It is in a ghost town. A few people still live there, but there are many empty buildings, businesses and homesteads that have been left.
As for the gas station out by the highway, there really aren't any "highways" like there are in most of Ontario and service stations are only on a select few main 2 lain highways. Most of the province is still not paved, with the exception of Secondary highways. The closest station to this one is 35 km in the closest city"