Castor’s Letters

“My name is Castor. Kas-th-or, if we’re being precise. I travel small Canadian towns. The kind most people drive past. I send a letter every Monday about what I notice.”

22

996

4 to go

until a thousand

Mondays

A new letter arrives

Yours in Maple — Castor’s weekly letter from small-town Canada.

Every letter Castor has sent

He writes from a new town every Monday.

Castor’s Letter No. 27

November 2, 2026

The Boy in the Photograph

→ Every Canadian knows the picture. Almost nobody knows the kid in it — or the town he helped build afterward.

Castor’s Letter No. 26

October 26, 2026

The Great Canadian Hallowe’en

→ Twelve wildly different ways of doing one night.

Castor’s Letter No. 25

October 19, 2026

Canada Between Day and Night

→ One October evening, six time zones, and six small towns with different ways of welcoming the dark.

Castor’s Letter No. 24

October 13, 2026

The Town That Invented October

→ How Bala, Ontario, turned a cranberry harvest into a second tourist season.

Castor’s Letter No. 23

October 5, 2026

Who Made Canada’s Sweater?

→ The remarkable journey of the Cowichan sweater, from Coast Salish knitters to a Canadian icon.

Castor’s Letter No. 22

September 28, 2026

The Border Towns

→ Where the line runs through libraries, golf courses, neighbourhoods and everyday life.

Yours in maple,

P.S. — The full original letter I sent to 1000towns is in the archive as Letter #1. The cinnamon rolls aren’t there. But the geese still come through every fall.

THE COAT OF ARMS
Castor, Alberta’s shield was granted by the Governor General in 2011. Three beavers, a dam, two coyotes. Castor says two of those beavers are family.

HENRI’S NOTEBOOK
A small kraft notebook Castor keeps in the glove box of his truck. It comes up often in the letters.

COUSIN COUNT
Henri said a thousand. Castor’s count today is 995. He thinks Henri undercounted — it may be closer to twelve hundred.

— from Castor’s notebook

About Castor

Castor is a beaver. He writes a weekly letter for 1000towns — from a different small Canadian town every Monday. About what he notices, what his cousins tell him, and what his grandfather Henri used to say. He is not the publication. He writes for it.

Castor writes for us.
He is not us.
1000towns is the publication. Castor is the columnist. The cousins are the locals he quotes.