Peculiar Places #1: Canada Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sober Island

The incorrect answers might be fun places to make beer, but they don't exist in Nova Scotia. The Sober Island brewery is actually located in Sheet Harbor, on the mainland about 20 minutes from Sober Island, which is a bona fide community with at least fifty year-round residents.

The microbrewery is best known for its Oyster Stout, flavored by dropping real oysters in the last ten minutes of the "boil," part of the brewing process. Not all the residents of Sober Island are enamored with the nearby brewery piggy backing on their name.

Some would rather be known for their time honored oyster harvesting business.

Answer: Lady Slipper

The Prince Edward Island lady's slipper is a delicate and rare pink orchid found on the small, easterly, Canadian maritime province as well as other areas in northern North America. The flower does resemble a tiny ballet slipper, and seems to have evolved to trap insects which are then forced to pollinate the flower as they crawl out.

The town of Lady Slipper on the north part of the island, with a population of less than a thousand, was combined with another small municipality to form the new municipality of Central Prince in 2018.

In the 1970s, an island coast road was designated Lady Slipper Drive and was promoted as a tourist attraction where motorists could stop and view this beautiful forest dwelling marvel. The lady's slipper is the state flower of Minnesota as well as Prince Edward Island's provincial flower.

Answer: Mary's Igloo

Mary's Igloo is an abandoned fishing village a few hundred miles due north of Nome, Alaska. And, as you might have guessed by the name, it's cold up there. Captain Cook explored and mapped Newfoundland in the 1760s, before he made his more famous explorations in the Pacific. Joe Batt was a deserter from one of his voyages, and he became the first European settler on the island, so the locals named the town after him. "Arm" refers to the adjacent inlet, not his actual appendage. Come By Chance seems self explanatory in terms of origin. Located on Placentia Bay, its claim to fame is a large oil refinery, and status as Canada's fifth largest port by tonnage.

As for Dildo, old timers there insist the name dates back to at least 1771, when the word meant any cylindrical object, or specifically a pin used in the oarlock of a rowboat, and certainly predating any connection to a sex toy. Periodic efforts to rename the village have been consistently rejected by the town council and are pooh poohed by most of the hearty townsfolk, who seem to revel in the name.

When late night American talk show host Jimmy Kimmel started joking about the town, they invited him up and made him honorary mayor.

Answer: Levis

The present city of Levis, with a population of over a hundred thousand, is the result of the old city merging with several other municipalities in 2002. Historically known as Pointe-Levy, the area was inhabited by First Nations people thousands of years ago and was always a favored location thereafter, partly because of the strategically beneficial hills rising from that side of the river.

In the 17th century, French feudal land-owners known as Seigneurs established an agricultural domain in the area, the seignory of Lauzon, a few decades after the settlement of Quebec City. During the Seven Years War, British general James Wolfe occupied Pointe-Levy and conducted a siege of Quebec City by firing cannon across the river, eventually leading to the fall of Quebec to the British. Today the cities are linked in friendly cooperation by several ferries and two major bridges. Neither city has any connection to the manufacture of jeans.

Answer: Saint-Pie

The 5,000 plus residents of Saint-Pie enjoy recreation on the Riviere Noire, which flows into the Yamaska south of Saint-Hyacinth, before the latter joins the Saint Lawrence at Lac Saint-Pierre. Information on the city naming history is sketchy, but could be related to the French meaning of "magpie" rather than the food "la tarte".

The Sanair Super Speedway in Saint-Pie has a 1.33 km paved track and a quarter mile drag strip. The facility hosted the Molson Indy Montreal in the 1980s, and the NHRA Grandnationals Molson until government anti-lead fuel regulations stopped the event.

The Monteregie region is also wine country, with several local vineyards offering tours.

Answer: Ball's Falls

The town, originally called Glen Elgin, has an interesting history. Jacob Ball, a British Loyalist, was forced to abandon a successful glass and potash business in New York after the revolution. Because of his loyalties, the British Crown granted his family land along Twenty Mile Creek in Niagara, between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, in 1783.

His two sons were granted an additional 1200 acres in 1807 and they built saw, grist, and a wool mills at the two waterfalls on the creek, and established the town.

In the late 1850s, the Great Western Railway came through to the south, and people moved away from Glen Elgin. In the 1960s, Manly Ball sold the land to the Niagara Conservation Area and about one sixth of the original acreage around the falls is a nature conservancy and tourist attraction.

Answer: Flin Flon

Flin Flon (2016 population 5,185) sits astride Manitoba's western border with Saskatchewan; in fact 203 of its residents live across the border in Saskatchewan. The marijuana operation in question produced 400 kilograms of medicinal pot annually until 2011, when its lease expired and was not renewed, due to pending closure of the mine.

A statue of Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin stands on a stone pedestal at the entrance to the town. This fictional character, from a 1905 dime novel by J.E. Preston Muddock, journeyed to the valley by submarine (?) and found gold.

The story captured the imagination of the first prospectors in the area, who apparently couldn't come up with a more sensible name for their new home. American cartoonist Al Capp, creator of the "L'il Abner" comic strip, designed the statue. Flin Flon is also the hometown of Bobby Clarke, star NHL Hall of Fame forward who led the Philadelphia Flyers to two Stanley Cups in the 1970s.

Answer: Moose Jaw

26th US president Teddy Roosevelt tried to recapture the presidency in 1912, splitting from the Republican party and forming the progressive Bull Moose Party. Moose Jaw is the fourth largest city in Saskatchewan, with a 2016 population of almost 40,000.

It lies at the confluence of the Moose Jaw River and Thunder Creek. Summers are warm and relatively wet, while winters are long, cold and dry. On February 4th, 1907, a record low temperature of -47.8 degrees C. was recorded. The city was a key transfer point in the early days of the Canadian Pacific Railway. I don't know about Bull Nose, but Elk Neck and Deer Butte are recreation areas in Maryland and Oregon, respectively. Moose Jaw is a military flight training center, and the home of the Snowbirds, Canada's national air show squadron team.

Answer: Medicine Hat

The incorrect choices are all real places in Alberta, but are way too small to qualify for city status. With a 2016 population of 63,260, Medicine Hat ranked as the sixth biggest city in Alberta. It's located in the southeastern corner of the province along the South Saskatchewan River.

It was an important early stop along the Canadian Pacific Railway as the railway crossed the river, exactly half way between Winnipeg and Vancouver, British Columbia. Blackfoot legend says that an intrepid warrior was sent down the river to find food for the tribe during a famine.

A giant serpent came out of a hole in the river ice and told him to seek a spot where the sun shone on the base of a cliff, and there he would find a "Saamis," a "holy bonnet" endowed with special hunting prowess.

He found the "Medicine Hat," found game, returned to his save his people, and became a great Medicine Man.

Answer: Spotted Lake

To espy something means to catch sight of or spot it. Just across the Washington state border, 387 kilometers from Vancouver along the Trans-Canada Highway, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, one can "spot" this amazing landmark. The CBC has called it "the most magical place in Canada." According to Wikipedia, Spotted Lake is "a saline endorheic alkali lake located in the eastern Similkameen Valley of British Columbia." This means it has concentrated deposits of various mineral sulfates including calcium, magnesium and sodium, as well as smaller amounts of many other minerals such as silver and titanium. Endorheism is characteristic of certain water basins with limited drainage.

Some such lakes disappear completely during dry season, whereas Spotted Lake recedes to scores of isolated pools of high mineral content, which appear as colored spots on the lake bed. Native peoples consider the lake sacred ground, and in 2001 the Okanagan Nation was able to purchase the surrounding land from private owners and ensure that any future development would not impact the lake.

Although it can be viewed from various vantage points, direct access is limited.