On Vancouver Island, the bald eagle is not a rare sight or a fleeting thrill. In Nanaimo, it is part of the landscape — a steady, watchful presence woven into daily life. You see them perched high in Douglas firs along the waterfront. Circling above estuaries and rivers. Standing sentinel on driftwood logs after a storm. For residents and visitors alike, the bald eagle feels less like wildlife at

  Vancouver has spent decades asking how to be more livable. We debate density models, redesign streets, and search for the elusive balance between growth, ambition, and well-being. But just across the water, a different answer has been quietly unfolding — without fanfare, without branding, and without trying to be anything other than itself. Nanaimo isn’t competing with Vancouver. It isn’t aspiring to become a smaller version of it. And

Nanaimo Is Thriving — Not Because It’s Changing, but Because It Knows What Matters For years, Nanaimo has been described as a city in transition. A ferry town. A former resource hub. A place people pass through on the way to somewhere else. Too often, it’s framed by what it used to be, or what it might one day become — as though its value lies perpetually in the future.