kitsault ghost town tours

Kitsault: The Ghost Town Where Lights Are Still On But No One’s Home

Think ghost town and you’ll probably imagine ruins —roofless houses, dirty broken windows, rotting floors, but at Kitsault, on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, you’ll find rows upon rows of immaculately kept houses, shopping centers, restaurants, banks, pubs and theaters, all abandoned and sitting empty but untouched and spotless. The town’s lights are always on, the streets are lined with neatly trimmed trees and there are freshly mowed lawns, yet no one has called Kitsault home since 1982.

The town of Kitsault, near the Alaskan border, situated about 115 kilometers down the gravel road from Terrace, had a very brief existence. It began in 1979 as a community of workers of the molybdenum mines. Molybdenum forms hard, stable carbides in alloys, and is often used to provide hardness and corrosion resistance properties to steel. But just as life was getting started in this pristine mountain utopia, the market for molybdenum crashed and the entire town of some 1,200 residents abandoned it.

Photo credit: Bob Steventon/Flickr

This area of British Columbia, at the end of the Observatory Inlet, had been mined for precious and semi-precious metals such as silver, lead, zinc, and copper for nearly a century, leading to the establishment of many boom towns such as Alice Arm and Anyox. Molybdenum was first mined here from the late sixties until the early seventies, but was stopped when profits started to dip. But by the end of the decade prices were back up again as many of the known molybdenum deposits in Alaska, British Columbia and the western United States began to deplete. The American mining company Phelps Dodge jumped in at the opportunity.

A large swath of land several hundred acres in size was prepared for the town of Kitsault, and a massive construction project, on a scale that had never been seen in Northern British Columbia, began. Ships arrived with building supplies into Kitsault’s deep water fiord. A gravel road from Terrace was hastily built through the mountains. Engineers and construction workers poured in from all over North America, drawn by high-paying construction jobs.

More than a hundred single-family homes and duplexes were built, and seven apartment buildings with over two hundred suites. There was a modern hospital and a shopping center, restaurants, banks, a post office, a pub, a pool, a library, and two recreation centers with Jacuzzis, saunas and a theater. Cable television and phone lines were laid underground. There was a state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant and the cleanest running water in the province.

Barely 18 months after the first families had settled in, the molybdenum market crashed caused by a badly timed recession and the arrival of molybdenum by-products. The mines closed and people started moving out and Kitsault was forgotten.

In 2005, India-born American entrepreneur, Krishnan Suthanthiran, bought the town for $7 million and began charting its revival. Since then, the millionaire has poured an estimated $25 million on upgrades and upkeep. More than a dozen caretakers make rounds of the houses and other structures, checking on their conditions and making repairs. They mow the lawns, trim the trees and sweep the streets.

Suthanthiran plans to recoup his investments by turning Kitsault into a hub of British Columbia’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industry. The future of the town depends on the success of this LNG project.

Photo credit: Chad Graham/Flickr

Source: www.kitsault.com / The Globe And Mail / National Post

On another site where this was featured, someone suggested having homeless people move into the town. So to prevent any similar comments here, let's go over why that's a dumb idea. The town is surrounded by wilderness and other abandoned towns/sites. It's over 50 miles and 2 hours by car to the nearest living town. Kitsault has no infrastructure. There's water and power, but no goods or services. The hospitals, fire station, and so on, are empty. And I doubt anyone would want to live there as a full-time caretaker, alone in the middle of nowhere.

I would go in a heartbeat....... Sounds like heaven..

id bring people with me and try to turn it into a fully functioning settlement first because i don't think it would be hard to find other people who want to live in an idyllic 1980s town.

Their Sears looks like my sears

oh I would love to live there as a caretaker, it would truly be heaven on earth.....

How about we move there together?

How is that possible I mean they just left their homes? Was everyone related to the market? i first thought that was the result of some sort of chemical radioactive incident.

When the price crashed for molybdenum the miners were told to leave right away they weren't given an option to stay they had to leave.

By products? Are you sure? Bit of a disgrace if they leave the lights on but I doubt they do. Fascinating though.

What they mean is that the power is still on. Not all the lights.

There won't be anyany LNG

How do you know this Della Black

I thank this is really cool it's a pice of history people should hear about you wouldn't thank that you could loose everything that fast but there it is

On the surface it sounds cool, but over time it would quickly be a bad idea. As someone else said you would have to drive at least 2 hours to the nearest town. If you had an emergency, there is no one coming to help you. your on your own. You need something fixed...figure it out yourself.

I would move there tomorrow if I could. I would run a coffee shop and take on some caretaking with my husband

I lived there for a summer. It is a beautiful place that had an amazing amount of bears and wolves and was filled with song birds. The crabbing, prawning and fishing is great for a seafood dinner and there are a few beautiful abandoned mines down the bay, but the really cool thing about it is all the wild fruit trees, berries, and edible plants left behind by the past residences. I found chives, onions, garlic, strawberries and apple trees, cherry trees, plum trees and even a MAPLE TREE! I was also able to grow radishes there and was able to catch a couple of salmon over the summer as well. The downside to the place is all the bears, I had a run in with a male grizzly and also a black bear. Had more trouble with the black bear than the grizzly as the dang bear kept stalking me and a few others that had stayed there as well. It eventually got to the point where I launched a bear banger at it. The bear banger was older (Passed expiry date but I was desperate at the time) and it shot quite shorter than I expected and it blew up on its butt! its had a patch of fur missing that looked like the bear from the great out doors. All in all, it was a great place to spend the first wave of Covid. Just make sure you get permission to stay or visit the town or any neighboring places. 10/10 spot, and I am purchasing a nearby cabin.

Forgot to add that it is really hard to get medical attention as mountain roads can collapse and fill with snow. some of the people here almost didn't make it a few times. Luckily there seemed to always be a traveling boat that could take them.

i WOULD LOVE TO GO AND LIVE THERE...My husband is a true outdoors man and has lived in the woods as well as worked in the woods....Loves to fish and hunt. Let me know how we can look into this....I'll be packed ASAP.....

I would love to take a trip there

You'd need a 3to 6 month supply of food and at least 15 cord of firewood to make it thru the winter.A few years ago a small native village got 10 feet of snow overnight and had to be rescued.theres no postal service,phones,or ambulance or grocery stores! Summer/spring starts in may and is over in august that far north!...sometimes!but It can snow in august or early september,up there! I went thru northern bc in may,2015,on my way to yukon.weather was nice,but summer is about 3 weeks long between june and july, then all the leaves started to go yellow up around last week of july near whitehorse in july!IN FIRST WEEK OF AUGUST TEMP DROPED TO 3 DEGREES,the plumeted to minus 10 on august 10. if you like long summers,this place is not for you!

What the owner SHOULD do is leave it all as a giant museum! It's incredible how it's a place frozen in 80's culture.

It sounds like the ultimate in rich persons 'survival bunker' for when the one world government completely destroys modern life. Otherwise known as the 'global reset'. Owner of the place would have a whole town where they, their family & their friends could come to safety & relative anonymity because of the isolation of it. Owner could reasonably charge a monthly or yearly 'reservation fee' for the safe haven from such probable calamity. Such 'reservation fee' would be sufficient to pay for the upkeep, and power & water supply to the town. If I was the owner I'd charge those mega rich people not in actual money but in really good investment deals 'otherwise known as insider knowledge'. There probably aren't enough islands for all the mega rich to purchase exactly the kind of temperature island they want so this would be a sensible option for an end of the world as we know it kind of haven for them. Plentiful wildlife and the houses all having basements could easily be used for growing food with grow lights & aquaponics. It would be an ideal setup for survivalist mentality mega rich. (much better money wise than using it for treating addicts or homeless people.)

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This Canadian Ghost Town Is a Perfectly Preserved 1980s Time Capsule

By brigit katz | jan 2, 2023.

It was supposed to be an urban oasis in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. 

Kitsault, built in the remote reaches of British Columbia during the late 1970s and early ‘80s, boasted all the coveted attractions of a small city or town: a shopping mall, a gym, a theater, banks, restaurants, schools, a pub and—in true Canadian fashion—a curling rink. After construction was completed in 1980 , more than 1200 people moved to Kitsault, hoping to build prosperous futures around a recently revitalized mine. But just 18 months later, the mine was closed. By 1983, Kitsault had been completely abandoned. 

This chapter of Kitsault’s history does not make it particularly unusual, as far as ghost towns go. Over the centuries, many once-populated communities have been deserted when the economic activity that supported them ceased to flourish . But unlike other ghost towns, Kitsault was not left to wither and crumble. Instead, it has been carefully maintained over the years, surviving today as a pristine time capsule of a bygone era.

The rise and fall of Kitsault is tied to a metal called ​​ molybdenum , which is used in steel production. ​​When its value began to climb in the late 1970s, a company called Amax Canada Development decided to reopen an existing molybdenum mine [ PDF ] some 550 miles north of Vancouver. But there was a problem. The mine was located in a lightly populated area of the province, far from any major city and inaccessible by road . Workers had previously commuted to the mine by boat from a small town nearby, but the new operation would require hundreds of employees. How could people be enticed to move there?

Amax decided to build a modern, self-sustaining town in the wilds of British Columbia—a place where workers would want to settle with their families. Apartments and detached homes curved around “winding roads and cute street lights,” writes journalist Justin McElroy. There was plenty to do for entertainment—be it a game of curling or a dip in the recreation center’s Jacuzzi. Kitsault even had a modern hospital for its residents’ medical needs.

But almost as soon as Kitsault came to life, the price of molybdenum crashed. The mine closed in late 1982, and soon after, Kitsault’s residents were ordered to leave the town. Because the decline happened so quickly, and because Kitsault was so hard to reach, much of the infrastructure and many objects were simply left behind. Today, there are still books in Kitsault’s library and toys in its daycare. Rows of grocery carts remain in the supermarket, and medical supplies linger in the hospital. 

For a time, hoping that it would be able to resurrect the mine and the town, Amax employed caretakers to maintain Kitsault. In 2005, Krishnan Suthanthiran, a medical product entrepreneur, purchased the entire town for under $7 million. He launched a restoration project , upgrading Kitsault’s water systems and renovating its buildings, and continues to employ multiple caretakers to look after it. Over the years, Suthanthiran has floated various plans for Kitsault—among them transforming the ghost town into a hub for scientists and artists, or converting it into a natural gas terminal. But so far, none of those plans has materialized.

The few tour groups who are allowed to visit every year can bask in the nostalgia of Kitsault’s retro aesthetic (think burgundy carpets and geometric tiling) and experience its eerie desolation. But for the most part, the town remains closed to the public—the relic of a community’s dreams and aspirations, frozen in time.

Just across the Observatory Inlet from Alice Arm is the modern-day ghost town of Kitsault. The name Kitsault is derived from the Nisga’a language, which means “at the inside”. Between 1967 and 1972 Kitsault was just a mining camp not accessible by roads. The workers came by boat from Alice Arm. Their molybdenum mine was a strong producer with considerable reserves left at closure. They used molybdenum (molly) in alloys to provide hardness and corrosion resistance. In fact, molly was so hard it was commonly used in the nose cones of rockets in the arms race.

State-of-the-art town When prices of molly went up again, Amax of Canada Ltd opened the Kitsault Molybdenum Mine, and built the townsite of Kitsault between 1978 -1980. With views over the ocean and dramatic mountains in the background, Kitsault seemed to be the ideal location for a community. The idea was not only to house the workers, but also to create a complete social economic environment for their families. All the services were underground, including cable-vision and phone lines. There was a state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant and the cleanest running water in the province. The town had a fully serviced shopping mall, swimming pool, basketball court, curling rink, hospital, pub, movie theater, apartments and houses.

Decline Just as abruptly as the activity had started, the mine closed in 1982 when stock prices for molybdenum dropped dramatically on the world market due to a global economic recession. After just 18 months as a community, just as the people began to settle into their new lives, the town was emptied of people.  Convoys of moving vans began to work their way in from Terrace and the road closed to public access. The last residents moved out in the fall of 1983 and Kitsault became a ghost town.

Preservation Unlike many B.C. ghost towns, Kitsault was not left to disappear back into the forest. Amax hired caretakers and made the decision to leave the power and heat on in the buildings. Good idea, the North Coast can be wet and snowy. Lawns were mowed and the relentless rainforest growth of trees was kept at bay. Everything remained intact, as if the residents had suddenly walked out of the buildings and mysteriously disappeared. For 22 years, Kitsault sat untouched behind locked gates, like a time capsule waiting.

Privately owned Finally, in 2005  a Virginia businessman bought Kitsault sight unseen by for 5.7 million dollars and a new company, Kitsault Resorts Limited, was formed. This company began restoration and reactivation work on the townsite with the goal to develop a world-class eco-resort. Until now, the town has still sat vacant other than caretakers and a summer crew of maintenance people. Everything still remains relatively eerily as it was in 1982. Nobody knows for sure what the cost of the town was. Some say $50 million in 1980-dollars, or about $50,000 dollars a month to house a worker and his family in 1980.

How to get there Kitsault is northwest of Terrace. To get there, you have to drive for about 4 hours from Terrace. Half the drive is on a dirt road and only accessible from May until October.

Remember that Kitsault is privately owned. The only way to visit this ghost town gem , is to book a trip with Northern BC Jet Boat Tours ( https://www.northernbcjetboattours.ca/tours/ ) between May and September . This is a 1-day trip, but you can extend it to visit Alice Arm and Anyox as well. For a discount code, click here:  https://olafincanada.ca/contact/ .

What happened in Kitsault, BC, 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. It was empty by 1982. That was its first lifetime.

Since then, however, something has happened to Kitsault. Unlike other abandoned towns, Kitsault has been 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. Will they?

GUEST: Justin McElroy, CBC reporter, personal Kitsault investigator

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• Kitsault: Canada's Famous Ghost Town

The ghost town of Kitsault was founded in 1979 as a center for mining molybdenum. It is situated 115 kilometers from Terrace, up north near the Alaskan border . The mine was owned by the Phelps Dodge Corporation of the United States. The town of Kitsault was built for approximately 1,200 residents. It had one restaurant, a swimming pool, bowling alley, and a shopping mall. Before the establishment of the molybdenum mines, there had formerly been a booming mining business in the town. This was as a result of the work that was going on in the Anyox and Stewart mining companies. Thereafter, in 1918, the Dolly Varden mine was formed which ran businesses in the area. However, due to legal reasons, Alfred Taylor took over the mine. He built the famous Lions Gate Bridge that still exists today.

How Did Kitsault Become a Ghost Town?

Kitsault became a ghost town due to the crashing of prices for molybdenum. The crashing of prices came as a result of an unexpected economic recession and the introduction of molybdenum by-products into the market. The low prices led to a complete loss of profit which made it no longer economical to run the mines. Since the town was built for the employees of the molybdenum mine, people could no longer live there. Residents were evacuated after only 18 months of their stay. In addition, the silver prices also plummeted forcing the silver mines to shut down. Being a mining town, the closure of these mines led to the end of life in the town. As a result, residents opted to look for jobs in other towns and ended up relocating.

Kitsault’s Booming Days and Aftermath

At the peak of the mining business, Kitsault had a 16 kilometer railway and was rich in minerals such as silver ore, zinc , copper , and lead. Furthermore, molybdenum which is used to give steel its hardness and corrosion resistance was also doing very well. Currently, the community belongs to an Indian-American businessman named Krishnan Suthanthiran who bought the ghost town for $5.7 million. He is presently responsible for the maintenance of the town. Kitsault town has abandoned but immaculately kept houses, banks, theaters, shopping centers, and restaurants. The streets have well trimmed trees and freshly mowed lawns. Although the town is closed to the public, there seems to be a ray of hope for a revival of the town as it is the proposed location of a terminal site for liquefied natural gas (LNG). The future of Kitsault depends on the success of the LNG project.

Tourist Attractions

Some of the tourist attraction sites are Alice Arm town and Anyox. Alice Arm is a place in Kitsault which was the center of the silver mining in the 1930s. Anyox, on the other hand, was a town whose main economic activity had been copper mining. There is an electrical powerhouse which still stands as a historical monument in the town. The powerhouse was built in 1911 and is a great attraction to visitors. However, those who visit Kitsault town must have express permission from the land owner since it is no longer public property.

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The Ghost Towns of Northern BC

As the helicopter lifted off, the vast wilderness around Northern Escape Mountain Lodge came into view. We flew north over Kitsumkalum Lake, mist-shrouded forests and the winding tributaries of the Kitsumkalum River. Myriad tiny nameless lakes dotted the landscape, some gin-clear, others jade-coloured from glacier runoff. And some waters were mixed like paint swirling in streams.

Then the landscape abruptly changed; the lush rainforest replaced with a moonscape. We were flying over the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed , the remains of an eruption some 250 years ago. Despite time, little has grown in the lava since. The lava flows extended as far as I could see, twenty kilometers or more.

Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed as seen from the air. The lava flows are massive.

The helicopter then began to ascend, up 1952m Nass Peak, above rocky alpine slopes and snow fields. Winds buffeted the machine, and it shook hard as we crested the summit. I noticed tiny white dots moving in the distance, mountain goats. After nearly 45mins in the helicopter, and some 90kms from Mountain Lodge, we could see the coast, and our destination, the ghost town of Kitsault.

The town of Kitsault.

A Bizarre 1980’s Time Capsule

Northern BC has a long history of mining and resource extraction. Over the past century-and-a-half, many towns have sprung up only to be abandoned when the mines were depleted or no longer worth running. But none are as odd or interesting as Kitsault. Located at the end of Alice Arm, a remote inlet on the north coast near the Alaskan Panhandle, it is all but inaccessible. The town was first built in 1968 for Molybdenum mining, then closed in 1972. It opened and expanded again in 1981, with state-of-the-art facilities for a population of 1500 residents.

When the price of molybdenum crashed in 1983, the Mining Company, AMAX, which owned the town, ordered everyone to leave. The unusual thing is, due to its remote location, almost everything was left behind, from a library still filled with books, to a daycare stocked with toys, to an eerie hospital with medical equipment to a bank with a vault. It has been untouched for almost 40 years. Wandering through these buildings is a bizarre time warp back to the early 1980’s.

The daycare centre in Kitsault.

Toys in the daycare center.

Kitsault library, still with books on the shelves.

Full size gymnasium in the Kitsault Rec Centre.

Swimming Pool in Kitsault Rec Centre

Exercise equipment in Kitsault Rec Centre

Kitsault Grocery Store

These shelves have been empty nearly 40 years.

Royal Bank, Kitsault Branch

Bank vault.

Shopping mall.

Abandoned houses, complete with shag carpet.

Guide Rob Bryce keeps an ATV and trailer in the town for taking guests around on tours. Driving along the paved streets, past the rows of houses, you can easily feel you’re in the suburbs of a major city, not an abandoned ghost town.

Kitsault Hospital

Reception area, Kitsault Hospital

wandering through Kitsault on foot

The Maple Leaf Pub, Kitsault

Full-size curling rink, Kitsault

curling rink, Kitsault

In 2005, US-based entrepreneur Krishnan Suthanthiran bought the town sight-unseen for $5.7 million. However, Kitsault has been completely off-limits from 1983 until only recently, when Northern Escape partner and tour guide, Rob Bryce, of Northern BC Jet boat Tours, was given the only permit for visiting the town. A caretaker now lives there, and mows the grass and there are lights and electricity in most of the buildings.

A trip to Kitsault, especially if you are from that era, is something you will never forget.

The Ghost Town of Anyox

After a few hours in Kitsault, we hopped in the helicopter and flew across the inlet to another ghost town, Anyox. This town is much older, and not much remains. Bryce took us up to see an abandoned dam, from a century ago. We explored other old buildings, and most, like the dam powerhouse, are being reclaimed by nature, a mix of crumbling bricks, twisted metal, invading trees and drooping moss.

hydroelectric dam at Anyox

Inside the dam at Anyox

Dam powerhouse, at Anyox

Planning a Tour

Northern Escape’s ghost town tour can be arranged with a private helicopter and guide and can include other ghost towns and scenic flights. Contact us for more info or to arrange your trip.

Office Address: Northern Escape Heli Skiing 4732 Lazelle Ave Terrace, BC, V8G 1T2 Canada

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Inspired by the cone of a majestic British Columbia coniferous tree, which germinates from a seed into a giant, the identity for Chandra Krishnan Kitsault represents the spirit of limitless possibility that serves as the very foundation of the community's revitalization.

For more information on our town, feel free to download our information pamphlet or book (both PDFs).

If unable to open the flip-book or pamphlet, Click here to download Adobe Reader .

Click here to View the Presentation in Fullscreen

Establishment of LNG Plant, Refinery, and Export Terminal in Kitsault, BC On January 8th, 2013, Kitsault Resorts announced the plan of establishing an LNG plant, refinery, and export terminal in Kitsault, BC.

The proposed facility will provide export of energy products and pipelines will be established for oil, natural gas, and refined petroleum products that will travel to Kitsault from Alberta as well as from Northeastern British Columbia.  These products will be shipped to Asia and other high demand markets.  This project is estimated to cost $20 to $30 Billion CAD/USD.  We will be working with a consortium of energy producers, governments, customers, engineering firms, investors, First Nations, and others to accomplish these goals.

Click here to read the official press release .

Copyright © 2009-2024 Kitsault Resorts Ltd. - Heaven on Earth

Justin McElroy: journalist/ ranker of stuff

Visiting Canada’s $50 million 1980s ghost town

It sounds made up. 

In the wilderness of British Columbia, a two hour drive from any town with cell reception, sits a ghost town.

Not only a ghost town, but a ghost town that was built for $50 million in 1981, only to be shut down a year later.

Not only that, but a ghost town that was built for families, from the community centre to the curling rink, the grocery store to the pub. 

Not only that, but a ghost town that has been fully preserved: the roofs redone, the rooms dusted, as much kept in its place as it was 40 years ago, right down to the medical equipment in the hospital and the children’s toys in the daycare. 

Like I said, it sounds made up.

But Kitsault is real. You can visit. 

The story of Kitsault , summarized: 

In the late 1970s, the American Metal Company placed a bet on mining molybdenum in Mount Widdzech, next to an inlet about 900 kilometres north of Vancouver. 

It is a long way from any major city, and not accessible by road, so the company did what must have seemed logical: built a town pretty much from scratch, in an attempt to make a place that workers would want build a life in. 

A couple of apartments and hospital remained from a work camp attempted a decade prior, but the rest was all new — a school and a gym, a mall and a community centre, apartments and single-family homes, winding roads and cute street lights.

If it looks like an EPCOT pavilion for small-town middle-class Canadiana in 1980, well, that’s what it was. A planned community, built for young families with a sense of adventure, people who wanted to take a flyer on an chance amongst the trees and waterfalls and bears of the west coast. 

But just as soon as the 1500 or so residents started to form a community in Kitsault, the price of molybdenum began to crash. In mid-1981 the town opened. In mid-1982 the local newspaper had a front page story about the mall opening, but at the bottom of the page there was a notice saying operations at the mine would be suspended for a month. 

In late 1982, the mine closed. A short time later, in early 1983, everyone was ordered to leave town.

There Kitsault would have ended, or at least decayed and been taken over by nature like so many ghost towns, if not for a collection of improbable twists of fate. 

Because the town was so isolated and the company so eager to evacuate everyone, much of the infrastructure and equipment was left behind. 

And because the company held faint hopes of a rebirth for the mine, a caretaker was left in charge of basic maintenance of the property. 

And when the company eventually sold the property at the start of the 21st century, it was purchased by an American millionaire who decided to increase maintenance, pouring six figures each year into keeping the homes dry and the buildings clean, a group of around 10 caretakers fixing the roofs and rehabilitating things like the curling rink and swimming pool. 

The caretakers allow a few dozen guests each year, through a former University of Northern B.C. program coordinator who organizes tours. 

Which means, for a fee, you can drive two hours down a barely passable road. The caretakers will open the locked gates, and let you into a time capsule that you can sleep in overnight. 

The magic trick of Kitsault is just how ordinary it can seem. 

The homes are filled with lush burgundy carpets and harvest gold appliances. The mall has a low ceiling and brown floor tiles. Put Kitsault on the suburban outskirts of dozens of towns that had a population expansion in 1981, and it comfortably fits in. 

Of course, the town is completely empty, and in one sense that’s what makes it unique. You can open up nearly every home, explore every outlet in the mall, and feel like you’re in Canada’s largest museum exhibit. 

But it’s when the humanity breaks through that Kitsault is at its most powerful. 

In the Royal Bank, there’s a sign announcing the last day of operations. In the library, there are  due date cards showing which books were taken out most. In the hospital, there’s an ashtray in the waiting room. 

Go into most of the homes, and you’ll see the same design: a top floor with a living room, adjoining kitchen, two or three non-descript bedrooms, with an unfinished basement below. 

At least, most of them. Some of those bedrooms have the Smurfs or comics of baby superheroes as wallpaper. Some of the basements will be partially renovated; a rec room starting to come to fruition. 

And outside, there’s always a maple tree next to each house, towering over the foot-long grass. 

Look at photos of Kitsault when it was built, and you can see all those trees planted at the same time, ready to grow up with the families inside them. 

Every story about Kitsault includes a tantalizing section at the end speculating about its future . 

It’s easy to be excited about what it could be, how 100 well-maintained affordable homes and a few mid-sized apartments, connected to the power grid with running water, could become more than, as a friend put it, “a B.C. Chernobyl but someone is changing all the light bulbs.”  

The current owner has talked about it becoming a spiritual centre, a wellness retreat, an LNG facility, and much more. 

Nothing has really taken hold, but the owner continues to funnel in money to preserve Kitsault in case something materializes. 

The longer Kitsault has survived, the stranger it seems, and the more interesting it becomes: a replica of a 1980s village in the middle of nowhere might have been a curiosity in 2002, but in 2022 it’s downright historic. 

They don’t make ghost towns anymore: temporary work camps have replaced planned communities for companies exploiting resources in remote parts of the country.

One can wonder about how long it can last, or what could replace it. 

I will simply be grateful I was able to see it for myself.  

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Categories: Features Tags: Ghost Town , Kitsault

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Millionaire owner of Kitsault, B.C., hopes ghost town sees a second life as an energy hub

Once home to 1,200 people before the town was forced to close in 1982 after a molybdenum mining boom went bust, its owner hopes to revive it as an energy export hub

This article was published more than 6 months ago. Some information may no longer be current.

In the abandoned mining town of Kitsault, B.C., where time has been suspended for the past 40 years, tourists are no longer welcome to take a journey into nostalgia.

Built in the late 1970s and early 1980s in northwest British Columbia, the remote town once boasted 1,200 residents before the boom went bust for mining molybdenum, an additive used to strengthen steel. The local mine, which Amax of Canada Ltd. operated for only 18 months, was forced to close in 1982 after molybdenum prices crashed.

The final two residents left Kitsault on Nov. 10, 1983, but remarkably, the place has been preserved by a series of townsite managers and crew.

U.S. millionaire Krishnan Suthanthiran bought Kitsault for about $7-million in 2005.

Dixon Entrance

BRITISH COLUMBIA

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, source: openstreetmap

A limited number of lucky tourists, lured by the chance to experience what life was like in the early 1980s, gained access through a tour operator from 2013 until 2022. This year, after exploring an array of options, Mr. Suthanthiran decided to close the town’s entrance gate to tourists and only allow access to preapproved visitors.

The last truckload of tourists to make the trip down an unpaved road into Kitsault was in September, 2022. Since then, Mr. Suthanthiran has revived his efforts to attract or help create some type of industrial development, which he believes would provide the long-awaited benefits to awaken the town from its slumber.

Kitsault has more than 90 houses and 150 apartment units still in good condition. Facilities spread across the 130-hectare site include a curling rink, shopping mall, gymnasium and medical clinic.

“Look, I’m one man. For me, I want to preserve the town and create economic activity,” Mr. Suthanthiran said in an interview from Virginia. “This is not for a tourism thing.”

He said he is no longer interested in pursuing resort-related options for what to do with Kitsault, including crossing off a movie studio, private retreat, scientific think tank and ecotourism from his wish list.

Now topping his list for ways to breathe new life into the ghost town is one of his ideas from years ago – building an energy export terminal, either for liquefied natural gas (LNG) or for butanol, an alcohol that could be used as a fuel.

Mr. Suthanthiran believes Kitsault, which is situated on the traditional territory of the Nisga’a Nation, is an ideal location to attract investment from the energy industry. “Butanol and LNG are the primary plan A,” he said. “Hydrogen is a possibility.”

While climate activists say the focus in B.C. should be on renewable energy, Mr. Suthanthiran thinks Kitsault could be part of LNG ambitions in the province, given that Nisga’a leaders support LNG exports in general. Specifically, Nisga’a leaders have thrown their support behind plans for the Ksi Lisims LNG project at Wil Milit on Pearse Island, which is about 85 kilometres southwest of Kitsault.

“Ksi Lisims LNG will be the heartbeat of our economy and our best chance at prosperity for our people,” Eva Clayton, elected president of the Nisga’a Lisims government, told the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office this week.

Ten years ago, there were more than 20 proposals in B.C. to export LNG in tankers to markets in Asia. Of those, the Shell PLC-led LNG Canada joint venture in Kitimat, B.C., is more than 85-per-cent completed. But dreams for Canada to become a major LNG player globally have faded. Despite much hype, only four other projects are active in the province.

Mr. Suthanthiran, who said Canada lags far behind the United States on LNG, hopes to rejoin the LNG chase in B.C.

Town caretaker Kristine Eva points to her signature among those of the few visitors over the years on the chalk board in a classroom in Kitsault.

A copy of the Kitsault Times newspaper from May 1982 with a front page story of the local mall opening.

“I need a pipeline to bring the natural gas to Kitsault,” the 75-year-old millionaire said. “There are a lot of things that I’m doing and a lot going on, so I’m not retiring. This is me, and what we do in our life is a reflection of our character.”

Born in India, he graduated in 1971 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Carleton University in Ottawa. He would later go on to make millions of dollars from real estate investments and to found Virginia-based Best Medical International Inc., a distributor of health products for hospitals.

Mr. Suthanthiran said that after a disagreement, he decided in June to part ways with the caretakers of Kitsault from 2005 to 2022, K.U. Mathew and his wife, Indhu.

The Mathews used to live in Kitsault part of the year, arriving after the snow melted by late May and staying until late October. They have retired in Parksville on Vancouver Island.

“Tourists were amazed at the way Kitsault was preserved and maintained. That was surprising to them after all these years,” said Mr. Mathew, the former townsite manager.

Scenes from Kitsault today make for both a quirky and eerie experience.

Ms. Mathew, the former townsite supervisor, created a museum inside one of the houses to collect many of the mementoes under one roof. “We cleaned and tidied up the whole town,” she said. Old issues of Maclean’s magazine linger, including a copy from Nov. 1, 1982, featuring then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau on the cover, with the headline: “A question of trust.”

Also in the museum are curling trophies with bronze spaces meant for engraving the names of winners of annual bonspiels that were planned but never played.

The recreation centre has an empty swimming pool and a hardwood basketball court. A daycare and a library are in the same complex. What are now vintage toys remain in the daycare, free of dust because of cleaning over the decades. The library’s shelves carry books mostly from the 1970s and early 1980s, including separate sections titled Romance, Westerns and Mystery. Robert Ludlum’s 1980 thriller, The Bourne Identity , is still on the shelves awaiting a new reader.

The curling rink has a movie theatre in the basement, with a reel-to-reel film projector.

At the medical clinic, a clear plastic bag one-third full of saline solution hangs from a metal hook above a bed for patients. The bag’s expiry date is January, 1984.

Since 1983, there has been a wide variety of caretaking chores. Those include mowing lawns, keeping moss from creeping up house entrances, vacuuming shag carpeting, ensuring electric baseboard heaters are turned on in the winter and overseeing roof repairs.

Unfortunately, after a contractor inadvertently left his torch on while taking a lunch break from tarring a roof many years ago, one of the apartment buildings burned down.

Mr. Suthanthiran granted access to Kitsault recently to The Globe and Mail to meet Kristine Eva, who took over as townsite manager in early July. She has taken possession of the keys to buildings in the town that time forgot and will be living there year-round.

“I feel like it’s a living museum because it is so well-preserved and it’s like a time capsule,” she said in an interview in her pickup truck. As she pulled into the parking lot for the curling rink, she mentioned a watering hole where residents gathered four decades ago for their final farewells after the mining boom went bust.

A sign hangs on the wall of the Maple Leaf Pub, bearing the names of people who met for a final drink before the pub closed in 1983.

The local pub, where a pack of cigarettes cost 70 cents, was built inside the two-storey building that once housed the four-sheet curling rink. “We had the last drink in the Maple Leaf Pub,” according to a poster signed by about 60 residents on Oct. 1, 1983.

Ms. Eva first saw the town in the summer of 2022, when she worked for five weeks as one of the caretaking crew.

“I fell in love with it. I knew I had to return,” she said. “It’s just magical to me. I’m driving around this town that people actually lived in 40 years ago and it still looks very similar to what it did back then.”

In each of the past several summers, gold-mining employees from Goliath Resources Ltd. have been sleeping in apartment bedrooms. Mr. Suthanthiran allows in more than 50 Goliath workers who use Kitsault as their base for activities such as setting up tents for core samples from mining in the region. But expanding that rental revenue isn’t a priority for him.

“Goliath wanted to rent space and we have the space. We don’t have a long-term lease and we should review year by year,” he said. “My focus is for a much larger purpose.”

New mattresses have been brought in over the years, but everything else has been largely kept intact inside houses and apartments, as evidenced by colour schemes – such as harvest gold – popular back then.

Larry Payjack recalls a sign that asked the last person to leave Kitsault to please turn out the lights. As it turned out, Mr. Payjack, who owned a sporting goods outlet in the shopping mall, and grocery store manager Reg Piercey were the final residents to leave on Nov. 10, 1983.

Mr. Payjack also worked as a heavy-duty mechanic starting in 1981 at the molybdenum mine opened by Amax of Canada.

Weeks after the mall held its ribbon-cutting ceremonies in April, 1982, Amax told workers that low prices for molybdenum would force the company to suspend operations for one month in late summer that year.

After reopening briefly, Amax announced what was supposed to be another temporary shutdown in November, 1982, which then became a permanent closing. A hoped-for rebound in prices for the commodity didn’t happen and the mine never reopened.

“I was holding down a full-time job on shift work, plus running the store,” recalls Mr. Payjack, who now lives in Terrace, B.C. His wife, Cathy, looked after Payjack Sports when his mining schedule conflicted with retail hours.

His Payjack Sports sign remains intact on his former storefront inside the mall. “I didn’t take my sign off because I was hoping maybe to come back if they opened up again,” he said.

A fully furnished house with decor from the 1970s and early 1980s. John Wheatley, former Kitsault’s townsite manager, remembers seeing furniture left behind by many of the families who moved away in 1983.

John Wheatley worked as a foreman at the area’s first molybdenum mine, starting in 1968 and lasting until the operation closed in 1972.

Mr. Wheatley, who served as Kitsault’s townsite manager from 1986 to 2002, remembers seeing furniture left behind by many of the families who moved away in 1983. He lived year-round with his wife, Patricia, in Kitsault, and they enjoyed the town’s charms.

At what was the local branch of Royal Bank of Canada, there is a notice on the wall alerting customers that the outlet would be closing for good at noon on Oct. 12, 1983.

Mr. Wheatley, who now lives in Terrace, said he felt a sense of civic pride in maintaining Kitsault during his 16 years of caretaking.

The automobile-centric site has driveways and parking lots, but no sidewalks. “Once winter was done, I would make sure all the roads were washed. I cleared gravel off the roads and made it look good,” he said.

Tour operator Rob Bryce recalls taking small groups of up to a dozen people into Kitsault during past summers. There was a slowdown in the number of tourists in 2020 and 2021 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the excursions regained their popularity in the summer of 2022.

“Lots of people have asked about going in there this year and I just said ‘No, sorry,’” Mr. Bryce said.

While the tourism industry and the energy sector are both important drivers of B.C.’s economy, major projects such as those seeking to export LNG are needed to advance the province’s long-term economic prosperity, said Ken Peacock, chief economist at the Business Council of British Columbia.

Time is running out on an LNG export licence that Mr. Suthanthiran received in 2016 through one of his companies, Kitsault Energy Ltd.

Kristine Eva took over as townsite manager in early July and now lives there year-round.

The 20-year export licence from the National Energy Board, which is now called the Canada Energy Regulator, is at risk of expiring on Dec. 31, 2024, unless Kitsault Energy starts exporting LNG by that date or obtains a deadline extension.

Adam Tang, who worked at Kitsault Energy from 2013 to 2019, said there is demand in Asia for Canadian LNG, but the challenge is to make the economics work for costly export terminals in British Columbia.

He said Kitsault is a unique asset as a time capsule. If the entrance gate were to be unlocked again to let in tourists, there is “a lot of potential to develop Kitsault into a tourism town,” said Mr. Tang, the former business development co-ordinator at Kitsault Energy.

For Mr. Suthanthiran, who tries to visit Kitsault for a day trip each summer, keeping the ghost town from decaying has cost him between $1-million and $3-million a year, depending on what needs fixing.

He said there remains an excellent opportunity for economic growth, even though it has been more than 18 years since he bought Kitsault from Phelps Dodge Corp., which itself acquired a company that merged with Amax in 1999.

While he acknowledges the sentimental value of Kitsault, he is striving to attain the highest and best use of his asset.

“We don’t want just anybody coming in,” Mr. Suthanthiran said. “I’m a long-term investor. I would say that you will see Kitsault thriving within the next 10 years.”

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The 44 metre high, 207 – metre long concrete dam on Anyox Creek was built in 1924 to power a copper mine and smelter, and abandoned in 1935.

In the mid 1920′s the town of Anyox was a thriving community of over 3,000, with each home supported by electricity and hot water from the hydroelectric plant.

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We will have the opportunity to explore in and around this magnificent structure that seems so out of place in the middle of nowhere.

The owner of the site still has plans to one day reactivate the dam and start producing power again.  For now the water passes through the dam through a couple of small outlets and a larger hole that they created with dynamite to alleviate any backlog of water while decommissioned.

Don't miss this opportunity to be one of a handful of people to visit the dam this year and book a Tour with Northern BC Jet Boat Tours to The Town that Got Lost!

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