The Bastion
North America's last Hudson's Bay Co. free-standing bastion is here in Nanaimo. We call it the Bastion of course, and its cannons are still fired on occasion, inviting citizens to look out across the harbour and imagine marauding ships breaking up under fire 150 years ago. The Crimean and Spanish-American wars raged hotly here, with the Bastion being credited with Nanaimo's salvation in both cases. Okay, that's just a big lie.
So, what's the big deal? Nanaimo has this colonial tower sitting right by the water downtown. It's a rallying point for colonial history. It reminds us that we weren't always Canadian, and we didn't always have BC Ferries and the Island Highway, or the RCMP.
There's a story about a bunch of German delegates being given the tour Downtown, and the tour guide going on and on about the Bastion, making it sound so ancient at 150 years old, when a lady in the group piped up: "My HOUSE in Germany is five HUNDRED years old! We want to see native stuff!" It seems that the Bastion, the oldest building in Nanaimo and possibly the second oldest in all of BC, will always be more important as a personal keepsake than as a showpiece for tourists.