Every small town has a story. We've mapped990of them.
Byline: By Castor Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2026 Reading time: 8 minutes
Towns Castor mentioned this week
Three weeks ago, we received our first email from Castor — a beaver from Castor, Alberta. He has been writing for us every Monday since — except today. The Monday this letter would normally arrive was Victoria Day, and we held it for Tuesday.
Today, Castor is in Picton, Prince Edward County, Ontario. But with him and his cousins, you will also visit Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Yukon.
Happy discoveries.
If there is a town you have been wondering about, write to Castor. He will ask his cousin there.
— The 1000towns team
Castor at the Lighthouse Restaurant patio, Picton Harbour, Ontario — the Tuesday after Victoria Day. The notebook is open to a clean page.
I’m in Picton, Ontario. It’s Tuesday morning. The long weekend ended six hours ago, and you can feel it.
The man at the next table has fallen asleep with his coffee. The barista has stopped wiping things. I have eaten my muffin in three bites without noticing. My notebook is open to a clean page. I have not written anything yet.
Prince Edward County took thousands of cars over four days. The wineries pulled their tents in last night. The Sandbanks parking lots are empty. (I drove past at seven. There were two cars, both with their windows down, both still warm.)
I asked the barista if it gets like this every Victoria Day. She nodded and refilled my cup without my asking.
Then she told me the next two weeks are the best time to be in the County. The town gets its breath back. The wineries stay open. The lake is still cold, but the dunes have warmed up enough to sit on.
Before I left, she leaned over the counter. “Tell people to come now.”
So I am.
Castor’s grandfather, on small-town Canada — entries from the 1960s and 70s
May 1971.
“The long weekend emptied half of Bracebridge ON.
The other half stayed and ran the lodge.
The first half came home Tuesday tipping more than they used to.
The lodge owner closed for a week and slept.”
A memory from another town
I was in Wakefield, Quebec one Tuesday after a long weekend.
The cottagers had gone. The innkeepers were sweeping their porches.
A barista I had never met told me the four busiest days of her year had ended at eleven the night before. She looked tired but happy. She had already started the coffee for breakfast.
She said the next two weeks were her favourite of the year. The river was the same. The crowd wasn’t.
I have thought of her every Tuesday after a long weekend since.
What Castor’s cousins are seeing in their towns this week
→ Cousin Tobermory (Ontario) sent a photo. The glass-bottom boats started running last weekend. The water is clear enough to see the wrecks. First tour out at 8 a.m. — the lake is calmest before the wind picks up. She says you can see the propeller of the W. L. Wetmore if the sun catches it right.
→ Cousin Drumheller (Alberta) called Saturday. The Royal Tyrrell Museum has reopened the back trails. The badlands sun is brutal by noon. Go before nine or after six. Bring water.
→ Cousin Dawson City (Yukon) — I had not heard from her since April. The Yukon River ice went out last week. The ferries to West Dawson are running again. The midnight sun is close. By next Friday they will be down to forty-five minutes of darkness. She will write again when there is zero.
→ Cousin Tadoussac (Quebec) skipped the small talk. “The whales are back.” The first belugas were sighted off Pointe-Noire on Wednesday. The Zodiac tours start Friday. He says the morning trips beat the afternoon ones — water is calmer. You will hear them before you see them.
Things Castor has picked up on the road
You’d think Witless Bay was named for a reason. It is. The Whittle family — the namesakes — moved back to England in the 1700s. With no Whittles left, the town slowly became Whittle-less. Then Wit-less.
Cousin Witless told me they’ve had two hundred years to fix it. They haven’t. He said it had grown on them.
Pugwash has a population of seven hundred. In 1957, a man named Cyrus Eaton invited the world’s nuclear physicists to his hometown to talk about disarmament. They came. They kept coming back every year.
The Pugwash Conferences won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.
Cousin Pugwash told me most of the world now knows the name of a Nova Scotia town of seven hundred. He said the town is fine with that.
Flin Flon was named for a fictional character. A 1905 pulp sci-fi novel about a man who fell down a hole and discovered an underground civilization.
The prospector who struck copper there had been reading the book on the train. He liked the name.
There’s now a twenty-five-foot statue of Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin at the edge of town. Locals call him Flinty.
Cousin Flin Flon says he prefers it short.
Where to go this weekend, with a tip from Castor’s cousin there
→ Kentville, Nova Scotia. The Apple Blossom Festival, May 27 through June 1.
The Annapolis Valley’s apple trees bloom for about ten days a year. The festival spans most of them.
Cousin Kentville says the parade and fireworks run out of town, but the events spill across the Valley all week.
She says the best viewing isn’t from the festival grounds. It’s the dyke walk at Grand-Pré at first light. The blossoms are pink for about an hour before they go white. The bees haven’t started yet. You’ll hear nothing.
A puzzle this week. The answer is in next week’s letter
A town in Canada, four clues:
1. There is a ten-ton beaver statue at the edge of town.
2. It was carved from a single piece of concrete in 2004.
3. The town’s name predates the statue by more than a century.
4. Population: two thousand. I am the southern gateway to the Peace Country.
Where am I?
The answer is in next week’s letter.
Write to me if you have a guess. I’ll keep score.
Got a town in mind?
Write to me. I’ll ask the cousin there.
Yours in maple,
P.S. 990 cousins counted. Ten more to a thousand.
Castor’s hometown is Castor, Alberta — population 876, where the streams east of Red Deer kept the family in dam-builders for generations.
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