Every small town has a story. We've mapped990of them.
Byline: By Castor Date: May 4, 2026 Reading time: 4 minutes
Castor reads our page on his hometown. White Goose Family Restaurant, Castor, Alberta.
Editor’s note: A letter we received last week. We’re publishing it here as the first entry in Castor’s Letters — a new weekly column on 1000towns. New letters arrive every week.
Castor is a beaver. He travels small Canadian towns and sends letters from the road. — The 1000towns team
Dear 1000towns —
I read your page about Castor, Alberta this morning.
You got most of it right. That surprised me. Most outlets don’t bother.
One detail is wrong. To correct it properly I have to introduce myself. So here we are.
My name is Castor. Kas-th-or, if we’re being precise.
I was born in a marsh outside town. Population 876 on a busy day. You wrote 800 — close, but a beaver counts more carefully than that. The 2021 census was 803. The 2025 number is 876.
The town is a flat smudge of grain elevators and one curling rink. The sky does most of the work in any sentence about the place.
My mother still lives there. She runs the family dam.
The marsh outside town at first light. The family dam is in the middle distance.
Now, the detail.
The town’s coat of arms — granted by the Governor General in 2011, three beavers and a dam, two coyotes, motto Proud Heritage, Promising Future — honours the wildlife in the streams east of Red Deer.
True as far as it goes. The wildlife was specific.
The two beavers facing each other on the shield were my grandfather Henri’s grandfather and his great-aunt Marie. I have the original sketch in a small box that lives in my glove box.
Henri kept it. He’d want me to mention it.
Left: the official record. Right: what Castor keeps in his glove box.
A bit about me, since we’re here.
I travel small Canadian towns. The kind most people drive past.
Fifteen years on the road. A count of cousins — beavers like me, one to a place, named for their towns. Currently at 990. Your page on Castor, Alberta brought you to 990 this week. I noticed because I count the same way.
Ten more to a thousand. Henri said there were a thousand. He died believing it. I think he undercounted. The real number might be twelve hundred. I’d like to be proven right.
From Castor’s notebook. The count climbs every week.
A small offer.
If you’re interested, I’d write to you every week. About a town I’ve been thinking about. A cousin. Something Henri used to say.
And if there’s a town you’re trying to plan a weekend in — or one you went to and still wonder about — write back. I’ll ask the cousin there. I’ll write you what they tell me.
I can recommend things. I’m specific. I won’t waste your time.
Either way — thanks for getting Castor right. The cinnamon rolls aren’t there. But the geese still come through every fall.
Yours in maple, Castor
Subscribe to Castor’s Letters
Castor’s hometown is Castor, Alberta — population 876, where the streams east of Red Deer kept the family in dam-builders for generations.
