The new-look Nanaimo Museum captures the city's history with archival images, colorful memorabilia and state-of-the-art displays. Revitalized and relocated, the museum moved downtown in the summer of 2008 to a $7.4 million ground-floor quadrant of the newly minted Vancouver Island Conference Centre. It's easy to find on Commercial Street at Museum Way.
Nanaimo Museum and History
Spend an hour at the Nanaimo Museum and learn much about this watery, resource-rich part of the world –First Nations, Victorian-era, 20th century and contemporary accounts included. Displays are dedicated to the Snunéymuxw, the region's original inhabitants, as well as the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1852 and the subsequent development of the coal, marine and lumber industries. One interesting factoid: Nanaimo was once known as Herring Town because it exported a million pounds of fish to Asia annually prior to the industry's collapse in the 1940s.
A regular turnover of visiting exhibits shares space with the Sports Hall of Fame, a vintage motorized bathtub from the city's famed bathtub race, and a gallery of Nanaimo's best-known citizens – among them First Nation's chief Che-wich-i-kan (named Coal Tyee for his part in telling Europeans about coal in the area), World War I fighter pilot Raymond Collishaw, 1930s-era cult leader Brother XII, and bestselling jazz musician Diana Krall.
The Bastion
Each summer, museum staff are on hand for tours of the Bastion, the 1853 Hudson's Bay Company fortress on nearby Front Street. The simple wooden structure, North America's last free-standing, original HBC Bastion, stands on the top shelf of a multi-tiered set of walkways leading down to the harbour. The Bastion's canon is fired daily at noon beginning in mid-May.
History on the Hoof
Interpretative plaques and signs are commonplace in downtown Nanaimo, so feel free to stop, read and learn while wandering the streets. One highlight: "The Ships that Built Nanaimo" display near the Pacifica high-rise on the waterfront promenade.
Morden Mine
Morden Colliery Historic Provincial Park, just south of Nanaimo off the Trans Canada Highway in Cedar, is home to some the last remnants of the island's coal-mining heritage. Learn more via interpretive signs in the parking lot off Morden Road.