What happened in Kitsault, B.C., Canada’s most perfect ghost town?

Kitsault was a mining town of 1,200 or so people in one of the most remote areas of British Columbia. It opened in 1981, and by 1982 it was empty.

Justin McElroy is the municipal affairs reporter for CBC Vancouver, but when he documented his visit to Kitsault, he was doing so out of his own personal fascination with B.C.’s many ghost towns.

“You go into the homes, the ovens have been taken away and the microwaves, but otherwise, you could imagine coming in with a moving van that day, putting in your properties, putting in your possessions, and suddenly you’re living in a 1981 home,” he said.

Kitsault is different from many ghost towns, in that it has been relatively well maintained — first by the mining company, later by a private owner. So today it sits almost perfectly preserved, ready for a small town’s worth of people to show up and move in. So why don’t they?

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