20 abandoned towns to add to your Canadian road trip itinerary

Canada is full of abandoned towns from the Great Depression and gold rush days for visitors to discover.

Did you know that Canada is full of abandoned towns?

Canada began as a place of tiny settlements, many of which grew into great cities. But not every settlement is destined to grow forever. Several towns were started and, in many cases, thrived for a while, before the inhabitants gave up and went to seek their fortune elsewhere. These spooky abandoned towns in Canada may not be as famous as the big, bustling cities but they’re no less fascinating.

If you’re moved by images of abandoned theatres, barns and television sets, you should put Bounty on your bucket list. According to Abandoned Playgrounds, Bounty lost its village status in 1997 because so many people had left. It used to be a thriving town back in the day, with a theatre, its own newspaper and even a professional baseball team.

Flowing directly into the ocean, Butedale Falls on Princess Royal Island should really be one of Canada’s must-see waterfalls. Next to the falls you’ll find the abandoned buildings of what was once a thriving town revolving around a salmon cannery that was built in 1911.

Founded in 1903 as a coal-mining town, Bankhead is located in what is now Banff National Park — home to some of the best hiking trails in Canada. The mines here supplied coal to the Canadian Pacific Railway and to the boilers at the Banff Springs Hotel. Atlas Obscura says that the mining operations closed in 1922 and the residents moved away.

Of course there’s a place in Canada called Canuck, but it’s definitely not representative of what the country is all about. Once a thriving community, Canuck’s population started to drop in the 1930s. Today nobody lives here anymore. It’s located just north of the U.S. border and about 12.5 kilometres west of Climax.

Technically, Dorothy isn’t a ghost town because it still has a handful of residents. However, it’s full of abandoned buildings hinting of the town’s heyday, now long past. According to Ghost Towns of Alberta, the village got its post office in 1908 and experienced a boom in the 1920s with the arrival of the railway before its residents began to fade away.

According to Saskatchewan Ghost Towns, Robsart was founded in 1910. The arrival of the railway brought an economic boom, but the town went into decline with the Great Depression, a familiar story. Today there are only 20 inhabitants and tons of abandoned buildings.