Also Ontario, not quite as small as you are mentioning but I also came from a much bigger city:
- services you are used to and good you could find easily just... don't exist? My dryer broke and I wanted to find a laundry mat that had hours that worked for me and my work schedule, but nope.
- people are all up in each other's business and it's normal. Gone are the days where I could have a quiet cry on public transit (lol what public transit) - people pay so much attention to your comings and going
- because there is so much less anonymity you kind of have to make the effort to get along with people you might not otherwise like. Tangential: the number of people I see in unhealthy, unhappy relationships because they honestly "didn't have any other options" is wild.
- people are way more xenophobic than I expected. Casually racist too, not really understanding that it's racism. I know it's not everyone and I think it's because they don't know anyone belong to demographics that are different than them.
- I'm like a 6/10 on the scale of weirdo (not conforming to social norms) and no one even blinked back home. Here it's a problem for some people.
- if you need a recommendation for a service, honestly ask your neighbor or someone you generally trust. They will know someone and that person is usually pretty good. We asked our home inspector if they knew any well people and he gave us a first name. After some googling we found him and he was excellent lol.
Eta, thought of a few more:
- you said small town but didn't specify rural or not so this might not apply to you but the switch from municipal water to well and septic took a little adjustment. I went from surface water to ground water and the taste was very different but I got used to it quickly.
- also a rural thing: We ended up with a lot less land than we originally wanted because we didn't realize the lower land/house costs were in places with absolute shit satellite or cellular internet.
- way more drunk driving
- people here smoke a lot more weed than I would have expected, which is nice for me lol
- people have been really nice in general which is the flip side of the lack of anonymity.
- rural grocery stores are expensive. I'm looking at you, foodland. There aren't as many low cost grocery stores. I really, really miss the little green grocers I used to frequent.
- people take hockey very seriously. I guess that also explains the golf.