Double-Barrelled Canadian Places Quiz

Answer: Watson Lake

Watson Lake is a small community in the southeast Yukon Territory, quite close to the border with British Columbia. Founded in the late nineteenth century, during the Klondike gold rush, by a prospector and trapper named Frank Watson, the town came into its own after the construction of the Alaska Highway during the Second World War. Watson Lake bills itself as the Gateway to the Yukon, and attracts tourists with facilities for both summer and winter sports.

Kirkland Lake and Elliot Lake are both towns in Ontario, and Lake Louise is a well-known tourist and sporting destination in Alberta.

Answer: Thunder Bay

When the two smaller Ontario cities and some surrounding townships merged on New Year's Day 1970, the resulting city took the name Thunder Bay, which had been chosen by referendum the previous year, though Lakehead and The Lakehead were also contenders. Thunder Bay is also a body of water, part of Lake Superior, on which the city of the same name sits. The city is a major shipping port on the Great Lakes and St Lawrence Seaway system, and bills itself as the Gateway to the West.

No part of North Bay, Ontario or Oak Bay, BC or Baie-Comeau, Quebec, has ever been known as either Port Arthur or Fort William.

Answer: Flin Flon

Founded in 1927 as a zinc and copper mining town, Flin Flon actually grew during the Great Depression of the 1930s as out of work people came to look for work in the mines. Most of Flin Flon is on the Manitoba side of the provincial border, with even those residing on the Saskatchewan side often using a Manitoba address. The city got its name from a fictional character, Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin, of whom a statue was raised in the city. He's known locally as "Flinty".

Campbell River is in British Columbia, Parry Sound is in Ontario, and Rankin Inlet is in the territory of Nunavut.

Answer: Whale Cove

Located in Nunavut, on the western shore of Hudson Bay, and named for the beluga whales found in the area, Whale Cove is at least ten degrees of latitude farther north than the other three choices. It is a traditional hamlet populated by Inuit who still hunt and fish like their ancestors, though they use snowmobiles in winter instead of more primitive transportation.

If not for a mistranslation, Red Deer, Alberta might have been named Elk. Goose Bay, in the Labrador portion of Newfoundland and Labrador, started as an air force base and its official name is the quadruple-barrelled Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Swan River, Manitoba once had resident swans on a nearby lake, but they've been reduced to seasonal visitors.

Answer: Grand Falls

Grand Falls, New Brunswick (also known by its French name, Grand-Sault) , the town, was settled in the 1790s with the building of a Fort by the British, as the area was disputed between them and the newly independent United States. The falls themselves, on the Saint John River, had been described more than a hundred years earlier by a French traveller from Quebec.

The other three choices are all in Ontario. Niagara Falls, on the Niagara River, has New York State on the opposite side of the river. Kakabeka Falls is on the Kaministiquia River, and the village of the same name is located beside the falls, not far west of the city of Thunder Bay. Iroquois Falls (and the same-named town) is on the Abitibi River, northwest of North Bay, and is a source of hydroelectric power.

Answer: Fort Smith

Fort Smith, Northwest Territories sits on the Slave River, very close to Alberta's northern boundary. Besides housing the park's HQ, the town is the site of one of the campuses of Aurora College. It has been historically connected to the fur trade and associated transportation routes, and the town was founded in 1874 as a Hudson's Bay Company post. In 1898 gold prospectors passed through on the way to the Klondike gold fields, and the discovery of oil in the 1920s led to the first bank in the NWT being established here.

Fort McMurray, Alberta, is on the Athabaska River, and was in the news in 2016 due to wildfires that destroyed about one-fifth of the town, and necessitated one of the largest evacuations in Canadian history. Fort Erie, Ontario is on the Niagara River and features the historical site known as Old Fort Erie that played an active part in the War of 1812. Fort Garry is a suburb of Winnipeg, Manitoba, not to be confused with Upper Fort Garry, which is a National Historic Site where the Red and Assiniboine Rivers meet in downtown Winnipeg.

Answer: Saint Anthony

Saint Anthony, in the extreme north of the island component of Newfoundland and Labrador is approximately 40 km (25 miles) from the archeological site of an ancient Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, a drive of under 40 minutes according to Google Maps. St Anthony's sheltered harbour was first used in the 16th century by fishermen from France. Besides its proximity to the Norse site, St Anthony is also a good place to go whale watching.

St. Thomas, Ontario is infamous as the place where Jumbo the elephant was fatally struck by a train. St Boniface, Manitoba has been swallowed up by the city of Winnipeg. Saint John, New Brunswick is a seaport on the Bay of Fundy.

Answer: Powell River

Powell River is about 170 km (106 miles) northwest of Vancouver, and although both are on the mainland, driving from one to the other involves taking two ferries to traverse various bays and inlets.
The city was once home to the largest pulp and paper mill in the world, though the local economy has since diversified, with paper production now only a part of it alongside ecotourism, fishing and forestry.

Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers), Quebec, really only has two rivers - the St-Maurice and the St Lawrence, getting its name because the former splits into three channels when meeting the latter. Hay River in the Northwest Territories calls itself "the Hub of the North". Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, is the province's second largest place, behind the capital, St John's.

Answer: Thetford Mines

Thetford Mines, south of Quebec City in the Appalachian Mountains, was founded on mining asbestos, and was amongst the world's largest producers of the now-banned-almost-everywhere substance. Since the closing of the last mine in 2012, the city has switched to other means of making a living, such as manufacturing.

York Factory, Manitoba was a Hudson's Bay Company post, and was designated a National Historic Site in 1936. Moose Factory, Ontario is at the southernmost end of James Bay, and is mostly inhabited by members of the Cree First Nation. Uranium City was a thriving mining town in northern Saskatchewan (founded in 1952) until the mines were closed thirty years later and the population dwindled, from nearly 5000 to under 100 by the second decade of the 21st century.

Answer: Medicine Hat

Medicine Hat, Alberta sits on the South Saskatchewan River, southeast of Calgary. It owes its name to a First Nations legend and the English interpretation of that tale. It has had some ups and downs since it was founded when the railway went through in the 1880s, including a rough time doled out when the South Saskatchewan flooded in 2013.

Port Hawkesbury and Glace Bay are both situated on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island. The former is in the southwest of the island, opposite the mainland, and the latter is in the far northeast and was once a coal mining town. Lady Slipper, in Prince Edward Island, ceased to exist as a separate entity in 2018, when it merged with another community to form Central Prince, PEI.