Sorry, These Are Real Canadian Town Names (We Checked)
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Canada is a large country. It has been named by many different people over many centuries — Indigenous peoples, French explorers, British settlers, railway surveyors, and occasionally what appears to have been someone who lost a bet. The result is a national map that contains, alongside perfectly sensible place names, an extraordinary collection of towns, villages, and communities that require a full stop and a moment of quiet reflection.
These are all real. We checked. Multiple times.
Dildo, Newfoundland
We begin here because there is nowhere else to begin.
Dildo is a real town of approximately 1,200 people on the island of Newfoundland. It dates to the late 1700s. Nobody is entirely sure how it got its name — theories range from a Portuguese word meaning "phallus-shaped hill" to a dowel-shaped piece of wood used in rowboats to simply a regional term whose original meaning has been entirely lost to history.
What is not lost to history is that talk show host Jimmy Kimmel famously put the town on the world map by declaring himself its honorary mayor. The town has been offered the opportunity to change its name multiple times and has declined every single time, which is the correct decision and a testament to the character of Newfoundlanders generally.
Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Quebec
Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! is apparently the only town in the world with two exclamation points in its name. It sits at the top of Quebec's Témiscouata valley.
As for the Ha! Ha! part: it is based on an archaic French word for something that comes to an abrupt end — in this case, the nearby Lake Témiscouata presenting an obstacle to roads. Others say it's the sound newcomers made upon seeing the valley's lake for the first time. Either way, the exclamation points stayed, as they should.
Climax, Saskatchewan
Climax is a small agricultural community of around 200 people, roughly 24 kilometres north of the US-Canada border. And in case you were wondering: Climax is featured in a Trivial Pursuit question, which asks what's on the back of the town's welcome sign. The answer is: "Come again."
This was clearly intentional. Climax knew what it was doing. Climax has always known.
Vulcan, Alberta
Long before Star Trek, Vulcan was a Roman God of Fire — that's the reference a Canadian Pacific Railway surveyor intended when he named the town in the early 1900s. These days, Vulcan has fully embraced its inevitable sci-fi connection, boasting a replica of the starship Enterprise, a bust of Spock, and an annual Star Trek convention called Vul-Con.
Nobody planned for any of this. It just happened. The town leaned in. This is good municipal decision-making.
Flin Flon, Manitoba/Saskatchewan
Flin Flon is a mining city located on the border of Manitoba and Saskatchewan — about 300 residents live in Saskatchewan and 5,500 in Manitoba. The town's name originates from Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin, the main character in a sci-fi book called "The Sunless City." A prospector named Tom Creighton struck copper in the early 1900s, was reminded of Josiah's underground adventures, and called his mine Flin Flon — and the town grew around it.
A town named after a fictional character from a science fiction novel, straddling two provinces. Canada.
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Alberta
This is not just a funny name. Head-Smashed-In is a cliff in Alberta where ancient Plains peoples hunted bison by stampeding them off the edge. The site has been continuously in use for more than 6,000 years and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site — one of the world's largest, oldest, and best-preserved buffalo jumps.
The name comes from a hunter who stood too close to the base of the cliff to watch the hunt and did not survive the experience. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with one of the most viscerally descriptive names in human history.
Eyebrow, Saskatchewan
Eyebrow is named after an eyebrow-shaped hill above a prairie lake. Picture passing a sign that says "Welcome to Eyebrow, Population 200," or someone saying "I'm from Eyebrow," and it's weird again.
Saskatchewan also contains the towns of Elbow, Moose Jaw, Foam Lake, and Drinkwater, suggesting the province was named by a committee that had collectively given up on conventional place-naming and was simply describing things they could see from wherever they were standing.
Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia
Shag Harbour is named after the "shag," a cormorant bird. It's most famous for being the site of the only recorded Nova Scotia UFO sighting — on October 4, 1967, this tiny lobster fishing village of 500 residents had a close encounter of the third kind.
Named after a bird. Famous for a UFO. A perfectly normal Nova Scotia coastal town.
Stoner, British Columbia
Stoner is a town in Central BC named after Stone Creek, not British Columbia's famous recreational habits. This clarification is available on Wikipedia and presumably necessary.
Pain Court, Ontario
Pain Court only has dark undertones if you assume it has English roots. Established in 1854 in what is now Chatham-Kent, Pain Court is a bilingual community proud of its Franco-Ontarian heritage — the name translates from French as "short bread."
It means shortbread. It sounds ominous. This is the bilingual Canadian experience in a single town name.
Spuzzum, British Columbia
Spuzzum is a small community on the Trans-Canada Highway north of the town of Hope, British Columbia. There's a local joke about it: it's beyond Hope.
This joke has been told at every family dinner in the Fraser Canyon region since approximately 1885 and shows no signs of stopping.
Honourable Mentions (Because There Are So Many)
Canada's naming creativity does not stop at the town level. An incomplete list of other real Canadian place names that deserve recognition:
Crotch Lake, Ontario — a lake. A real lake. With a name.
Jerry's Nose, Newfoundland — a peninsula. Named for Jerry.
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan — the second-largest city in Saskatchewan, named after either the Cree word "Moosegaw" (meaning "warm breezes" or "the place the White Moose runs") or, according to local legend, a broken cart axle that was repaired with a moose's jaw. Both stories are good.
Come By Chance, Newfoundland — a town that sounds like something a hopeful person says when they haven't made firm plans.
Witless Bay, Newfoundland — a community on the Avalon Peninsula that is home to one of the largest Atlantic puffin colonies in North America and an extremely unfortunate name.
Goobies, Newfoundland — a community. Population: small. Energy: substantial.
Happy Adventure, Newfoundland — proof that Newfoundland contains multitudes, from Dildo to Happy Adventure, and somehow both are right.
What This All Means
Canada is a country named after the word for "small settlement." It contains a town called Climax whose welcome sign says "Come Again." It has a UNESCO World Heritage Site called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. It has a town with two exclamation points in its name and another one that is technically in two provinces at once and named after a fictional sci-fi character.
This is the country. This is all of it. It is large and cold and bilingual and extremely weird and we would not change a single thing.
Proud to be Canadian, even about the weird parts. Shop the collection at paigepoutine.com 🍁