Smaller communities across Canada are quietly becoming technology magnets.

No longer are advances in technology limited to major provincial centres. Rural areas, destinations that might be regarded as ideal for their slower pace of life, are starting to flex their muscle by grabbing their piece of the technology pie.

And the technology itself is accelerating this development. With the advent of broadband access, business can be conducted from Vulcan, Alta., or Wilmot township in southern Ontario - and the client base is far from just local.

In Ontario, where three small cities and four surrounding townships have banded together, a technology powerhouse has emerged that includes companies such as Research in Motion (RIM) and Open Text - businesses one wouldn't necessarily associate with communities that would individually have populations varying between 97,000 and 204,000.

Photo courtesy of Dumur Industries
A small-town environment suits Dumur Industries, which builds unmanned ground vehicles for the U.S. army from their facility in White City, a town just east of Regina.

Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and the surrounding townships of North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich have bonded to form Canada's Technology Triangle, illustrating major technology players can be found outside the traditional large-city settings.

"What's interesting about this area is that we punch above our weight," says Linda Fegan, director, marketing and communications for the Waterloo-based Canada's Technology Triangle Inc. "This area is an export powerhouse. The latest number is around $12 billion in exports - that's larger than five Canadian provinces."

While Waterloo, with a population of 97,475, is home to RIM and the BlackBerry, there are about 400 high-tech or tech-oriented companies in the so-called technology triangle.

"One of the things we pride ourselves on in this community is a willingness to adopt technology very early," says Fegan.

She adds there's also a strong diversity of business in the triangle, including a large Mennonite community where horses and a more rural way of life is the norm along with maple syrup and quilting festivals.

Across the country in Nelson, B.C., which boasts a population of about 10,000, a company called D-Pace Inc. supplies products and services to the international commercial particle-accelerator industry.

The work it does has applications in nuclear medicine - where radio isotopes are used as tracers to find tumours - the semiconductor sector and for particle physics laboratories.

D-Pace has customers in more than a dozen countries around the world, including new clients in France, Korea, the United States and Canada.

In nearby Rossland, home to about 3,800 residents, Juicy Studios creates flash websites, title graphics, video promos and other electronic wizardry for clients such as Molson and Nokia.

"We believe we have a fairly active and growing tech sector," says Kelvin Saldern, executive director of the Kootenay Association for Science and Technology, a non-profit organization that promotes technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in south-central B.C. and includes the communities of Nelson and Rossland.

"We also have quite a few software developers who have moved to the area for lifestyle reasons and have brought their customers with them. We have broadband throughout the region and that is a key enabler for the software developers who live here."

Lifestyle is part of the reason why technology is also doing well in northern B.C.

Roy Spooner, executive director of the Innovation Resource Centre in Prince George, says there's more to it than just the small-community lifestyle.

"The technology we're doing, and I suspect the kind of technology being developed in smaller communities, is solving the kind of problems faced by the businesses active in those markets," says Spooner, adding agriculture, fisheries, forestry and mining are all strong sectors in his region.

"All those industries are present within a two-hour drive of Prince George. Those industries all end up with problems or opportunities and they're all looking for new technological advantages to move forward. That's been going on up here for decades."

University of Northern B.C. physicist Matt Reid recently found a way to go beyond X-rays - using terahertz waves - to examine timber more thoroughly, specifically looking into lumber infected by the pine beetle.

Spooner says this could make it easier for lumber companies to work with the cracked wood the pine beetle has left behind, not to mention applications that could apply to other fields.

"It may not be the exotic computer-oriented work you would find in Silicon Valley, but it is technology. It could be worth millions in savings (for the forestry industry)," says Spooner.

Across the border in Alberta, technology innovation is also being found in small places as companies move to rural parts of the province for a better quality of life, according to the Alberta Council of Technologies (ABCTech).

ABCTech president Perry Kinkaide recently visited Vulcan, Pincher Creek and Olds, as well as Grande Prairie, all communities looking to bolster their economies.

"I think people would be surprised to see the possibilities (out there)," says Kinkaide. "Technology just isn't happening in the urban areas. I think in rural Alberta, we have a better chance to get quicker innovation (results) because we're dealing with applied research. They're looking at the real issues of today driven by their local economies."

In Saskatchewan, where the number of technology companies is growing, the province's natural backdrop is one key factor behind why companies are locating outside the major hubs.

"It's just the entrepreneurial spirit. There is lots going on, not necessarily all of it is high tech but there is a lot of community-centred growth around our natural resources and tourism," says Greg Sutton, executive director of the Saskatoon-based Saskatchewan Advanced Technology Association (SATA). "A lot of lake towns in the north, with their tourism strengths, are draws for professionals to come out there."

One of many examples of a technology-oriented company that isn't in a big city is Dumur Industries, located in White City, a town just east of Regina with a population of just over 1,000.

The firm builds unmanned ground vehicles for the U.S. army. The vehicle can be designed to do whatever the army wants it to do and the possibilities for it are endless, says company manager Bob Dumur.

"It might be used in combat someday, it might be used to re-supply troops in the field or it might be used as a guardian or a sentinel," says Dumur. "This military version would still be classified as experimental. We have a commercial variant sold and in production now."

On the west coast, B.C.'s technology industry, which currently employs 65,000 people, is also enjoying a strong growth surge.

A new study, TechtalentBC: Labour Trends in the British Columbia Technology Sector, released by the B.C. Technology Industry Association, forecasts a 15-per-cent growth rate over the coming year.

Meanwhile, D-Pace president Morgan Dehnel says he is still finding out about other technology-oriented ventures that exist in Nelson.

"People haven't really caught up with what's going on. It's almost as if it's an underground technology thing, as all of us operating locally have no need to advertise locally if we're working globally," says Dehnel.

But living and working far away from a major urban environment also provides its own unique incentives. "It's a pretty place to live, it's calm," says Dehnel, who walks to work. "And the cost of living is less."

(Laura Severs can be reached at laura@businessedge.ca)