Note: This description refers to Company Towns in general and not one specific site. However, some Company Towns on this map do have their own entry and can be found under their own industrial category.

Company towns symbolize a bygone era of Canadian settler history, where communities arose under the investment and control of a company undertaking industrial purposes, which was generally resource extraction such as logging, mining or canning. The company would construct not just the industrial buildings, but also the homes, store(s), school(s), medical facility(ies) and amenities such as gym, pool hall, movie theatre and even faith-based building(s). They could be considered closed communities. Towns were often planned with a segregation of workers based on class and/or ethnicity. Management would live in the bigger, better built homes, separated from other workers’ homes, who in turn could be separated from areas built for non-white workers such as those of Japanese or Chinese descent/origin. Single men were often housed in communal bunkhouses.

In short, any worker living in the town worked for the company, including supporting workers such as the teachers, nurses and housekeepers. Many workers did bring spouses and children and built lives in these towns, but no one owned their home and if a worker left the company, their time in the town was over.

The towns were developed at a time when settler colonization was in full force, including having many immigrants seeking work and a better life. Company towns offered some semblance of security in terms of a home, community spirit and amenities. Yet as the chance to live there was tied to working for the company, this came with uncertainty (especially in the boom and bust cycle of resource extraction) and a difficulty in planning a future. Living conditions, rents and prices for supplies and amenities were controlled by the company. Without elected officials representing residents, this left workers at the mercy of the benevolence or authoritarianism of senior management.