Good morning!
See below for details on next year’s Infusion and how we plan to help every community across Canada build their own Tourism Infusion.
In case you’re curious, this is what 1,000 friends looks like ⬇️
Thank you to everyone who came out yesterday for the family photo!
Jocelyn and I were so very honoured to meet so many of you! 🥰 We know many of you came a very long distance, and some of you weren’t able to meet us, so Jocelyn and I will be returning to Maffeo Sutton Park [map] today around 1:00 p.m. (give or take 30 minutes) to meet those of you who’d like to say hi and didn’t get a chance to find us yesterday.
We are both pretty wiped, though, so I can’t promise we’ll last longer than an hour, or maybe two.
Sunday Events
Here are some of the events happening in town today:
Americans in Nanaimo Walk — Bowen Volleyball Court parking lot, 10am, free. Easy walk along the Millstream River, all ages and pets welcome.
Spring Women's Circle — Kin Hut, 10–11:30am, $33. Rose petal tea, crystal singing bowls, and community connection. Bring a mat and journal.
Nanaimo Record Show — Bowen Park Auditorium, 11am–4pm, $2 (kids under 12 free). Over 344 feet of vinyl, CDs, cassettes, and the occasional 78.
Queer Crafternoon — VIRL Nanaimo Harbourfront Library, 1–3pm, free. Drop-in art and social space for queer, trans, and two-spirit folks of all ages.
Tropical Terrarium Workshop — GardenWorks Nanaimo, 1–2pm, ticketed event. Build a terrarium with foliage plants, driftwood, moss, bark, and clay pebbles.
The World of Orcas Tour — Vancouver Island Whale Watching, check-in 2pm, $300. Three to five hours on the Salish Sea with an orca expert.
Boy Player (matinee) — O.V. Arts Centre, 2–3:30pm, $12–$28. Frank Moher's solo show about being orphaned in Edmonton and finding theatre in New York.
Nanaimo Concert Band Spring Concert — The Port Theatre, 2:30pm, $25 adults / $15 students. Adventure, space, and sea themes including 2001, Pirates, and Holst.
Wina Wellness Dance — Nanaimo Boxing Club, 3–4:30pm, free with $50 refundable deposit. Pow wow dance for Indigenous women and girls 13+, six-week commitment.
Sunday Blues Jam — 34 Victoria Crescent, 3–7pm (doors 2pm), $10. Nanaimo Blues Society's weekly jam with a rotating host band.
In the Mood … for Fun and Frolic — 154 Promenade Dr., 7–9pm, $30 adult / $15 student / kids free. A Cappella Plus and Village Voices with Big Band, vocal jazz, and a Mozart spoof.
Punk and Rock Night — The Terminal Bar, 7–11:30pm, 19+. Witiko, Cheap Flavor, Gorilla Flip, and Dolly Desire.
Two Rooms (matinee) — Bailey Studio, 2pm, $28. Lee Blessing's 1988 drama, directed by Sheila Fremont-Male, presented by Nanaimo Theatre Group.
The Ladies Foursome — Chemainus Theatre Festival, April 24–26 (times unconfirmed), $20–$70. Norm Foster comedy about four friends on the golf course after a funeral. Ages 16+.
Prelude to a Kiss — Ladysmith Little Theatre, 2pm, $30. Craig Lucas's romantic fantasy about newlyweds and a soul-swapping kiss.
About next year…
The Island community has grown the Nanaimo Infusion to a spectacular size, and it’s now grown beyond the means (and energy) Jocelyn and I have to do it on our own next year. (We have day jobs, so most of this planning has been long evenings and weekends.)
But we are talking with a great community group that has experience with these sorts of things, and we hope to pass the reigns off to them for future years. Watch my social media channels for that announcements once we have the details. 🙂
Coming Soon: A Tourism Infusion for Every Canadian Community!
Since last year when we started the Nanaimo Infusion, Jocelyn and I heard from communities across Canada who also wanted advice on creating their own tourism-focused Infusion weekend.
So, next month, we will be working on the Tourism Infusion Playbook — a resource kit that will help other towns and regions across this great country replicate what our mid-Island community built.
(We did it with the Healthcare Infusion project, which has now expanded to more than 40 chapters across Canada, each community using the Nanaimo template to recruit healthcare workers to their own regions.)
The Tourism Infusion kit will be an online handbook, videos, and set of templates — everything we used to create the Nanaimo Infusion. And yes, it will be completely free.
I hope to have that out by the end of May.
If you’re heading home today…
Thank you again so much for being here. Your presence really did make a difference in a community hit hard by the tariffs — but more than that, having you in our midst reminded us that “this too will pass.”
If you’ve got a long drive or flight ahead of you, you might want to listen to my original podcast series Mirror Falls — it a fictional series about a small Vancouver Island town full of decent people with complicated pasts, and a mystery hiding in plain sight.
(If you liked The News from Lake Wobegon or The Vinyl Café, you’ll probably like Mirror Falls.)
But it’s not just a story. You’ll also learn about Canada’s role in liberating Holland in WWII, about an Indigenous story told in the area (the Dzunuḵ̓wa), and more.
You can find it wherever you get podcasts, or go to https://MirrorFalls.com
Thank you, and I’ll have one more email follow up next week.
Want recommendations for things around town?
Here’s Jocelyn and my Top 10 Nanaimo recommendations!
And a few more videos of the area:
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