Old general store of Bents, Saskatchewan, Canada

Why was Bents abandoned?. A Canadian ghost town

If you're greeted by a friendly face and a warm “Welcome to Bents” as you stroll up to this old general store, you might be having a paranormal experience: It's been 50 years since anyone lived in this Canadian ghost town.

Built in the province of Saskatchewan, along one of the last sections of track laid during central Canada's early-20th-century railroad boom, Bents didn't attract many residents and declined in the 1920s, when droughts hit the region's wheat crop. By the 1960s the last hangers-on were gone, leaving only the shells of the store, grain elevator and a few other buildings. And, perhaps, any spirits who, nostalgic for the town's short-lived heyday, might still call it a favourite haunt.