Exploring Canada's ABANDONED Ghost Town ANYOX BC

In the early summer of 2024, I flew 3,120 miles, or 5,020 kilometers across Canada, to visit the largest abandoned ghost town in Canada, Antioch's British Columbia. Antioch's British Columbia is a true ghost town with a rich hidden history. Once a bustling mining hub in the early 1900s, Antioch's was abandoned in 1935 after a devastating fire. Today, it's a relic of the past, with crumbling buildings and rusted machinery frozen in time. Getting to Antioch's required one cross-country flight from Toronto to Vancouver, followed by a shorter flight from Vancouver to Terrace. From Terrace, we drove several hours through the Since Antioch's is only accessible by boat or seaplane, the final stretch involved a boat trip from nearby locations like Kitsault, BC. At full peak capacity and population, Antioch's had a population of almost 3,000 residents. But today, there are only two permanent residents of Antioch's, and quite a few non-human residents too. On this trip, I explored everything from the abandoned power plant, the coking plant, the red light district, the steam plant, the cemetery, forests that were once city streets filled with houses. I explored the hospital, the general store, and I met some of the non-human residents. Let's explore this eerie, isolated town and uncover its forgotten stories. My Antioch's video series are exclusively geared up by the Bearskin Tactical Supply Company, where every Bearskin product is equipped for wild extremes with everyday comfort and wearability in mind. In these videos, I wear the world-famous Bearskin hoodie 3.0, the waterproof shell jacket, the heavy storm rain jacket, the No BS t-shirt, the nine pocket tactical pants, merino wool socks, and more. All provided thanks to the Bearskin Tactical Supply Company. See the link in the video description to finally get yourself that tactical gear you've always wanted. Use the code 10DAVE at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. What's going on, guys? Here we are. Check out this waterfall behind me. Oh, baby, look at this. So powerful. Holy crap. How it goes right around this huge rock all the way down here. Look at that right there. Then watch this, guys. Across the bridge. Oh, man, there we go. Back underneath. Look at this. Holy crap, guys. All right, guys, let's go check out the powerhouse here. Here we go. Oh, this is amazing, guys. Gotta be careful. Lots of places we can fall through the floor here, guys. Holes in the floor everywhere. Oh, look at this. It's beautiful, guys. I can't believe I'm here. I'm actually here, guys. Oh, look at this. I don't have words, guys. I don't have words here. I'm just going to explore, and if something comes to me to say, morning. What time is it anyways? 8.40 in the morning. I got up at about 5. Stayed in bed, got up at about 6. So here I am. We're still here in Antioch for a few more days. So here I am in my sea can, guys. I'll show you guys what this is all about. This is my accommodations for the trip. It's a sea can, so I'll show you guys from the outside what it looks like here. So there's the dock right there, and so from here at the boat, and here's the sea can with the two sleeper units. So I'm in sleeper unit C, and my friend here, Rob, he's in unit D over there. So this is where my accommodations are for this trip. Anyways, so this is my sea can. Here's where all my stuff is. I got power, so I can charge all my stuff. So I don't run out of power. We got a mirror. What's up, guys? Got my coffee, my camp stove. Oh, there's my bed. Nice comfy bed, guys. I slept like a baby last night. Oh man, and then my view out the sea can. That's a nice view, right? Look at that. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to put on my bearskin hoodie and my bearskin raincoat because it's cold and it's rainy. Pretty much going to rain here almost the whole time, which is all right. So anyways, we're going to gear up. I'm going to mount this to my chest, my camera. I'm going to take you guys on a tour of the property as much as I can see over the next couple of hours. Then I'm going to come back in a bit. I'm going to help Rob do some work, and then we're going to get back out and do some more exploring. So I'm going to take you guys out for a little bit of a rip on the ATV and show you guys the property, and I'm just going to mount you guys to my chest. All right, let's go. So across the way there, that's the general store, but I can't get there until ... I mean, I could go there now, but we're going to go there later anyways. I have to wait for a lower tide because we're going to go to the general store, and then we're going to walk over to the coking plant, but I don't want to do that yet. So we're still ... Like I said, guys, we're doing a little zip around here on the ATV, so we're going to go over there later, so stay tuned for that. I think that's the bank back there. I think that was once the bank vault, what you're seeing back there. We'll go back there with Rob a bit later, and you can tell us some more. But we're still going, guys. Here we go. Okay, so we got a bit of an obstacle here. We got a roadblock, and I can't get by here with the ATV. Now, I don't know where the cemetery is. He hasn't actually showed me yet, so we're going to have to do that a little bit later. But I believe there are some structures down here, if I can figure out if there's a walking trail to get down here. I see some structures down there, but there's probably an easier way to get down there. See, look at this. You can see there are the doors and windows. Right there. This might have been the hospital, actually. I have no idea. Wow, look at this. All right, I am on the watch and lookout for bears. I do have my bear spray in my pocket, because I have seen a lot of fresh bear poop, and I think I heard a bear groaning earlier, and I saw bears out here from the shore yesterday. So we got to watch out in here, guys. Okay, so let's go in and see what we can see in the general store here, guys. It's so overgrown. Oh man, I can't get anywhere. Not here. A bunch of baskets that somebody found. Okay, guys, general store right behind me. Pretty much right where I'm standing. Yesterday, two bears. So hopefully we don't see any on the way out. So we're going to walk back through the forest now. Unless I find more stuff, I'm trying to get back to the ATV so we can start heading back through. But I keep finding stuff, so. Okay, so here we're at the secondary power plant. We're looking at it. Looks pretty dangerous. Probably a lot of pieces of steel sticking up and dangerous things. So Rob said the best way in is to go around the back. So we're going to go over here. All right, cool. It's got a little bit of a roof on it, so I'm not getting soaked. But it's leaking, so it doesn't matter. So I'm going to get wet anyway. Shards of metal and hunks of concrete hanging very dangerously, ready to just drop on somebody's head. Look at this right here, guys. Wow. You can't even figure out what is what and what would have been going on in here. Guys, look at the view of the power station from this side. Wow. It frames itself perfectly between the trees. God, that's nice. All right, continuing on with our exploration here, guys. As you can see, we've got a lot of fog and clouds up in the mountains. There's the secondary power plant right there. And then Rob told me right back here is apparently the mess hall. Let's have a look and see what's going on here. Look at all these old little bed frames down here. There's a whole bunch of them. Bed frames. Is that a fire alarm bell right there? Wow. Okay, this is pretty cool, guys. But this was the mess hall, guys. Guessing this here might have been part of the kitchen. That's funny. Two meat grinders. Buick. So we know this is pre-1935. Yeah. They only had four vehicles here. Oh, wow. I think an Amiox. Yeah. So, I mean, it's kind of rare to see one actually that's still, you can still see the Buick on the side here. If you look at that right down there. I don't know what year it is. Oh, wow. Gotta figure out what, that's crazy. Yeah, there was only four of them in town. They just had boardwalks. It wasn't really Yeah. That was a revolving restaurant. You could go for dinner up there. Yeah. Wow. Look at this. It's crazy. On your way? No, it's all right. It is. I can see a little block right there. Yeah. Right where I'm standing. All right, guys. We're gonna go find the cemetery. The old Amiox cemetery. It's got the graves of soldiers who fought in World War I buried. Probably one of the coolest cemeteries you'll ever see. So, we're gonna see if we can find it. It's a bit of a zip to get there. We're gonna ride the ATV through the town of Amiox to back through some brush, past all the old houses, past the bank, up into some path, trail that goes up, and then apparently we're gonna find it there. So, we're gonna go. Hopefully, guys, we can find the cemetery. Let's go. Oh, wow. Okay, guys. We made it. It is so unbelievably quiet and peaceful back here, guys. Enough of my face. Let's just walk around and check this place out. So, you can see there's a lot of graves that don't have any markers, like this one right here. There's a mound here, but there's no marker. There's a little one right here. He died in 1935. That's 70 years old. There's more over here. Mounds that don't have any markers. And then here's one of the World War I soldiers. So, anyone who lived and worked in Amiox, who served in World War I, was basically promised a soldier's burial. And so, during World War I, Amiox sent several of its men to fight in World War I. They came back to live in Amiox, live out their lives and work here, and then when they died of old age, they were given a soldier's burial. And they were each given these four posts in a marked grave with concrete cast of a helmet. So, these are all World War I soldiers. This guy here, he's just right on the tree here. He's probably facing the other way. This one's got like a metal fencing around it, but it's all fallen down. There's that wood. What's the lady? Sophia Moran. Yeah, there's so many that are not marked, but they don't have any more. They don't have a stone anymore into the ground. That's crazy. Something that heavy just collapsed into the ground. It's got hearts on it right there. Two hearts. This heart right here. A lot of the plaques have been wiped nice and clean by the caretakers here. And then it goes on over here too. All right, guys. Here we are again. Day three in Amiox. It's Wednesday. I still got tomorrow and then we leave on Friday. So, here we are getting ready for the big day today. Not sure what we got planned. I know we're going to probably go see one of the mines. We're going to do some work. Do lots more exploring. So, really excited for today. Today, guys, I'm geared up head to toe in Bearskin Tactical clothing. I got to say thank you to my friends at Bearskin Tactical. They gave me all the gear for this trip. So, real quick, I'm just going to show you guys. I got the Bearskin long sleeve no BS shirt. So, basically a long sleeve t-shirt. Fits good. Nice and comfortable. A little bit cooler outside. So, it's nice to have the sleeves. I got the Bearskin pants. I think they have nine pockets. Tactical pants. And I've also got Bearskin merino wool socks. How about that? So, geared up head to toe. Going to wear my Bearskin hoodie as well. Going to bring my rain coat. It's probably going to rain later on. So, I'm all geared up. I'm comfortable. And, guys, we do have to say thanks to my friends at Bearskin. If you guys want to pick yourselves up some really good durable tactical gear, hit the link down below for Bearskin Tactical. My link will get you 10% off. Let's go, guys. Yeah, yeah. Oh, there it is right there. Holy shit. Okay. Wow. That is impressive. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Holy shit. Big pipe. Middle of the forest. House down here, guys. Oh, yeah. Clothesline or something. Look at this. It's got an old manor's lamp or something. Delighted. Unreal. Garbage. Garbage can. You want to slide that in the pot? Yeah, put it in your bag. There's a zippered one at the back. You want it in your little pouch? Yeah. All right. All right. Very cool. Thread it on there with a bolt. Holy shit. Look at that. Swimming pool. I heard there's a chest of gold in there. I don't know if you want to bring that back, too, or... I'll show them, yeah. All you got to do is look down, it seems, eh? Yeah. Look at this, right? Right in the middle of nowhere. You can't see it, but there's railroad tracks that run under the water, and they just kind of disappear. But you can't see them from here, but they're just off to the right of this structure here. There you go. Railroad tracks right on the water. They go all the way under, and then they just kind of disappear right there. See that? See them right there? All a little sketchy. Yeah, yeah. Maybe down on one of these next levels or something. Down in the steps, and that way you get down in there. I guess you come in through right there. Oh, yeah, you can come in right there. Oh, look at that. Wow. Yeah, here. I think, uh... This one? No, up top, or by his shoulder. Oh, this one. There you go, yeah. Let's pull it out some way. There you go. Okay. Yeah. We had the headlamps last time. Look at that. Rails, wow. Holy shit. A drill hole. Oh, yeah. Stairs. Drill hole back there. Oh, right, yeah. It's up here, man. It's just a cavern of... Yeah, not much left of those stairs. Nope. There's the other side of them. Yeah, over there. Look at it, way, way... Yeah, yeah. Something went up this way. Looks like a... Yeah, but you just did ends right there. Yeah. It's against the law to walk on train tracks. It's trespassing. These are the electric roadway. Everything was electric roadway. Oh, wow. Okay. They're all still intact. Yeah, yeah. So these were at that, where those ore cars were overturned. They had a couple of these. And they were all busted up, and it gives you an idea how... That is so cool. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Yeah. This is so cool. Yeah. Train car. Wow. Locomotive. All right, guys. Here we are. Finally, the big kahuna of the trip to Anyox. The Anyox Dam. Look at this thing behind me, guys. We're going to do this whole thing. We're going to go up there. And we're going to walk all the way across the Anyox Dam. And we're going to take this puppy in for as long as it takes till I'm happy and I'm satisfied. But there's so many bugs here, guys. Anyways, we got my camera. We got some video. Let's go check out the Anyox Dam. Look at this thing. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Now, I don't have enough information on the top of my head to tell you right now. So we are going to use some drone footage and some narration to fill you guys in on what this thing's all about. Why it's here and why it's still here. So many years after it was built, not being used. This thing is an absolute marvel of engineering, guys. What I do know is that the way it was built by the man who designed it was designed to use less concrete but to still withstand time. And it has most definitely withstood time, guys. Look at this. I'm very excited, guys. As you can tell, I'm extremely excited tonight, today, to be here. My god, this thing is huge. Deep in the isolated wilderness of British Columbia lies the long-abandoned Anyox Dam, an incredible testament to early 20th century engineering. Built to power a once-bustling mining town, this dam now stands as a monument to the dreams and challenges of an era nearly forgotten. The 44-meter-high, 207-meter-long concrete dam on Anyox Creek was built in 1924 to power a copper mine and smelter and abandoned in 1935. In the mid-1920s, the town of Anyox was a thriving community of over 3,000 with each home supported by electricity and hot water from the hydroelectric plant. In the early 1920s, concrete pioneer and dam engineer John S. Eastwood designed the hydroelectric dam as it stood as the tallest dam in Canada for many years. The dam was comprised of 26 protruding arches that rested on 27 independent buttresses. As opposed to an earthen or traditional concrete dam, this model provided great savings with minimal amounts of concrete needed to build such a structure in such an out-of-the-way place. The owner of the site still has plans to one day reactivate the dam and start producing power again. For now, the water passes through the dam through a couple of small outlets and a larger hole that they created with dynamite to alleviate any backlog of water while decommissioned. Okay guys, so I'm up for a rip here on the ATV cruising around through Anyox and I want to show you guys something that I was told earlier this morning. This field here behind me, what you're seeing is everything is dead. Well, most of it is dead and there is a slight bit of a creek that runs through it. This is where they would have had the cyanide runoff. I guess that cyanide is a product that they use in the production of copper and back then they were not very good at disposal of things. So this is where all the cyanide was running off into and basically back into the earth and I'm told if you go back there it smells like rotten eggs. It's very, very contaminated and not a very good place to be. But this is all dead like that because of cyanide production or because of the cyanide waste and what they did with it. So that's too bad, that's a shame. But look at those mountains guys, wow. All righty guys, what time is it? 7.22, still got a couple hours of sunlight left here, Anyox BC. So now I'm going to go find the red light district. So what I've been told is that outside of the property owned by the copper mine was a red light district. And in order to get to it you'd have to cross over the slug, the slag field which I'm pretty much on right now over here. And then there would be up a hill and there's all kinds of homes and buildings with ladies of the night to help keep the boys of Anyox, to help keep the boys of Anyox entertained when they need a little loving. So we're going to head up here this way across the slag field into the woods here. We're going to look for a white sign, then we're going to find a rope. We're going to climb up the rope and hopefully we'll find, there's not much left up there, I know there's some beds up there. There's a cash register, not a whole lot to see but it's still part of the whole Anyox experience. So we're going to go this way. We're going to go find the red light district. Ooh la la, let's go. Okay, I found the sign and I found the rope right here guys. Got some stuff here, some kind of a trolley or something. Front of a stove here it looks like. All kinds of stuff up here. There's a barrel right there. There's a huge hole right here. Cool stuff. Bucket right here. There's a sink. Oh here we are, so we're in it. This is the red light district. There's a sink right there. Some pots and then down here more just random stuff. So yeah, so where we're at guys is there would have been buildings and houses here used by ladies of the night. There's a bed frame right there. See it? Yeah and there's a saw blade right here and one down there. Look at that, there's a plate or something. Look at that. The guys that live here were telling me that they have a metal detector. Another piece of the plates here. It's a piece of a headboard or a footboard. They have a metal detector and they go through and they find all kinds of stuff in the ground out here. Headboard right here and here is the famed cash register. The cash register of the red light district of Anyox. Used for many, many, many transactions over the years. That's a very interesting find. All right, so here we are. We're almost at the coking plant so you can have a look over here. Straight ahead is the operation for the slag. That over there is the camp for the tours and the general store is right over there. As you come on in through here we've got a rail line that goes in. You can hear Rob, he's in there clearing the brush for the tours so that it's easier to walk through. Here's the other, here's another rail line right here that goes through. So there's only one of the two but you can see that it comes in, goes around and here we're coming up on the plant right there. Oh here we go guys, we made it. All righty guys, here we are at the coking plant. Show you guys, you see where we were. That's the camp straight ahead. You can almost see the white truck. So we walked through the marshy area there, down and around general store, through the woods and here I am surrounded by mosquitoes. About to be killed by many many thousands of mosquitoes but I'm gonna head on inside in a minute and go up those stairs there. Here's a look at the outside of the building that we've been looking at for the last couple of days. Smokestacks way in the back there. So let's grab my camera and we'll head up those stairs and go inside. Nice, look at this. Wow, I don't know if you guys have noticed but I always sniff a lot when I'm exerting myself. I don't know what that is, it's weird though. Oh there you go, that's nice. You can still hear Rob off in the distance clearing the brush. Oh this is a nice room right here. All right guys, we're gonna make our way up to the smokestack now. Rob said just follow the sound of him clearing brush. So we're gonna leave the coking plant now and see what's going on up at the stack. All right. Okay guys, here we are at the base of this big smokestack that stands out surrounded by fallen bricks. They call these widow makers guys. They fall from the top, bonk you on the head and make your wife a widow. So you want to watch out around here, that's for sure. I can climb in there, which I will. And I'll get some footage from inside all the way up after we just look around a little bit. I think I can squeeze through there guys. Here we go. In we go. Yeah, we got it. We got it guys. Oh look at this, wow. That is cool. Wow. I didn't bring a flashlight. What's in here? Use my phone light. Hold on guys. Anything in here? This goes down, down into the abyss. Yeah. More widow makers on the floor here. There's a ladder. If you're crazy enough, you can climb all the way up to the top. You're not going to find this guy doing that though guys. No way. Sadly, my trip to Anyox had to come to an end. After a whole week enjoying the BC mountain air and the peace and quiet of the largest ghost town in Canada, it was time for Rob, Bryce and I to load up the boat and make the long trip back to Kitsault, then the even longer drive back to Terrace and the even longer flight back home. If you want to visit Anyox, you can contact robbryce at northernbcjetboattours.ca and arrange a trip with one of his tours.