Nanaimo ( ) is a city on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. The city lies on the western shores of the eponymous Nanaimo Harbour, for which it has become known as the "Harbour City". The city is also called the "Hub City", which is attributed to its original layout design with streets radiating from the shoreline like the spokes of a wagon wheel, and to its relatively central location on Vancouver Island. P. 45 Nanaimo is the headquarters of the Regional District of Nanaimo.
Nanaimo is served by the Island Highway that runs along the east coast of Vancouver Island, the BC Ferries system, and the city's regional airport. It is also on the dormant Island Rail Corridor.
History Early history
The Indigenous peoples of the area that is now known as Nanaimo are the Snuneymuxw. An anglicized spelling and pronunciation of that word gave the city its current name.
The first Europeans known to reach Nanaimo Harbour were members of the 1791 Spanish voyage of Juan Carrasco, under the command of Francisco de Eliza. They gave it the name Bocas de Winthuysen after naval officer Francisco Javier Winthuysen y Pineda. When the British Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) established a settlement here in 1852, they named it Colvile Town after HBC governor Andrew Colvile. In 1858 it was renamed as Nanaimo, after the local indigenous people. The city has been called "The Harbour City" since the lead-up to Expo 86.
The HBC attempted to start a coal mine at Port Rupert but the project had been unsuccessful. In 1850 Snuneymuxw Chief Che-wich-i-kan, commonly known as "Coal Tyee", brought samples of coal to Victoria. A company clerk was dispatched and eventually the governor James Douglas visited the future site of Nanaimo.
While open to selling coal, the Snuneymuxw wished to retain control of it and retain the exclusive right to mine it. Chief Wun-wun-shum offered to sell coal for five barrels in exchange for one blanket. The HBC representative Joseph William McKay deemed this "impertinent". The Snuneymuxw retained their rights to the resource for a while, but gradually lost them due to other tribes and miners from the failed Port Rupert project.
By 1852, the first shipment of Nanaimo coal was loaded on the Cadboro.
Construction of the Nanaimo Bastion began in 1853 and was finished in 1855.
On 27 November 1854, 24 coal miners and their families from England arrived at the settlement aboard the Beaver and Recovery. They had travelled seven months on the ship Princess Royal arriving at Esquimalt two days earlier. They transferred to the two smaller vessels for the trip to Colvile Town. They were greeted by Joseph William McKay and 21 Scottish miners.
World Wars During World War I, the provincial government established an Internment camp for Ukrainian detainees, many of them local, at a Provincial jail in Nanaimo. It operated from September 1914 to September 1915.
In the 1940s, lumber supplanted coal as the main business. Minetown Days have been celebrated in the neighbouring community of Lantzville to highlight some of the locale's history.Nanaimo Info – History
Chinese population
In the late nineteenth century, numerous immigrants came from China and settled here. What was known as the first Chinatown in Nanaimo was founded during the gold rush years of the 1860s; it was the third largest in British Columbia."Introduction " (Archive). Nanaimo Chinatowns Project, Malaspina University-College. Retrieved on 15 February 2015. In 1884, because of mounting racial tensions related to the Dunsmuir coal company's hiring of Chinese strikebreakers, the company helped move Chinatown to a location outside city limits."Chinese Community" (Archive). Vancouver Island University. Retrieved on 15 February 2015.
In 1908, when two Chinese entrepreneurs bought the site and tried to raise rents, the community and 4,000 shareholders from across Canada combined forces and bought a site for the third Chinatown, at a new location focused on Pine Street. That third Chinatown burned down on 30 September 1960 but it was by then mostly derelict and abandoned. A fourth Chinatown, also called Lower Chinatown or "new town", boomed for a while in the 1920s on Machleary Street.
Location and geography
Situated on the east coast of Vancouver Island, Nanaimo is about north-west of Victoria, and west of Vancouver, separated by the Strait of Georgia, and linked to Vancouver via the Horseshoe Bay BC Ferries terminal in West Vancouver and the Duke Point terminal to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal in Tsawwassen. As the site of the main ferry terminal, Nanaimo is the gateway to many other destinations both on the northern part of the island—Tofino, Comox Valley, Parksville, Campbell River, Port Alberni, Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park—and off its coast—Saysutshun, Protection Island, Gabriola Island, Valdes Island, and many other of the Gulf Islands. A private passenger ferry service connecting to Vancouver, named Hullo, began operating in August 2023.
Buttertubs Marsh is a bird sanctuary located in the middle of the city. The marsh covers approximately . Within this is the "Buttertubs Marsh Conservation Area", owned by the Nature Trust of British Columbia.
Climate Like much of coastal British Columbia, Nanaimo experiences a temperate climate with mild, rainy winters and warm, dry summers. Due to its relatively dry summers, the Köppen climate classification places it at the northernmost limits of the Csb or warm-summer Mediterranean zone. Other climate classification systems, such as Trewartha, place it firmly in the Oceanic zone (Do).
Nanaimo is usually shielded from the Aleutian Low's influence by the mountains of central Vancouver Island, so that summers are unusually dry for its latitude and location—though summer drying as a trend is found in the immediate lee of the coastal ranges as far north as Skagway, Alaska.
Heavy snowfall does occasionally occur during winter, with a record daily total of on 12 February 1975, but the mean maximum cover is only .
The highest temperature ever recorded in Nanaimo was on 16 July 1941. The coldest temperature ever recorded was on 30 December 1968.
Transportation Nanaimo is served by two airports: Nanaimo Airport (YCD) with services to Vancouver (YVR), Toronto (YYZ), and Calgary (YYC) and Nanaimo Harbour Water Aerodrome (ZNA) with services to Vancouver Harbour (CXH), Vancouver Airport (YVR South Terminal), and Sechelt (YHS);.
In total, Nanaimo has three BC Ferry terminals, located at Departure Bay, Duke Point, and Nanaimo Harbour. The downtown terminal services Gabriola Island while Departure Bay and Duke Point service Horseshoe Bay and Tsawwassen respectively.
A private passenger ferry operates between Nanaimo Harbour and Protection Island. A seasonal passenger ferry operates between Swy-a-Lana Lagoon and Saysutshun (Newcastle Island Marine) Park.
Since 2023, Hullo has operated a high speed passenger-only ferry service between downtown Nanaimo and downtown Vancouver. Travel time between the cities is 75 minutes.
Highways 1, 19, and 19A traverse the city. Highway 19 (Nanaimo Parkway) acts as an expressway bypass to the west of Nanaimo while Highway 1, then Highway 19A traverses the length of Nanaimo as an arterial road within the city proper.
Bus service in the city is provided by Nanaimo Regional Transit and offers city-wide service as well as region service connecting Parksville and Qualicum Beach to the north, and Ladysmith and Duncan to the south.
The Island Rail Corridor passes through Nanaimo and has a base of operations and yard in the downtown waterfront area.
Nanaimo Port Authority operates the inner Harbour Basin marina providing mooring for smaller vessels and the W. E. Mills Landing and Marina providing mooring for larger vessels. It also operates two terminal facilities one at Assembly Wharf (near the downtown core) and the second at Duke Point for cargo operations. In 2011, the Authority completed the addition of a $22 million cruise ship terminal at Assembly Wharf capable of handling large cruise ships including providing Canada Border Services Agency clearance.
Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Nanaimo had a population of 99,863 living in 43,164 of its 45,138 total private dwellings, an increase of from its 2016 population of 90,504. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
At the census metropolitan area (CMA) level in the 2021 census, the Nanaimo CMA had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
In 2016, the average age of a Nanaimoite is 45.5 years old, higher than the national median at 41.2.
In Nanaimo, there are 40,885 private dwellings, 39,165 which are occupied by usual residents (95.8% occupancy rate). The median value of these dwellings is $359,760, which is higher than the national median at $341,556. The average (after-tax) household income in Nanaimo is $48,469, lower than the national median at $54,089. The median individual income is $34,702, which is also lower than the national median ($38,977). The unemployment rate was 7.7%.
Ethnicity Panethnic groups in the City of Nanaimo (2001−2021)Panethnic group20212016201120062001 European 75,815 72,560 70,455 67,275 63,540 Indigenous 7,905 6,405 5,115 4,060 3,380 East Asian 4,220 3,220 2,200 2,235 1,615 South Asian 3,095 1,900 1,525 1,855 1,265 Southeast Asian 2,670 1,715 1,090 1,210 1,335 African 1,180 625 400 380 220 Middle Eastern 740 445 195 145 95 Latin American 710 465 270 150 195 Other/multiracial 685 320 310 310 175 Total responses 97,020 87,650 81,565 77,630 71,805 Total population 99,863 90,504 83,810 78,692 73,000
Language Nanaimo's population is predominantly Anglophone. As of the 2021 census 86.7% of residents claimed English as their mother tongue. Other common first languages were Chinese (1.6%), French (1.2%) and Punjabi (1.2%).
+Canada Census Mother Tongue - Nanaimo, British Columbia Census Total Year Responses Count Trend Pop % Count Trend Pop % Count Trend Pop % Count Trend Pop % 84,170 9.4% 85.5% 1,200 0.4% 1.2% 450 76.5% 0.3% 11,105 16.3% 11.3% 76,930 5.9% 86.7% 1,195 2.1% 1.3% 255 21.4% 0.3% 9,545 17.6% 10.8% 72,615 8.8% 87.8% 1,170 7.9% 1.4% 210 110.0% 0.3% 8,115 14.6% 9.8% 66,760 6.1% 86.0% 1,270 21.5% 1.6% 100 17.6% 0.1% 9,500 22.3% 12.2% 62,900 4.1% 87.6% 1,045 3.2% 1.5% 85 19.0% 0.1% 7,765 4.2% 10.8% 60,415 n/a 86.9% 1,080 n/a 1.6% 105 n/a 0.2% 7,455 n/a 10.7%
Religion According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Nanaimo included: Irreligion (60,365 persons or 62.2%) Christianity (31,135 persons or 32.1%) Sikhism (1,330 persons or 1.4%) Islam (1,000 persons or 1.0%) Hinduism (785 persons or 0.8%) Buddhism (650 persons or 0.7%) Judaism (230 persons or 0.2%) Indigenous Spirituality (170 persons or 0.2%)
Economy
The original economic driver was coal mining; however, the forestry industry supplanted it in the early 1960s with the building of the MacMillan Bloedel pulp mill at Harmac in 1958, named after Harvey MacMillan. Today the pulp mill is owned by the employees and local investors and injects well over half a million dollars a day into the local economy and makes the entire area smell like sulphur multiple times a year. The largest employer is the provincial government. The service, retail and tourism industries are also big contributors to the local economy.
Technological development on Nanaimo has been growing with companies such as "Inuktun" and the establishment of government-funded Innovation Island as a site to help Nanaimo-based technological start ups by giving them access to tools, education and venture capital.
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