Gerry Thomasen's Blog - Nanaimo History

The Protection Island Mine

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.

The workings under this area were originally started from the Number 1 mine shaft, located near the ocean just south of downtown (bottom of…

60 Views, 0 Comments

Happy 65th Birthday to the Italian Fountain

It was this day in 1958 that the "Italian Centennial Fountain" was unveiled in downtown Nanaimo. 

A lot of people are underwhelmed by this sculpture - probably because of its location, which does nothing whatsoever to highlight the fountain's beauty. Moreover, the fountain has been fenced off with ugly temporary fencing in recent years, presumably because of vandalization and sanitary concerns related to people without homes.

But really, especially when you consider that this was done on a small budget, mostly by volunteers, and that the granite blocks were mined from a boulder that was left in Yellow Point by a glacier - it's a pretty cool installation. Its story involves a local couple who came back from a vacation in Italy - they…

591 Views, 0 Comments

Nanaimo Egg and Feed Co-op (Egg Pool)

In 2009 this old building was demolished at the corner of Milton St and Hecate St in Nanaimo's Old City/Nob Hill area. It was built in the 1940s or earlier (if someone knows when it was built, please comment below).

I took a bunch of photos before/during demolition because it was a fascinating building, very creepy in its latter days, and built with huge old-growth timbers considered almost priceless nowadays. In fact, some of the beams from this building were cut into veneer panels to be used in a high-end resort in Australia; the old copper nails had caused "blooms" of colour throughout the wood (not pictured here unfortunately).

I posted a photo on Facebook some years ago, and someone said they used wood from this building in a home they…

1947 Views, 0 Comments

Historic Photos on the Ground - App Idea

It was announced by Infrastructure Canada that their "Smart Cities Challenge" is offering money to municipalities who have ideas for applying technological solutions to city issues. The City of Nanaimo requested submissions from citizens, in a bid to get the best ideas so that we can get the funding!

Here was my submission (below), proposing an app that allows pedestrians downtown to interact with the HISTORIC space around them. It is framed in the ministry's requested format: presenting an issue and proposing a technological solution.

=begin=

The City of Nanaimo faces an issue when it comes to perception from tourists and from many of the city’s own citizens. Although the historic downtown core has popular oceanfront parks and boutique…

19242 Views, 2 Comments

Artifacts from a South Nanaimo Vacant Lot

I'm a metal detectorist, which means I look for metal objects of value or interest in the dirt, up to 10 inches deep.

There's this vacant lot in an historic part of South Nanaimo, where these houses were torn down sometime around 2015:

In the winter of 2015/2016, I found some cool stuff in the vacant lot, using my metal detector. Here are some of the most interesting things I found:

1862 penny from England

This baby isn't in good shape, so it has no monetary value. But it's SO cool to try to imagine who dropped this coin, and when, and under what circumstances. By the way, the figure shows Britannia seated and holding a trident - very appropriate for the time!

1900 US Indian Head penny

I love these coins, for some reason. I think…

219021 Views, 2 Comments

Explosion of the Oscar, 1913

If you live in Nanaimo and haven't heard this story...

1910:
The scene: An explosives factory above the shore of Departure Bay, at the bottom of today's Cilaire neighbourhood. (Cilaire is named for the last powder works to occupy the space.)

What happened: An explosion ripped the place apart. It was so powerful that it wrapped a rail around a tree - here's a photo:

That explosion also killed five men. Three kilometers away, the people of Nanaimo thought there had been another disaster in the mines underground.

1913:

Jan01: A new four-sided clock, Nanaimo's pride and joy, is set in motion for the first time on the (already old) sandstone post office overlooking the harbour on Front St.
Here's a photo of that post office (I freaking love…

6895 Views, 0 Comments