Thorn built the road to bring redwood logs out of the forest and to his mill, and then over the mountain into Oakland via the Temescal Creek route on the northwest edge of Montclair Village.

The eastern portal (called Eastport by the railroad) just north of Canyon was buried by a landslide in 1980 and is no longer visible, but was located on the inside of the hairpin turn on Pinehurst Road.

Today's residents still work together to maintain their own roads and water systems, and Canyon Community Association volunteers provide mediation services, emergency planning, and interface with county and state agencies.

A notion of the community's unconventionality may be gleaned from the fact that the school lunch menu features organic milk and produce, Niman Ranch beef, and hormone and antibiotic free chicken.

As John van der Zee wrote in his book about the town, Canyon (1972): A small assemblage of mostly unconventional dwellings, mostly built by the nonconformists who live in them, it is a consciously ecological community that recycles everything it can.

In Canyon, the mutual respect and the cohesion of neighbors revive the vital satisfactions once intrinsic in human communities, and its 'civil agencies' are functions of the inhabitants.Between 2011 and 2013, a Carmelite monastery was located on a ranch in the western area of the town.

[8] Canyon enjoys a cool summer Mediterranean climate (Koppen classification csb) similar to that of the nearby city of Oakland, California, though slightly warmer.