What are your memories of Nanaimo?

Walk down any familiar street and your memory is triggered by that location. Think of your story; write it and the exact location that inspired it on this webpage to help create a personalized portrait of Nanaimo.

— Zoe Kreye · Jul 9, 12:51

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Upcoming Events

Friday Aug 31st Opening at the Nanaimo Art Gallery 7pm - 9pm Nanaimo Art Gallery Society, 900 5th St, Nanaimo, BC map it
Saturday Sept 1st Mapping Event 2pm - 4pm Lions Pavilion, Maffeo-Sutton Park, 50 Arena Street Nanaimo BC map it
Saturday Sept 9th Mapping Event 2pm - 4pm Lions Pavilion, Maffeo-Sutton Park, 50 Arena Street Nanaimo BC map it
Monday Sept 10th Mapping Event 7pm - 9pm Nanaimo Art Gallery Society, 900 5th St, Nanaimo, BC map it
Monday Sept 17th Mapping Event 7pm - 9pm Nanaimo Art Gallery Society, 900 5th St, Nanaimo, BC map it
Saturday Sept 22nd Mapping Event 2pm - 4pm Nanaimo Art Gallery Society, 900 5th St, Nanaimo, BC map it
Saturday Sept 22nd Closing at the NAG Nanaimo Art Gallery Society, 900 5th St, Nanaimo, BC map it

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  1. Sandi

    I was raised in Nanaimo and lived there until I was 24. My family were pioneers of the town. My dads father was a judge and my mothers was a coalminer. My grandmother was a music teacher. What I remember the most I think is September 30, 1960. It was my birthday and I was 13 years old, a very important time in a young girls life. This was the night of the most horrible fire I can recall… the night Chinatown burnt to the ground. I recall standing upstairs in the bedroom looking out the window and being frightened that perhaps my father who was working at the fire would be injured or killed as he was helping all those poor people. Trying desperately to get them out alive. Trying to save their belongings. I couldn’t bear the thought that he may be killed on my birthday! I am happy to say that he returned home the next day safe and sound.
    I spent many happy years in Nanaimo, it will always be home for me. I was raised in the southend with some wonderful families. I often “go home” to visit – walk the downtown area gazing at the cafes where as teens we sat for hours eating french fries and sipping on vanilla coke. The most disappointing thing to me was to discover that the skating arena that my grandmother fundraised for and I spent endless weekends skating at with friends, was gone. Sunday nights was teens only and what a ball we had. Whiplash was the game of choice. I went to Princess Royal a small school at the bottom of Milton Street that had a really large playground. This is where I learnt to love softball. I played until I was 40.
    I sit on the road out front of the home I was raised-Finlayson Street <span class=“amp”>&</span> Irwin, in awe that it is still there. Not much has changed in the southend, most things look the same. I love Nanaimo, it is my home.

    Apr 28, 23:23

  2. Whatsit2ya

    I remember how it didn’t smell when Harmac was closed…

    Nov 12, 12:08

  3. Anon

    I begin my walk by the Frank Ney statue which I frequently fantasize about covering in red paint, along with several friends who work in social services in town. His biggest legacy to Nanaimo, one not discussed in the recent play performed at the Port Theatre that was ironically called Being Frank, was a generation of sexually abused children who have in turn gone on to abuse this generation. Every time a case comes up in court we find it gets dismissed or delayed and we know that the Ney name will never bear scrutiny in this town. Walk a little further west and you will see the area of landfill that used to be part of the harbour when the Red Light district was in full swing a hundred years ago, serving the miners and the Company men. Not information included in the history posted inside the Bastion on the waterfront either. Now Mrs. Rich’s restaurant covers up that territory. How about the construction along the waterfront that never seems to be completed? Some say the S’ne Nemos Indians cursed the whole harbour because white men desecrated their meeting place. I’d buy that explanation. The waterfront is always shadowed in darkness, literally, and in controversy. Look up the hill at the lovely Franciscan style Catholic Church on Macleary Street — an icon in our geographic memory. Recently the priest there kicked out the only soup kitchen club that fed some of Nanaimo’s 300 homeless people. I feel ashamed for him, but the Church has never really done well by this town. Raise your eyes to Mount Benson and think of more corruption as the mountain is slowly being given away to more developers —
    friends of the Neys again. Black Frank. Black town. It’s time I moved away.

    Sep 26, 13:09

  4. some regret

    I walked past the empty lot, at 528 Selby street, that used to house a local heroin dealer. I guess that it was torn down, who knows. I remember going there with someone else to try some ‘junk’. Our host helped us stick the needle in our arms, must of been used because the vein refused entry, for a couple of trys anyway. I remember the maniacal laugh of our host as he sprayed the ceiling with a hundred small droplets of blood, they looked like small red stars up there above us. That day changed my life forever, no I did not get addicted to heroin like so many others. Instead I ended up contracting Hepatitis-C. I wish that more education had gone on in our public education system, maybe I would have thought more about the danger of injecting drugs. I often wonder why Nanaimo has such a high incidence of alcohol and drug addiction, has it something to do with the native taboo of extracting the forbidden stone (COAL). Or has it something to do with all of the noxious chemicals that were spewed out of Harmac back when the regulations were so lax. In loving memory of my good friend, Richard White.

    Sep 24, 15:34

  5. Ross Angus Macaulay

    I spent a small part of my early life living in Nanaimo. One of the legacies of that time was that my cousin Elissa called Naniamo Bars, “Where-you’re-from Bars”. Also, the house we lived in had a cliff face for a backyard and somehow that caused the house to be constantly invaded by wolfspiders. I don’t recall the reasoning behind that logic, but that’s what I know.

    Aug 13, 02:22

  6. Meg Fulton

    When I was growing up in Yellowpoint, driving half an hour to Nanaimo was always a special event. On sundays my parents would take us to Whitespot for breakfast; for any other Nanaimo excursion, we kids would really have to plead a strong case to get a ride to the movie theatres or the pool at NDSS. There were many incidents where plans had to be cancelled because it’d snowed and the roads through cedar hadn’t been plowed yet.

    Aug 6, 10:55

  7. Robin

    I don’t have a story but I thought I’d say hello, “hello” I’ll be at the “mapping event august 5th! you’ve been warned.

    Aug 2, 14:11

  8. Marlaina Buch

    We used to have “planning meetings” for performances at my friend’s beach cabin just outside Nanaimo. I remember speeding down familiar country roads with a carload of crazy women singing some made up country song about the virtues of having a clean car and the pitfalls of energy drinks. We then polished off an enormous amount of wine, talked about revolution, feminism, gender and politics for three hours and got so pumped up on good talking that we started wrestling in the living room like a bunch of crazed jungle cats. Exhausted, boozy and bruised, we fell asleep in a pile to a Cub cd at a very high volume.

    Jul 23, 13:16

  9. anon

    I remember being on the ferry to Vancouver the day they finally sunk that cool, rotten old ship that had been at the terminal forever and as we pulled out to sail across the Straight, they made a nasal BC ferries announcement that she was going down as an artificial reef. Not every day you see a hulking, scabby boat sink into the brine.

    Jul 23, 13:02

  10. Rachel

    I have many memories, generating out of a certain hippie house on Lower Milton Street. The most prominent is definitely the death of the community rabbit. My friend’s dog escaped the house because I left the door open. Feeling guilty – I went off to hunt to “Scotia”. I was out for about an hour – to no avail -when I met a couple of little kids hanging outside of their parents house. I asked them if they had seen a white dog running around and they said they had. A very large and angry man then appeared in the door way and started to yell at me. Apparently Scotia had killed a feral rabbit that had been designated by the residents in the area as “The community rabbit”. They thought she was my dog…. All I could do was apologize and return to the hippie house – where I found Scotia, returned home and sitting on the front step – wagging her tail.

    Jul 22, 13:13

  11. Trevor Cooper

    I remember digging for bottles and artifacts as a little kid in the overgrown fields behind the Hecate and Kennedy streets. That was in the early 90’s. That area was part of Nanaimo’s Chinatown at one time. A fire tore through the community in the 1960’s. That area has since been developed with new housing units.
    The general deterioration of the Nob Hill neighbourhood, where I still live today, is what colours my view of Nanaimo. The neglected railway, the dilapidated grain elevator on the corner of Milton and Hecate street, the old Sun-Glow that turned into a thrift store, the Pre-school that has since become the Islamic Centre, and the Nob Hill Park, which only the boldest of kids seem to play in these days. These places are not the most glamorous in the city, and new development will soon take their places, but they represent the character of the Nanaimo where I’ve grown up. I think it’s pretty cool.

    Jul 21, 13:38

  12. Rachel Evans

    I remember going to the clapping spot with some friends. I can’t remember what happens at the clapping spot… you clap and then something happens – it whistles or claps back or something. I’m not sure how it works – but it seems like magic. I remember going there with a few friends and then going to look at the expensive boats — which reminded one friend of a boat excursion with a rich ex boyfriend. Apparently she covered herself in whipped cream for this boyfriend. The butler had to help her do it. This boat had a butler! After the clapping spot we went for a walk by the harbour where that stupid Frank Neigh (sp?) statue is and we saw six young raccoons all in the same tree.

    Jul 11, 21:06