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Welcome to the town of Asbestos, Quebec.

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These days, 'asbestos' is a word with
a sense of doom attached to it.

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But when this mine was opened in the
late 19th century, that really wasn't the case.

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Which is why they named the town after it.

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This pit just here was the biggest
asbestos mine in the world.

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Asbestos is a mineral,
easily mined in pits like this.

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It can be turned into strong, cheap,
fire-resistant insulation,

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and it was used in a huge number
of building projects in the 20th century.

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Either as big insulation blocks, or in
ceiling tiles, or just sprayed on as cladding.

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It was a miracle substance:

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it could even be woven into clothing, like
military uniforms or firefighters' gloves.

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The catch is that it's made up of
microscopic little fibrous crystals.

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If you break asbestos, drop it,
sandpaper it,

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turn it into insulation and spray it around,

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those little fibres get into the air
and build up in people's lungs.

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Decades later, people who've worked with absestos,
or lived near an asbestos mine,

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they tend to develop a particularly nasty
type of cancer called mesothelioma.

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Any exposure to asbestos fibres, however small,
can be dangerous.

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And in this town, there was sometimes so much
asbestos dust in the air

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that kids could write their names in it
when it settled.

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We know all that now, so:
why haven't they changed the name?

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In 2006, the town's then-mayor
tried to change it,

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but the idea was voted down.

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And I wanted to find out why, but no-one from
the town wanted to talk to me.

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I emailed quite a few places, the local government,
the historical society.

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Everyone either said no, they weren't interested,
or just didn't reply.

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They were polite, of course, they're Canadian,
but it wasn't for them.

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And it took me perhaps a little bit too long
to realise why.

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The name attracts people like me
and viewers like you.

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I knew this video was going to be titled
"A Town Called Asbestos" right away,

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it's the obvious title,
it's got a ring to it.

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Which is why there's already a five-part series
on YouTube from 2011 called exactly that,

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put together by a researcher who spent years
with this town.

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She turned her PhD into a book, also titled
"A Town Called Asbestos".

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Vice.com published a series
by a German photojournalist,

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titled "A Town Called Asbestos".

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All the time, people turn up here, to document
The Town with The Name.

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Some of them, like this author,
are thorough and sympathetic

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and take decades of history into account.

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Some aren't.

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Some just set up a camera by the mine overlook,

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turn up for a couple of hours and film something.

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Others don't even visit, they just make fun
of them from the other side of the world.

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"Why? Because the town's name is Asbestos."
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

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How do you feel about the name?
Why don't you change it?

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They've answered these same questions
for years,

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and I suspect they're
very, very tired of it.

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The clearest answer that I've found is from
an interview in the Globe and Mail in 2016.

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Ghislain Tessier, vice-president of a local
chamber of commerce, said:

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"Asbestos was our lives.
It was our heritage."

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And I think that's the key to why this town
is still called Asbestos.

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Because, yes, for most of the world,
the name is alarming.

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But here, that's tempered with the fact that
this mine,

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like a coal mine or a gold mine,
it was how people made their living.

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Lots of people worked in the mine,

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and their parents, and their grandparents,
and their great-grandparents.

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It was part of their identity, a mineral that
the world wanted to use,

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it was made right here by them,
and it saved lives,

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and it really was something to be proud of.

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Asbestos, and this mine, was defended by the
folks who worked here.

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In '97, just after France banned asbestos,
four men from this town,

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four of the luckier ones,

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ran the Paris Marathon.

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And they were congratulated in a statement
in Canada's Parliament

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for showing that the risks weren't that great.

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Because the risks were drastically downplayed
by management and by government.

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Even after the world at large agreed
how dangerous asbestos is,

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economics and the desire for profit meant
that it was still mined for decades here.

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This mine only closed in 2012.
It's only been a few years.

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Maybe the name will change,

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if only to stop jerks like me coming along
and going, 'ooh, look at this place'.

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But not just yet.

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Dr Jessica van Horssen's book is the definitive
history of the town and the mine,

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a lot of this video is based on it, and I
thoroughly recommend it.