rainforest zone. Indeed, here in Kitimat we had a day and a half snowfall nearly 10 years ago in February 2015 that buried the town and stopped everything. It was a couple of days before the side streets could be cleared of snow, and that operation took a few days. Some homes lost power for a day, to several days, as crews worked through downed power lines taken out by trees felled by the snow load. Kitsault, like Kitimat, is at the end of a very long fiord that orients southwest to northeast, becoming a narrow valley. The very high Coastal Mountain Range tends to block off morning and evening sun. As another mentioned, the road in is closed for the winter. I don’t believe there is a good landing strip for aircraft in the area, so medical evacuations would have to be done by helicopter - probably to Prince Rupert. While if occupied the town could support a general physician, you would have to go to a regional hospital for anything else, like surgery. Again, winter travel for that would potentially be a problem. Also, the cost of getting anything in or out of there is quite high, so the cost of living there is quite high. So, built as a company town it only makes sense as a town supported by some major company or corporation that is making a lot of money doing something like mining or, perhaps as the video suggested, liquifying natural gas for shipping overseas.
@ChristopherHolahan That's too bad about retirees living there full-time. How feasible would it be to maybe still sell the properties at cost but like as summer cottages. Are there beautiful lakes, trails, and other wildlife in the area. People, including younger, healthier retirees, could come in and enjoy the property for the summer holidays and leave during the winter. Otherwise, I'm out of ideas.
@ That sort of was the original idea of the now owner of the town, but that is basically on hold while other options - like being the site of a liquified natural gas plant is explored. What the site has that is good is year round deep sea port capability, which is also one of the reasons the town I live in exists. Our town just had the first phase of a liquified natural gas plant come online a few months ago after several years of construction. It has plans to double in size. A smaller floating plant is also going to be built and run by the local First Nations community. We are relatively close to very large natural gas reserves, but the challenge is getting pipelines through the Coastal Mountain Range. The pipeline that supplies the LNG plant in town went way over budget and took much longer to build. The plain fact of the matter is these northern Canadian locations only make sense in high value resource extraction. It started over 400 years ago with European demand for beaver pelts for their fashionable and expensive felt hats, then gold and silver, timber, other elemental metals like copper and molybdenum, and even asbestos. And now, natural gas or crude oil.There are a great many ghost towns all over this province that never outlived the reason for their initial construction.
I would sell my house today, buy a large cargo van to load my most precious possessions and head out the day of getting the proceeds of the sale of my home. I’d commit to living there and working to maintain and upkeep the town in exchange for free housing. I have many skills that would be beneficial to this effort. I ran my own cleaning business for over a decade, and can do many small repairs around the properties. I can paint, I can do marketing to bring in other folks that would be of actual value to rebuilding the population. Kitsault could be revived into a growing community within a VERY short period of time. It’s CRAZY how many people would love to be in a secluded community like this. Working towards the “greater good and community”….sign me up first!
All ghost towns can be revived with people like you and becoming self-sufficient. The fact we face a housing crisis and ghost towns aren't even being used is an absurdity to me.
The problem is living in a town like that would drain the pocket books of residents. They wouldn’t be able to earn money easily. I get there are some homeowners in canada who could make a tidy sum selling their current homes/apartments. The problem is that may not be enough to live in that community long term.
There are many ghost towns across Canada especially in the North and other isolated regions. Canada is resource rich. These resources are often located far from towns or cites and associated services. Companies build the town and infrastructure. Bring in the workers. Exploit the resource then move on. Boom/bust economy i believe. I lived in an old logging ghost town for a few years. Byng Inlet, Ontario once had the largest sawmill in Canada and employed thousands around the turn of the century. It is now just a small village with a handful of year round residents and a few cottagers. The mill burned years ago but a lot of the old foundations still exist. The nearby forests still hide local history. I have stumbled across old logging camps and the rusted metal gear they leave behind while hunting and fishing the areas vast woods. Hey Tyler its funny I was thinking what your reaction to Byng Inlet might be. There are some TH-cam videos of the area out there. I have been thinking about ideas to share. Byng Inlet was one. Thanks again for the entertainment. Really look forward to seeing something light!
Canada and USA For most of some raison Ghost towns may result when the single activity or resource that created a boomtown (e.g., nearby mine, mill or resort) is depleted or the resource economy undergoes a "bust" (e.g., catastrophic resource price collapse).
Google Centralia and get creeped out some more. I’m pretty sure that’s the name of the town. It’s in Pennsylvania, I think. I’m hauling this out from a long ago memory so I may be incorrect.
Hi Tyler! If you think this kind of video is interesting, you should watch Destination Adventure. He'll dive into the history of the town and interview the locals for stories.
check out Centralia, Pennsylvania ... The underground fire is still burning, and in 2006 it was reported that it is expected to do so for another 250 years.
I've been to a town similar to this in BC, can't remember why i was there, but it was frozen in the 80's like everyone was beamed away one Saturday afternoon. It's a really weird feeling, seeing all the peoples lives stopped one day, they left it behind and moved on. Gives you a finite feeling.
Imagine the work that some places would need, with no heat running in the places for 40 years. All that bc rain bringing the dampness into the floors and walls. Rotted roofs, window frames. Bitter cold bursting pipes if the water was never shut down. But man, places like this seem like such a waste when so many people need help
It’s an absolutely beautiful town, right in the inlet. Drove up from terrace a few years ago and the whole town was full of bears. It was an amazing trip. The unfortunate thing about kitsault is it’s so far from anything.
There is a Curling rink attached to the High School that I drive school bus for. It is very interesting watching them scrape the ice away in the Spring before the end of school.
I must admit that seeing a whole towns worth of beautiful homes sitting empty when we have the housing crisis that we do is very frustrating. Nevermind knowing that there are more towns like this throughout Canada takes my frustration to straight fury.
It's just E of the Southern tip of Alaska, a 20 hour drive from Vancouver, and the highway that connects to the very, very long access road is closed in the winter. It impact the housing crisis about as much as abandoned gold rush towns in Yukon do.
It is sad actually. Very little development takes place outside of the select cities most Canadians live in. The parts of Canada Canadians are clustered into has created real problems. In many cities the demand for housing has outstripped the supply and the prices have shot through the roof. There is a lot of affordable housing in rural areas but no one wants to move there because there is a lack of infrastructure connecting these areas to the rest of Canada. Generally the only time the gov't pays attention to rural Canada is for the exploitation of its resources. Our official are more interested in revitalizing major city centers than building the nation up.
Northern BC has a lot of cities, towns, and amenities; also, enviable lifestyles for those who enjoy outdoor recreation. Several are serviced by Air Canada and/or WestJet; universities, colleges, retail, gov't jobs (provincial and municipal), mining, forestry; hospitals, public transit systems; Hollywood film crews, world-class skiing and fishing. The cost of real estate is "less" (in comparison to Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna)-there's been a mass exodus from the lower mainland in recent years. But the distances between communities are significant, and the cost of flights, higher. Going even further north-places closer to the Yukon border: not desirable. Also to keep in mind: many areas of BC are on the unceded lands of Indigenous peoples. There are overlapping territories for some Nations, and development in areas is influenced by these politics. (and when development is permitted-i.e. the Coastal GasLink through northwestern BC: opposition occurs)
Schefferville PQ on the border with Labrador. I.O.C. closed the mine and the town shut down. Some residents still remain to service the hunting/fishing outfitting industry but a majority of the town was empty when I was there in about 82 working a contract for I.O.C. with the company I employed at the time. Streets of homes with no people and it felt kind of strange.
Loving your content! If you find this story weird you should look into story of town of Pine Point in NWT which existed to house employees for Cominco Ltd Open Pit Lead/Zinc mine. Not only was everyone forced to leave when the mine closed in 1988, they then literally erased the town from the map. Most of the infrastructure was owned by the Mine and people rented the homes ($100/month including all utilities for 1200 sqft 3 bedroom). The Mine and Government gave some compensation to private owners. A lot of people wanted to stay but didn’t have any choice. Utilities were turned off and that was it. The Mine continued shipping lead/zinc concentrate for another year or so,housing the few workers required at the mine. Throughout 1988-89 it was common to see homes being jacked up and loaded onto trucks and transported to other communities, to the north and the south. Some buildings (churches, arena) were take apart board by board and rebuilt in nearby communities. It was very odd to live through, and very sad for our kids who have to say that the town they grew up in no longer exists…
Well, when you retire, at some point you start to need more medical care and so on, and need to not be hours away from everything. And unless you’re a retired multimillionaire, can you afford to have food and supplies and whatever you need, shipped in while the road is closed for 6-8 months or however long winter lasts there?
The Village of Gitlax̱t’aamiks (New Aiyansh) has a few services as well as the presence of the RCMP (a friend of mine was a Seargent there, 2020-2022), as well as a volunteer fire department, and I believe there are NURSES that are available at the Nass Valley Health Authority, but other than that, you're right: the City of Terrace is the closest for amenities-hospital (a brand new one, opened in November), airport, etc.
The town is in the middle of nowhere, deep in the wilderness near Alaska. The mine built the town for the workers to bring their families, an alternative to attract miners from the man camp rotations normally used to extract remote mineral deposits and subsidize the high cost of living involved in the logistics of getting supplies into a remote communtiy. The mining company owned the rights and maintained the asset until the market rebounds or they sell off the mineral rights. The buildings only have surface rights.
There's a mountain (in BC) that has a ghost town near the top accessed by an old logging road. The mountain is privately owned and no one is allowed up there but the town's power runs on hydro from the river so the power still works. We were driving up there one day (with the owner) and you could hear a humming - it was weird, sounded like machinery, but we were way far away from everything. Next thing you know we're getting shot at. Turns our the pot farmers were using the road as an access to their illegal farming. (this was before pot was legal in Canada). Anyway, if you're ever in really remote area and hear machinery that shouldn't be there.... RUN.
There are lots of abandoned towns in British Columbia. My Mom's cousin loves ghost hunting and used to live in Port Coquitlam, so we'd go ghost hunting in Ioco over in Port Moody all the time. Ioco = Imperial Oil Corporation, I.O.Co., it's a company town the oil company's employees set up in 1915. It had 200 residents at its height and had its own grocery store and school. The last time I ghost hunted there with Anna there were 2 properties still occupied, but those residents had to drive into Port Moody to do anything. That was about 2012 or so. The property was sold to a developer in 2015 so there won't be any trace of it soon, if that hasn't happened already. Such a cool, weird place. Everyone we ever brought there struggled to walk a straight line on one street (completely sober) and voice recorders would pick up radio broadcasts that you couldn't hear in person.
The only other time I have heard that word was when I bought my sport combat medieval sword. It's essentially an Oakeshott type XX, but less fancy. But it's a Molybdenum steel alloy, made in the early 2000's.
there is a small community in central Alberta called Wayne and at one time the community had around 357 people living there in 1951 but now the community has a population of 30 people and there were several small businesses a hospital a hotel and several houses and the town was a coal mining town and when they were shut down the people were forced to move to find work and now Wayne is basically a small neighbourhood of the nearby much larger town of Drumheller it’s sometimes funny how a thriving little town could suddenly become a ghost town
The miners will sustaining that town, when the mine closed the miners left and a huge amount of income left with them, one by one people left because there wasn't enough money to keep businesses open . There are actually a bunch of ghost towns in BC from various mining operations closing.
Oh man, not relevant to your channel cause it's a US town, but if you ever want to do a deep dive into ghost towns, Centralia PA is a really interesting one! They actually used it as inspiration for the live action Silent Hill movie.
A couple towns I can think of which are in northern Quebec, where paved roads get to and a bit more north than the town itself, Quebec Route 167 I think, the only numbered road that goes into the Nord-du-Québec region exists solely to provide access to 2 mining towns, mostly copper way up on the 52nd to 53rd parallel, are Chibougamau (1,5k people max) and Chapais a bit to the southwest of it (about 750 people) each have huge mines going on since a very long time, at first they had a lot of gold but that was extracted as fast as possible obviously, the towns had bigger populations then too, so there's a lot of empty houses in Chibougamau, which you have no choice to drive to (a 7 hour ride northwest from the closest village, which has NO accommodations, as in no gas station, no resting area, nothing but pine trees for 7 hours and then when you want to rejoin civilization, it's another 8 hour ride going southwest to get to the 2 sizeable cities in the region of Abitibi, in northwest Quebec, first you get to Vald'or which is another mining city, of about 20k people, but the cool city there is 2-3 hours more to southwest, which is Rouyn-Noranda, a many paper mill and also a mining city, there's about 45k people there, but some people are leaving since, during covid to make it worse, the government noticed that the big factories which are downtown are releasing poisonous levels of phosphate related gases among others, renovating it so that it stops doing so is costing the company that runs this company town since forever a pretty (virtual) penny, after a lot of people were found suffering more so than normal, that even the insufficient government guidelines were able to prove causality between many children born with rare diseases as well as older people developing a lot of cancers and other illnesses was caused by the main employer in town. Company towns that remain in north america often are still there because what they do is produce the very basics needed for modern civilization to work, it's awful when they also cause their own residents from suffering because of the reason people are living there. I heard of similar situations in Michigan, and not just Detroit being a model city of over a million people to what it is now, with just about 700k people and the fact that even if they live on the side of the great lakes, they polluted those areas of the Great Lakes so badly that they have to make residents pay for a human right, running water. Here only businesses that use a lot of water pay for using water, and some real big corps get around it by literally buying parts of rivers to generate their own electricity by making dams and taking the water they need from there. I heard about cities in Michigan which were Whirlpool company towns which are now desolate wastelands, more to the northern part of Michigan, where the wter is as messed up by pollution as Flint but it is getting no ink like Flint is. And it's not just the water, it's the soils and air that are permanently toxic. So the concept of Company town is great, but better hope the company which became a very big company and then a Multinational that stopped caring about those old "quaint" concepts of company towns, closing down factories after destroying the whole place and leaving thousands upon thousands of people who depended on them stuck there and dying of multiple diseases and babies being born with 50 IQ and worse...
There are many abandoned towns all over Canada. Industrial and mining town that went bankrupt or mines dried up caused a lot of towns to become abandoned
I've been to ghost towns and some of the most remote places in B.C., Kitsault, Tumbler Ridge, Atlin and even Anyox in 1995. When you take a job with Kirby Vacuums there isn't a place on the map they won't send salespeople. To get to Atlin you have to go through Whitehorse in the Yukon, to get to Anyox you have to take a ferry, there's only a couple dozen people there but they have money so Kirby sends salespeople.
Also, you don't start making commission right away, you have to fund your road trips yourself. Most of the people I trained with spent around $4,000-$5,000 of their own money, often borrowed from friends and family, before they saw a commission cheque. The commission is good, but unless you're willing to BS and con people out of a few thousand bucks it's not worth it.
They're still selling the little blue pigs?!?! Their cost is so exorbitant I thought they'd have priced themselves out of the market decades ago. I paid $450 for one of them in 1983 ffs.
@@MerryWidow420 There's was a point where there were just a couple hundred or so people in the mid 1990s, one occupied house for every 20 abandoned ones, I didn't make any sales there after walking around for half a day and imagining a zombie apocalypse had taken place but it might have grown again. I last heard some rich dude had a plan to build a ski resort there in the 2000s, like Aspen North.
@@ll7868 , it started growing again in 2005 when the Wolverine Mine opened up, after we all collectively realized that we actually do need coal. No coal, no steel. That easy.
There is a few small abandoned towns here on the Island of Newfoundland ..the towns were remote fishing Villages and people had to move away because there was no more work or the area was so remote there was no access for modern things.
Towns with a single purpose exist all over the world and they're often tied to a particular industry that works in that specific place (usually remote and isolated from the rest of the living areas around). The only rare thing here is how well preserved it is but it makes sense considering people are maintaining it, otherwise it'd be long gone like many other ghost towns. Looked at it on a map and just as expected, it's truly in the middle of nowhere, nearly halfway up into BC. It could be some sort of tourist destination, perhaps for people who like the wilderness or travelers that go to/from Alaska but that's about it. Without the mine there's really no other purpose being that far north so it's pretty much why everyone left.
I love going on TH-cam looking at this town that was one time thriving There was a mine that the people who lived there worked in in Kitsalt. The last video I watched said that retired people seem to be interested in buying these houses and some are beautiful. There are beautiful caves up and around there as well. There are many little towns in Canada that are very remote and have been left for whatever reasons. it looks nice and clean because no one lives there to destroy it.
There have been a number of company towns where the one purpose was to serve the company employees. Some have been repurposed if they have access thru roads or ocean access. But others are just left for nature to reclaim.
A good friend of mine, whose son I am Godfather to, and I both consider you an honourary Canuck. 🙂 We feel you're more Canadian than many Canadians we know. Nova Scotia welcomes you! 👍
I'm sorry to desapoint you but people living on the street would destroy it. I live in Victoria BC and the government bought hotels to accomodate the street people and that's what they do, destroy.
There are a ton of abandoned towns in Alberta. A lot of them are former coal mining towns, but there are a bunch in the Palliser Triangle that emptied out only a few years after they started (mostly due to the land being barren).
I feel like it would be pretty cool if they opened it as like a museum! (By the way, the reason now one can really live there is because there is basically no work to be found.)
For any town to exists, it needs to have at least one primary industry, which is almost always resource based. Mining, forestry, fishing, agriculture, ranching - it depends on what is available in the area. Secondary industries then develop to provide what the primary industry needs; feed stores for ranching, canning and processing facilities for fishing, etc. Then, tertiary industries develop; grocery stores, restaurants, etc. Without a primary industry, there is nothing to support the secondary and tertiary industries. In this case, no mine, and the town can't survive.
We have lots of abandoned towns. They are often built to facilitate workers and families of mining or oil companies. When the work ends the families move on to more work. This country is so vast that the towns are in the middle of nowhere. Simple roads are constructed and utilities are established. Most companies will use them for maintenance workers or whatever else they need to do. As you know bigger country, less population.
Wow - they totally could have filmed Stranger Things in this town! Perhaps the wealthy person who bought this town was thinking he could rent it out for TV and film productions?
It is far too remote a location, at far too great a distance for a film/tv crew, their equipment, production trailers, craft services, etc for productions. There's NO WAY they'd ever consider trying to haul all of that on backwoods roads, 3-4 hours from a comfortable community with amenities, etc.
this is a small town in northern bc, meaning its soooo remote and in the middle of nowhere, there no nothing without that mine. nothing...once the mines closed gtfo. no walmart in the 80s in canada.
As a Canadian, I have never heard of this town but I do know about that ghost town in the US with the coal fire burning under it and of course the Abandoned city near the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine.
yep it was run by the Phelps Dodge corporation of the United States, when the prices for molybdenum (Lead) crashed they abandoned it, so Indian-Canadian businessman Krishnan Suthanthiran bought it in 2004 and still trying to revive the place.
This could be revived as a government town processing refugee claimants and the homeless. Beats putting them up in hotels or walking by tent encampment.
"open up a wallmart" wouldn't work because that's a place to buy stop with money from the mine. you'd need a new money making venture, not money grabbing venture.
Tyler. Do some research. I’ve leaned about may abandon cities and towns throughout the US as well. When the industry goes the people do too. Look into abandoned towns in Appalachians or deserts in the US west. You have plenty as well. Not as odd as you think.
I think the American businessman wants American TH-camrs to buy these houses. Tyler, you`re American and a TH-camr.......hey, cheap summer getaway, maybe. Whadya think ? Bears and cougars need not apply.
Tyler's lack of knowledge and awareness of even his own country never mind the rest of the world never ceases to confound me. He has no idea that some towns live and die with their primary employer as he suggests; why don't they just build a Walmart? He doesn't think about who would have money to shop there. He should by now know that British Columbia is vast (larger than Washington , Oregon and California with South Carolina thrown in for good measure, combined). Many parts of BC are as remote as remote parts of Alaska, "you can't get there from here". There are "Ghost Towns" in many places including the US. He says that he has never heard of molybdenum, and asks "has anyone ever heard of molybdenum?" Yes Tyler, anyone who's ever taken High School Chemistry has heard of molybdenum. Tyler has millions of questions but never seems to remember the answers, or talks over them and fails to hear them. As a Canadian I like watching videos about Canada, I just wish Tyler would take a serious interest in learning, not just putting out videos to profit off of people with a true interest in the subject.
That town was created for people working in the molybdenum mine. Once the mine closed, there was no other job in the town, so no salaries. That's why people left. You asked, "Why wouldn't they build a Walmart or something", but how can someone go and buy something at "Walmart or something" if they don't have a job and no money?
Tyler - you are not a typical, average American. You've proven that by showing an interest in our country and I thank you for that! 🙏 🙏
$$$ Tyler receives no money from TH-cam?
@@TomHuston43Your point is?
ascended american
Touché on the average american lol
@@TomHuston43 Exactly. That, and his burning interest in the UK and Norway keep him comfortable. Why else would he react to the same content over and over and over as if it's the first time, right?
This isn't as mysterious as it seems when you consider where it's located.
Kitsault is just E of the Southernmost tip of Alaska. The only road access is a single very long winding road through the mountains to get to it, and it connects to a highway that is closed in the winter. When the highway is open, you're a 20 hour drive away from Vancouver. Even if the land, buildings, and infrastructure were all free, few people could afford to live there because the remoteness makes the cost of living horrifically high.
yeah. Weather can’t really grow anything there. Lack of access to fuel and other equipment. I don’t think many could make it work in that region.
Mining boomtowns like this are all over Canada and the US. Some are fully abandoned, some are shells of their former selves. One of my home province of Saskatchewan's examples of the latter is Uranium City. Established in the 1950s to mine its namesake nuclear metal in the farthest north of the province, Uranium city remains one of the northernmost communities in Saskatchewan. Its population peaked in 1981 at just over 2,500, but sadly, just a year later, its mines shut down, leaving nothing for the town's economy. Today, 45 years after its peak population, the community has just 91 residents, with most of its buildings, including a supermarket and a hospital, completely abandoned.
The most surprising thing in this whole video is that you’ve never heard of a ghost town before. They’re not uncommon across Canada and the US, often created specifically for a mining site. Like he said, what is special about this one is the level of preservation, not that it’s a ghost town (that’s not special on itself).
What you’re missing is that those towns are hundreds of miles away from civilization.
Tyler. My husband had private access to the town in 2020 when on an overlanding expedition. It is amazing. There is a husband and wife caregiver who actually live in one of the houses. The property is privately owned by an American because it was never really a town ...it was owned by the mining company. That is why everyone left; they were forced to leave.
In many small B.C towns the people actively work to make sure that Walmart & fast food franchises do not become part of the beautiful landscape.
tbh. idiots. lol
And then they drive from their small towns like Smithers or Houston, 2+ hours to shop at Walmart in Terrace, or 4+ hours to do their shopping at Costco, Walmart, Home Depot, Pine Centre Mall, or shop online via Amazon (instead of their local merchants, who are "too expensive").
Most small towns have at least an A&W, Subway, DQ, or Tim's these days.
Tyler, are you ever going to visit Canada?
Cause this relationship with our country is eventually gonna need some physical validation 😉😂
Tyler will visit Canada only when TH-cam pays him to do so.
the british and the norweigens and the japanese are asking the same thing as he has 3 other channels as well so canadians are not the only ones asking that question.
If does a video or videos in Canada and posts them, TH-cam would be paying him.
Tyler will never leave his comfort zone his bubble and he has a lack of social awareness. He has 3 TH-cam channels and his reactions across all 3 are exactly the same as Tyler but with a different surname for all 3.
I’ve mentioned that as well. He is making lots of 💰💰💰off these. Time to visit at least one place.
Molybdenum is used in a lot of things, the one most people would recognize is hand tools. Wrenches, screwdrivers, socket wrench sets, etc. Many will be marked as "chrome-moly" steel/alloy
Drilling companies stay here as well. My husband just spent a month there this summer and loved it!
There are a lot of abandoned towns in the US too.
Thanks, tips.
The town was built by the mine! There are 1 industry towns all over the USA and Canada.
It's not dead - many of its buildings are maintained and serviced by utilities, and mining company workers continue to inhabit part of the town.
Makes sense 😂😂 because the grass is cut
Wilf Watson (of Smithers, BC) was there from the 70s until he died there in 2003. He maintained the buildings and grounds. I'm not sure who's done so since he passed, but someone (or more than a couple of people) live in Kitsault, year-round.
0:47 you’ve never heard of a ghost town before? They exist all over the world. I don’t know where the closest town is to this one, but apparently it’s pretty far. 1:43 either it’s done on purpose or the power also is used for something important that still there but is not a residence.
Being from BC, I've heard about Kitsault but didn't know all this history about the place. It's truly weird that it was just left but maintained for 40-ish years. They should absolutely do something with it. A bit strange that it was bought as private property and then just nothing happened with it. Thanks for this video, Tyler. I'm just an average Canadian gal learning from your YT channel all the time about "us Canadians, eh" 😉 Keep 'em coming!!
It would be nice to turn it I to a little resort place for the summer, as the road going to it is closed in the winter
We had an old mining town that closed in the 70s in Quebec near Fairmont...
They kept the maintenance going and after about 20 years, they auctioned off all of the houses. My brother bought two for fishing/hunting for his bush pilot business...
It's near the Quebec-Labrador line... Typical 1970s semi-Arctic bungalows....They last forever the way they built them for up north...
Do you mean Gagnon? It was spooky the first time we drove from Goose Bay to Baie-Comeau and came upon this stretch of pavement, driveway entrances that led nowhere, and a boulevard in the middle of nowhere. Not a structure to be seen because the mining company had left nothing behind. I was shocked when I stumbled upon pictures of the town as it had been in its prime and realized that stores, church, school and many homes had once stood there and now … nothing.
@@Lavolanges I think it was Shefferville when it was still closed, before they sold most homes, gave or sold (I don't know) the rest to the local First Nations and it started being viable again as a settlement... It had mining again, even rare earth stuff worth a LOT of money.
My brother knew a geologist who told him that they'd found deposits enough to start mining again and the homes happened to be on sale at the time (around 1984-5).
It was NOT like Gagnon... They had caretakers to keep everything heated just enough in winter and repairs done. Same with utilities, sewers, water, etc...
@@TheJimprez - I never knew that Schefferville had closed down like that. Always thought it was an active community. But I wasn’t in Labrador between 1980 & 1991, so a lot of what went on during that time wasn’t on my radar. Didn’t get much Labrador & Northern Quebec news in Saskatchewan.
Kitsault was a company town. The company that owned the mine owned everything in the town. So when the mine closed down, everyone was given just a few days to leave.
There are plenty of ghost towns in both Canada and the USA - some farming and some mining or other single industry. That this one is well-preserved makes it a capsule in time.
Bruce Springstein's My Home Town is about a ghost town in the making.
Narcisse, where the Narcisse snakes are from, is technically a ghost town.
Charlie Angus / Grievous Angels has tons of mining songs. Some of them are about miners leaving town after a mine closes.
We have an abandoned town in Western Australia called wittenoom, it used to mine blue asbestos. Blue asbestos being one of the most lethal minerals to humans, all roads have been rerouted around it, no services going to it. The area fenced off to prevent entry, the name has been removed from maps. The last person left there in 2021, demolition continues on the site. If infected with asbestosis or mesothelioma it's may take up to 20 years to appear, but will kill you in 5. Incurable
It was a mining camp. Everything was created by the mining company to attract workers. If mine wouldn’t make money then people were told to leave. Check out a map. No roads in. Everything was shipped in with possible sea plane access. This is the northern coast of BC close to Alaskan border in the middle of nowhere. This is also not the first time”town” created in this manner. Check out Cassiar for another example. Though Cassair had road access.
Basic flow - mineral discovered to make someone richer, that person needs workers to get minerals so creates town with services and activities. Person make shitload of money. The value of resource plummets in value. Person evicts workers from property.
BC is a resource province like many places in the world. Eventually the ride ends.
Tyler, there are literally THOUSANDS of these ghost towns across Canada, especially out west. lots in the Arctic Cricle as well
You have got to wonder how many more years that town has left before it starts falling apart. Soon, things like roofs will start to leak, and other major structural repairs may be required to keep these buildings functional. I hope the town has a future full of new people in it, even if they have to sell buildings at cost to some retirees just to kick start the town's economy.
I live south of Kitsault in a town called Kitimat on the north coast of British Columbia. I can tell you Kitsault is not a suitable place for most retirees. In the winter nights are a bit longer than 16 hours long. And, while the change of climate means winters are less severe than they used to be, there frequently is a lot of snow to deal with, as both towns are in the north coastal temperate rainforest zone. Indeed, here in Kitimat we had a day and a half snowfall nearly 10 years ago in February 2015 that buried the town and stopped everything. It was a couple of days before the side streets could be cleared of snow, and that operation took a few days. Some homes lost power for a day, to several days, as crews worked through downed power lines taken out by trees felled by the snow load. Kitsault, like Kitimat, is at the end of a very long fiord that orients southwest to northeast, becoming a narrow valley. The very high Coastal Mountain Range tends to block off morning and evening sun. As another mentioned, the road in is closed for the winter. I don’t believe there is a good landing strip for aircraft in the area, so medical evacuations would have to be done by helicopter - probably to Prince Rupert. While if occupied the town could support a general physician, you would have to go to a regional hospital for anything else, like surgery. Again, winter travel for that would potentially be a problem. Also, the cost of getting anything in or out of there is quite high, so the cost of living there is quite high.
So, built as a company town it only makes sense as a town supported by some major company or corporation that is making a lot of money doing something like mining or, perhaps as the video suggested, liquifying natural gas for shipping overseas.
@ChristopherHolahan That's too bad about retirees living there full-time. How feasible would it be to maybe still sell the properties at cost but like as summer cottages. Are there beautiful lakes, trails, and other wildlife in the area. People, including younger, healthier retirees, could come in and enjoy the property for the summer holidays and leave during the winter. Otherwise, I'm out of ideas.
@ That sort of was the original idea of the now owner of the town, but that is basically on hold while other options - like being the site of a liquified natural gas plant is explored. What the site has that is good is year round deep sea port capability, which is also one of the reasons the town I live in exists. Our town just had the first phase of a liquified natural gas plant come online a few months ago after several years of construction. It has plans to double in size. A smaller floating plant is also going to be built and run by the local First Nations community. We are relatively close to very large natural gas reserves, but the challenge is getting pipelines through the Coastal Mountain Range. The pipeline that supplies the LNG plant in town went way over budget and took much longer to build.
The plain fact of the matter is these northern Canadian locations only make sense in high value resource extraction. It started over 400 years ago with European demand for beaver pelts for their fashionable and expensive felt hats, then gold and silver, timber, other elemental metals like copper and molybdenum, and even asbestos. And now, natural gas or crude oil.There are a great many ghost towns all over this province that never outlived the reason for their initial construction.
I would sell my house today, buy a large cargo van to load my most precious possessions and head out the day of getting the proceeds of the sale of my home. I’d commit to living there and working to maintain and upkeep the town in exchange for free housing. I have many skills that would be beneficial to this effort. I ran my own cleaning business for over a decade, and can do many small repairs around the properties. I can paint, I can do marketing to bring in other folks that would be of actual value to rebuilding the population. Kitsault could be revived into a growing community within a VERY short period of time. It’s CRAZY how many people would love to be in a secluded community like this. Working towards the “greater good and community”….sign me up first!
All ghost towns can be revived with people like you and becoming self-sufficient. The fact we face a housing crisis and ghost towns aren't even being used is an absurdity to me.
The problem is living in a town like that would drain the pocket books of residents. They wouldn’t be able to earn money easily. I get there are some homeowners in canada who could make a tidy sum selling their current homes/apartments. The problem is that may not be enough to live in that community long term.
Would be a great retirement community @@marley7659
There are many ghost towns across Canada especially in the North and other isolated regions. Canada is resource rich. These resources are often located far from towns or cites and associated services. Companies build the town and infrastructure. Bring in the workers. Exploit the resource then move on. Boom/bust economy i believe. I lived in an old logging ghost town for a few years. Byng Inlet, Ontario once had the largest sawmill in Canada and employed thousands around the turn of the century. It is now just a small village with a handful of year round residents and a few cottagers. The mill burned years ago but a lot of the old foundations still exist. The nearby forests still hide local history. I have stumbled across old logging camps and the rusted metal gear they leave behind while hunting and fishing the areas vast woods. Hey Tyler its funny I was thinking what your reaction to Byng Inlet might be. There are some TH-cam videos of the area out there. I have been thinking about ideas to share. Byng Inlet was one. Thanks again for the entertainment. Really look forward to seeing something light!
Canada and USA For most of some raison Ghost towns may result when the single activity or resource that created a boomtown (e.g., nearby mine, mill or resort) is depleted or the resource economy undergoes a "bust" (e.g., catastrophic resource price collapse).
Google Centralia and get creeped out some more. I’m pretty sure that’s the name of the town. It’s in Pennsylvania, I think. I’m hauling this out from a long ago memory so I may be incorrect.
Yes! You're absolutely right. I was going to mention that one......talk about the eternal flame............IYKYK.
Centralia WA is a lot nicer. Hotter and drier than our BC interior, but at least without the burning pits of hell below it.
Agreed, very creepy!
There are a few ghost towns in USA too...
Kitsault is literally in the middle of nowhere, the highway is closed in the winter and the inlet can be treacherous for large ships
Many ghost towns throughout Canada next you should do the town of Anyox
Hi Tyler! If you think this kind of video is interesting, you should watch Destination Adventure. He'll dive into the history of the town and interview the locals for stories.
Those are great adventures ❤
check out Centralia, Pennsylvania ... The underground fire is still burning, and in 2006 it was reported that it is expected to do so for another 250 years.
There are a lot of abandoned houses, in Ontario as well. People just walked away from their homes leaving them fully furnished. It's sad to see.
I've been to a town similar to this in BC, can't remember why i was there, but it was frozen in the 80's like everyone was beamed away one Saturday afternoon. It's a really weird feeling, seeing all the peoples lives stopped one day, they left it behind and moved on. Gives you a finite feeling.
alot of old logging and mining towns
Imagine the work that some places would need, with no heat running in the places for 40 years. All that bc rain bringing the dampness into the floors and walls. Rotted roofs, window frames. Bitter cold bursting pipes if the water was never shut down. But man, places like this seem like such a waste when so many people need help
It’s an absolutely beautiful town, right in the inlet. Drove up from terrace a few years ago and the whole town was full of bears. It was an amazing trip. The unfortunate thing about kitsault is it’s so far from anything.
There is a Curling rink attached to the High School that I drive school bus for. It is very interesting watching them scrape the ice away in the Spring before the end of school.
I must admit that seeing a whole towns worth of beautiful homes sitting empty when we have the housing crisis that we do is very frustrating. Nevermind knowing that there are more towns like this throughout Canada takes my frustration to straight fury.
Without industry to support the housing people have no jobs, no hope, no future. We need houses where the jobs are and industry more spread out.
We need a new set of “pioneers” who are willing to live in these places in a new way. I would totally move there to set up an intentional community
It's just E of the Southern tip of Alaska, a 20 hour drive from Vancouver, and the highway that connects to the very, very long access road is closed in the winter. It impact the housing crisis about as much as abandoned gold rush towns in Yukon do.
It is sad actually. Very little development takes place outside of the select cities most Canadians live in. The parts of Canada Canadians are clustered into has created real problems. In many cities the demand for housing has outstripped the supply and the prices have shot through the roof. There is a lot of affordable housing in rural areas but no one wants to move there because there is a lack of infrastructure connecting these areas to the rest of Canada. Generally the only time the gov't pays attention to rural Canada is for the exploitation of its resources. Our official are more interested in revitalizing major city centers than building the nation up.
Northern BC has a lot of cities, towns, and amenities; also, enviable lifestyles for those who enjoy outdoor recreation. Several are serviced by Air Canada and/or WestJet; universities, colleges, retail, gov't jobs (provincial and municipal), mining, forestry; hospitals, public transit systems; Hollywood film crews, world-class skiing and fishing. The cost of real estate is "less" (in comparison to Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna)-there's been a mass exodus from the lower mainland in recent years. But the distances between communities are significant, and the cost of flights, higher. Going even further north-places closer to the Yukon border: not desirable. Also to keep in mind: many areas of BC are on the unceded lands of Indigenous peoples. There are overlapping territories for some Nations, and development in areas is influenced by these politics. (and when development is permitted-i.e. the Coastal GasLink through northwestern BC: opposition occurs)
Schefferville PQ on the border with Labrador. I.O.C. closed the mine and the town shut down. Some residents still remain to service the hunting/fishing outfitting industry but a majority of the town was empty when I was there in about 82 working a contract for I.O.C. with the company I employed at the time. Streets of homes with no people and it felt kind of strange.
Loving your content!
If you find this story weird you should look into story of town of Pine Point in NWT which existed to house employees for Cominco Ltd Open Pit Lead/Zinc mine. Not only was everyone forced to leave when the mine closed in 1988, they then literally erased the town from the map. Most of the infrastructure was owned by the Mine and people rented the homes ($100/month including all utilities for 1200 sqft 3 bedroom). The Mine and Government gave some compensation to private owners. A lot of people wanted to stay but didn’t have any choice. Utilities were turned off and that was it. The Mine continued shipping lead/zinc concentrate for another year or so,housing the few workers required at the mine. Throughout 1988-89 it was common to see homes being jacked up and loaded onto trucks and transported to other communities, to the north and the south. Some buildings (churches, arena) were take apart board by board and rebuilt in nearby communities. It was very odd to live through, and very sad for our kids who have to say that the town they grew up in no longer exists…
Good retirement Village for people who want to get away from the big cities.
Or resort,for people that like spending time and the backwoods.
Well, when you retire, at some point you start to need more medical care and so on, and need to not be hours away from everything. And unless you’re a retired multimillionaire, can you afford to have food and supplies and whatever you need, shipped in while the road is closed for 6-8 months or however long winter lasts there?
@@Snookscatits got a hospital, just needs employees
It's almost a 3 hour drive to the closest active town of Terrace B.C.
Way to far to go for food and emergency services
The Village of Gitlax̱t’aamiks (New Aiyansh) has a few services as well as the presence of the RCMP (a friend of mine was a Seargent there, 2020-2022), as well as a volunteer fire department, and I believe there are NURSES that are available at the Nass Valley Health Authority, but other than that, you're right: the City of Terrace is the closest for amenities-hospital (a brand new one, opened in November), airport, etc.
It is more.than 3 hours. My husband did an overlanding expedition there.
the problem was that the mine owned the houses and other buildings not the people,
There are approximately 3,800 empty (ghost) towns in the US.
The town is in the middle of nowhere, deep in the wilderness near Alaska. The mine built the town for the workers to bring their families, an alternative to attract miners from the man camp rotations normally used to extract remote mineral deposits and subsidize the high cost of living involved in the logistics of getting supplies into a remote communtiy. The mining company owned the rights and maintained the asset until the market rebounds or they sell off the mineral rights. The buildings only have surface rights.
There's a mountain (in BC) that has a ghost town near the top accessed by an old logging road. The mountain is privately owned and no one is allowed up there but the town's power runs on hydro from the river so the power still works. We were driving up there one day (with the owner) and you could hear a humming - it was weird, sounded like machinery, but we were way far away from everything. Next thing you know we're getting shot at. Turns our the pot farmers were using the road as an access to their illegal farming. (this was before pot was legal in Canada). Anyway, if you're ever in really remote area and hear machinery that shouldn't be there.... RUN.
There are lots of abandoned towns in British Columbia. My Mom's cousin loves ghost hunting and used to live in Port Coquitlam, so we'd go ghost hunting in Ioco over in Port Moody all the time. Ioco = Imperial Oil Corporation, I.O.Co., it's a company town the oil company's employees set up in 1915. It had 200 residents at its height and had its own grocery store and school. The last time I ghost hunted there with Anna there were 2 properties still occupied, but those residents had to drive into Port Moody to do anything. That was about 2012 or so. The property was sold to a developer in 2015 so there won't be any trace of it soon, if that hasn't happened already. Such a cool, weird place. Everyone we ever brought there struggled to walk a straight line on one street (completely sober) and voice recorders would pick up radio broadcasts that you couldn't hear in person.
None of them are preserved though. Except Kitsault.
The only other time I have heard that word was when I bought my sport combat medieval sword. It's essentially an Oakeshott type XX, but less fancy.
But it's a Molybdenum steel alloy, made in the early 2000's.
Get some super fast internet up there and I’m sure that place could live again.
Thanks for all your videos about Canada Tyler. I'm so happy I found your channel.
No dust, someone is cleaning all the time.
Lol, yes... Molybdenum is indeed a thing. Any periodic table will verify this.
there is a small community in central Alberta called Wayne and at one time the community had around 357 people living there in 1951 but now the community has a population of 30 people and there were several small businesses a hospital a hotel and several houses and the town was a coal mining town and when they were shut down the people were forced to move to find work and now Wayne is basically a small neighbourhood of the nearby much larger town of Drumheller it’s sometimes funny how a thriving little town could suddenly become a ghost town
I knew from the thumbnail that this would be Kitsault. What a wild place.
The miners will sustaining that town, when the mine closed the miners left and a huge amount of income left with them, one by one people left because there wasn't enough money to keep businesses open . There are actually a bunch of ghost towns in BC from various mining operations closing.
And it gets more than it shares of the freaking snow ❄️ believe me it's a really hard life..
Oh man, not relevant to your channel cause it's a US town, but if you ever want to do a deep dive into ghost towns, Centralia PA is a really interesting one! They actually used it as inspiration for the live action Silent Hill movie.
A couple towns I can think of which are in northern Quebec, where paved roads get to and a bit more north than the town itself, Quebec Route 167 I think, the only numbered road that goes into the Nord-du-Québec region exists solely to provide access to 2 mining towns, mostly copper way up on the 52nd to 53rd parallel, are Chibougamau (1,5k people max) and Chapais a bit to the southwest of it (about 750 people) each have huge mines going on since a very long time, at first they had a lot of gold but that was extracted as fast as possible obviously, the towns had bigger populations then too, so there's a lot of empty houses in Chibougamau, which you have no choice to drive to (a 7 hour ride northwest from the closest village, which has NO accommodations, as in no gas station, no resting area, nothing but pine trees for 7 hours and then when you want to rejoin civilization, it's another 8 hour ride going southwest to get to the 2 sizeable cities in the region of Abitibi, in northwest Quebec, first you get to Vald'or which is another mining city, of about 20k people, but the cool city there is 2-3 hours more to southwest, which is Rouyn-Noranda, a many paper mill and also a mining city, there's about 45k people there, but some people are leaving since, during covid to make it worse, the government noticed that the big factories which are downtown are releasing poisonous levels of phosphate related gases among others, renovating it so that it stops doing so is costing the company that runs this company town since forever a pretty (virtual) penny, after a lot of people were found suffering more so than normal, that even the insufficient government guidelines were able to prove causality between many children born with rare diseases as well as older people developing a lot of cancers and other illnesses was caused by the main employer in town. Company towns that remain in north america often are still there because what they do is produce the very basics needed for modern civilization to work, it's awful when they also cause their own residents from suffering because of the reason people are living there.
I heard of similar situations in Michigan, and not just Detroit being a model city of over a million people to what it is now, with just about 700k people and the fact that even if they live on the side of the great lakes, they polluted those areas of the Great Lakes so badly that they have to make residents pay for a human right, running water. Here only businesses that use a lot of water pay for using water, and some real big corps get around it by literally buying parts of rivers to generate their own electricity by making dams and taking the water they need from there. I heard about cities in Michigan which were Whirlpool company towns which are now desolate wastelands, more to the northern part of Michigan, where the wter is as messed up by pollution as Flint but it is getting no ink like Flint is. And it's not just the water, it's the soils and air that are permanently toxic. So the concept of Company town is great, but better hope the company which became a very big company and then a Multinational that stopped caring about those old "quaint" concepts of company towns, closing down factories after destroying the whole place and leaving thousands upon thousands of people who depended on them stuck there and dying of multiple diseases and babies being born with 50 IQ and worse...
Has Chernobyl vibes - how things were just left behind
There are many abandoned towns all over Canada. Industrial and mining town that went bankrupt or mines dried up caused a lot of towns to become abandoned
I've been to ghost towns and some of the most remote places in B.C., Kitsault, Tumbler Ridge, Atlin and even Anyox in 1995. When you take a job with Kirby Vacuums there isn't a place on the map they won't send salespeople. To get to Atlin you have to go through Whitehorse in the Yukon, to get to Anyox you have to take a ferry, there's only a couple dozen people there but they have money so Kirby sends salespeople.
Also, you don't start making commission right away, you have to fund your road trips yourself. Most of the people I trained with spent around $4,000-$5,000 of their own money, often borrowed from friends and family, before they saw a commission cheque. The commission is good, but unless you're willing to BS and con people out of a few thousand bucks it's not worth it.
Whoa.... Tumbler Ridge is a ghost town? I remember when it was The Big Place To Go.
They're still selling the little blue pigs?!?! Their cost is so exorbitant I thought they'd have priced themselves out of the market decades ago. I paid $450 for one of them in 1983 ffs.
@@MerryWidow420 There's was a point where there were just a couple hundred or so people in the mid 1990s, one occupied house for every 20 abandoned ones, I didn't make any sales there after walking around for half a day and imagining a zombie apocalypse had taken place but it might have grown again. I last heard some rich dude had a plan to build a ski resort there in the 2000s, like Aspen North.
@@ll7868 , it started growing again in 2005 when the Wolverine Mine opened up, after we all collectively realized that we actually do need coal. No coal, no steel. That easy.
Reminds me on Centralia, PA . They have 5 residents left at last count but the entire town was demolished aside from maybe 3 buildings.
Great video..didn't know this place existed. Awesome jokes as well
There is a few small abandoned towns here on the Island of Newfoundland ..the towns were remote fishing Villages and people had to move away because there was no more work or the area was so remote there was no access for modern things.
Towns with a single purpose exist all over the world and they're often tied to a particular industry that works in that specific place (usually remote and isolated from the rest of the living areas around). The only rare thing here is how well preserved it is but it makes sense considering people are maintaining it, otherwise it'd be long gone like many other ghost towns. Looked at it on a map and just as expected, it's truly in the middle of nowhere, nearly halfway up into BC. It could be some sort of tourist destination, perhaps for people who like the wilderness or travelers that go to/from Alaska but that's about it. Without the mine there's really no other purpose being that far north so it's pretty much why everyone left.
I love going on TH-cam looking at this town that was one time thriving There was a mine that the people who lived there worked in in Kitsalt. The last video I watched said that retired people seem to be interested in buying these houses and some are beautiful. There are beautiful caves up and around there as well. There are many little towns in Canada that are very remote and have been left for whatever reasons. it looks nice and clean because no one lives there to destroy it.
There are a lot of places in B.C. That have been abandoned for the same reason.
There have been a number of company towns where the one purpose was to serve the company employees. Some have been repurposed if they have access thru roads or ocean access. But others are just left for nature to reclaim.
I'd like to go there and check out all the 80's things.
Kitsault is very far north in BC. It is east of Ketchikan Alaska.
Yes, I have to look on the map, because now I am curious 😮
A good friend of mine, whose son I am Godfather to, and I both consider you an honourary Canuck. 🙂
We feel you're more Canadian than many Canadians we know.
Nova Scotia welcomes you! 👍
I'm sorry to desapoint you but people living on the street would destroy it. I live in Victoria BC and the government bought hotels to accomodate the street people and that's what they do, destroy.
There are a ton of abandoned towns in Alberta. A lot of them are former coal mining towns, but there are a bunch in the Palliser Triangle that emptied out only a few years after they started (mostly due to the land being barren).
I feel like it would be pretty cool if they opened it as like a museum! (By the way, the reason now one can really live there is because there is basically no work to be found.)
For any town to exists, it needs to have at least one primary industry, which is almost always resource based. Mining, forestry, fishing, agriculture, ranching - it depends on what is available in the area. Secondary industries then develop to provide what the primary industry needs; feed stores for ranching, canning and processing facilities for fishing, etc. Then, tertiary industries develop; grocery stores, restaurants, etc. Without a primary industry, there is nothing to support the secondary and tertiary industries. In this case, no mine, and the town can't survive.
Centralia USA is another abandoned town... but it's been on fire many years there
When I retire, I know where I'm moving to now!
Me too
Good luck getting food, medical care or any other necessity, especially in winter.
We have lots of abandoned towns. They are often built to facilitate workers and families of mining or oil companies. When the work ends the families move on to more work. This country is so vast that the towns are in the middle of nowhere. Simple roads are constructed and utilities are established. Most companies will use them for maintenance workers or whatever else they need to do.
As you know bigger country, less population.
Wow - they totally could have filmed Stranger Things in this town! Perhaps the wealthy person who bought this town was thinking he could rent it out for TV and film productions?
Yep perfect 1980s film set all ready to go.
It is far too remote a location, at far too great a distance for a film/tv crew, their equipment, production trailers, craft services, etc for productions. There's NO WAY they'd ever consider trying to haul all of that on backwoods roads, 3-4 hours from a comfortable community with amenities, etc.
mall ib di numb (the simplified pronunciation of the mineral) is in fact a valuable mineral resource -- its legit a thing
you should totally check out some of Canada history of ghost
You've never heard of a ghost town before?? I'm sure there's plenty in the states
Hey Tyler, being I'm from Alberta, Canada I thought that you'd maybe be interested about Alberta's "Frank Slide."
this is a small town in northern bc, meaning its soooo remote and in the middle of nowhere, there no nothing without that mine. nothing...once the mines closed gtfo. no walmart in the 80s in canada.
Most of these abandoned towns are very remote.
As a Canadian, I have never heard of this town but I do know about that ghost town in the US with the coal fire burning under it and of course the Abandoned city near the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine.
yep it was run by the Phelps Dodge corporation of the United States, when the prices for molybdenum (Lead) crashed they abandoned it, so Indian-Canadian businessman Krishnan Suthanthiran bought it in 2004 and still trying to revive the place.
13:36 ya 😊 the old curling slapper's 👍
This could be revived as a government town processing refugee claimants and the homeless. Beats putting them up in hotels or walking by tent encampment.
Centralia Burning Ghost Town - Pennsylvania USA
"open up a wallmart" wouldn't work because that's a place to buy stop with money from the mine. you'd need a new money making venture, not money grabbing venture.
The very definition of "Putting all your eggs in one basket"...
I have a set of molybdenum knives, bought them in the mid 70s. Still use them.
Tyler. Do some research. I’ve leaned about may abandon cities and towns throughout the US as well. When the industry goes the people do too. Look into abandoned towns in Appalachians or deserts in the US west. You have plenty as well. Not as odd as you think.
It's like a neutron bom b went off. All structures left standing but noone survived.
the town is north of Prince Rupert not too far from Ketchikan Alaska
Can I go take the appliances that are probably 100% still fine and will last 30 years without problem?
You would spend 10's of thousands of dollars to retrieve 40+ year old appliances worth about $40 or $50 each. Not worth the effort.
Kitsault, BC is marginally closer to Anchorage, Alaska than it is to Vancouver, BC.
I think the American businessman wants American TH-camrs to buy these houses. Tyler, you`re American and a TH-camr.......hey, cheap summer getaway, maybe. Whadya think ? Bears and cougars need not apply.
Tyler's lack of knowledge and awareness of even his own country never mind the rest of the world never ceases to confound me. He has no idea that some towns live and die with their primary employer as he suggests; why don't they just build a Walmart? He doesn't think about who would have money to shop there. He should by now know that British Columbia is vast (larger than Washington , Oregon and California with South Carolina thrown in for good measure, combined). Many parts of BC are as remote as remote parts of Alaska, "you can't get there from here". There are "Ghost Towns" in many places including the US. He says that he has never heard of molybdenum, and asks "has anyone ever heard of molybdenum?" Yes Tyler, anyone who's ever taken High School Chemistry has heard of molybdenum. Tyler has millions of questions but never seems to remember the answers, or talks over them and fails to hear them. As a Canadian I like watching videos about Canada, I just wish Tyler would take a serious interest in learning, not just putting out videos to profit off of people with a true interest in the subject.