The Townsearch Guide Canada: Your Handbook for Finding the Best Place to Live

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Want to move out of the city but don’t know where to go? This
interesting guide profiling 64 small Canadian towns will help you get
started on your search. With a high rate of self-employment and the
flexibility of work location made possible by computers and
telecommunications, many people today are experiencing the opportunity
to exchange urban stress for the quality of life found only in small
towns.

The towns profiled range in population from 500 to 30,000. They’re in
all provinces (except Quebec) and territories. There’s a brief section
on each province, highlighting average family expenses and income. For
each town, there’s an introductory note singing the town’s praises
and pointing out special characteristics; this is followed by a
checklist of features and services, the mailing address and phone number
for the town office, and information on municipal services, real-estate
costs, average residential tax, mail service, health care, educational
institutions and churches, recreational facilities, number of
restaurants and retail stores, transportation, banks, and more. While it
is impossible for this sort of information to ever be completely
up-to-date, it does provide a starting point for a methodical search for
the ideal town to call home.

Sixty-four towns is only a fraction of the thousands of Canadian
municipalities that might have been included. In that respect this guide
is a test run: the authors have registered the term townsearch and
future guides are anticipated.