When you're down at the waterfront and you look across to Protection Island - what do you see? Maybe you see only a pretty little island with homes and forests on it. But it's seen a lot more action than you'd think!

I could relate many historical anecdotes about Protection Island (e.g., the people hanged there in the 1850s, or the Kanoo Pavilion and Happyland, or the 1913 explosion of the Oscar) but this post is just about the Protection Island Mine itself.

This was the deepest mine in Nanaimo, which isn't surprising when you consider the coal seams trend downward as they move east underneath the ocean.

Protection Island mine pithead and double decker tracksThe workings under this area were originally started from the Number 1 mine shaft, located near the ocean just south of downtown (bottom of…

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A Balancing Out

The most recent peak real estate prices was in the spring of 2022. In the two years since, things have been un-dramatic; prices dropped up to 15% in some areas especially nearing the end of 2022, but they have recovered some of that value, since. There have been brief periods of very sluggish activity followed by little rallies that don't last very long.

Overall the trend has been toward MUCH more inventory than we have seen in other recent years, giving buyers a chance to be choosy, to negotiate on pricing and other terms. But it's not a bloodbath; while some sellers have taken big hits if they had an urgent need to move and were spooked by several weeks without offers, it is still considered a sellers' market in the sense that…

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