The Canada Files

You think you know Canada's towns. Nobody ever showed you what's underneath them.

The rock under the streets, some of it more than a billion years old. The reason each town is where it is, and what its name really means. What the ice did to the ground around it, and the places nearby that vanished. Thirty real Canadian towns and cities, province by province, and at the end, how to read the same layers under your own. One finished book you can open tonight.

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The Canada Files
From the channel The Canada Files Instant PDF download, one payment 7 days to ask for your money back Every fact checked against the public record
30 Real Canadian towns and cities, from the bedrock up
7 Questions asked of every one of them

Who I am

I'm Tom Ashworth, a geography teacher, and I've spent my life studying the landscapes and forgotten corners of Canada. Every week on The Canada Files I take one province, region or city and count down, fact by fact, what even the people who live there have never been told about it.

This book is built on the lesson I keep coming back to. We assume the map is finished. But a map can show you where every town is without telling you a single thing about what it stands on, why it is there at all, or what used to sit beside it.

One book. Thirty towns.

A map shows you the towns. This book shows you what they stand on.

Thirty real Canadian towns and cities, grouped province by province, and the same seven questions asked of every one, from the oldest rock underneath to the story the town forgot to tell. Not a report written to order after you pay: one finished book, checked fact by fact, and yours the moment you buy it.

The Canada Files

What's Under Your Town

Thirty real Canadian towns and cities, province by province, from the bedrock up: the rock under the streets, why each town exists, what its name means and the places nearby that vanished.

  • Thirty real Canadian towns and cities, grouped province by province
  • The rock under each town's streets, and how many millions of years it has been there
  • Why each town is where it is: the river crossing, the portage, the harbour, the railway, the mine
  • What each name really means, the names that came before it, and the Indigenous name where it is known
  • What the ice did to the ground around it: the ridges, the old shorelines, the lakes that drained away
  • The places nearby that vanished: ghost towns, flooded towns, rail lines nobody runs any more
  • Each town on its oldest map, and one documented story it doesn't usually tell
  • How to read the same layers under your own town, and the public records that hold each one
  • Every fact checked against the public record
  • Instant PDF download, large type, yours to keep
US$47.00
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7

Seven days, and every fact open to correction

A wrong fact about a real town is the one thing a book like this can't afford. If you find one, write and tell me: I check it against the record, and if I got it wrong, I correct it in the book. And if the book isn't what this page told you it would be, write within seven days of buying and you get your money back. No forms, no reasons asked.

Questions people ask

Is my town in it?
Maybe, and I'd rather be straight with you. This isn't a report researched for one address after you order. It's one finished book about thirty real Canadian towns and cities, grouped province by province. If you live in one of them, grew up in one, or drive through one on the way to the lake, you'll find it there. If you don't, the last part of the book shows you how to read the same layers under your own town, and which public records hold each one.
Which towns are in it?
Thirty real towns and cities: cities and small towns, river towns, mining towns, railway towns and towns on the coast. They're chosen for what is under them, not for their size, so some you'll know well and some you've only ever driven through.
Isn't a small town too ordinary to write about?
Often it's the strangest. A town is usually small for a reason written in the ground: the river that floods, the mine that closed, the railway that went somewhere else. In this book a town of a few hundred people gets the same seven questions as a provincial capital.
What does it tell me about each town?
The same seven things every time. The rock under its streets and how old it is. Why the town exists at all. What its name means, and the names it carried before. What the ice did to the ground around it. The places nearby that vanished. The town on its oldest map. And one documented story the town doesn't usually tell about itself.
How do you know any of it is right?
From the public record: geological survey maps, the national database of official place names, old county atlases and survey plans, provincial archives and digitized newspapers. Where the sources disagree, the book says so, and where a figure is uncertain it is given as a range, not dressed up as a fact.
Is it about my family or my property?
No. It's about the documented geography and history of places, not of anyone's land or family. It isn't a land survey, a title search, a geotechnical report or a family history, and it can't tell you what is under your particular lot.
Will it send me somewhere I shouldn't go?
No. Where a place can be visited, the book says how. Where it can't, or shouldn't be, it says that too: an old mine site, fenced tailings, private land, a nesting island closed for the season, or a site a First Nation asks visitors to respect.
How does it arrive?
As a PDF you download as soon as your payment goes through, set in large type. Read it on your phone, tablet or computer, or print the pages for the next drive.
Can I give it as a gift?
Yes. It's a PDF, so you can send it on, or print it for them. It suits the person who never left their town, and the one who left and still talks about it.
Is the price in Canadian dollars?
It's charged in US dollars, so the exact amount in Canadian dollars depends on the exchange rate the day you pay. One payment, nothing to renew.
What if I don't like it?
Write within seven days of buying and you get your money back. No forms, no questions asked.

You'll drive through one of them again this year.

On the way to the lake, or to the cottage, or home for Thanksgiving. The grain elevator, the main street, the rink, the bridge over the river, and ten minutes later you're out the other side. You'll have crossed rock that was already ancient before anything lived on land, or the floor of a lake the ice left behind, or the ground where another town stood before the railway passed it by, and nobody will have told you it was there. A map shows you the towns. It never shows you what they stand on.

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