Most visitors to Nanaimo spend their time on the downtown waterfront without noticing that there is an inhabited island sitting in the harbour, barely five minutes away by small passenger ferry. Protection Island is home to roughly 350 permanent residents who have chosen a life without private cars, with a floating pub, and with a daily commute that involves crossing a stretch of tidal water. For visitors, it represents something rare on the Canadian coast: a genuinely working community that also happens to welcome people who come for the afternoon.
The island sits in Nanaimo Harbour between the downtown waterfront and Newcastle Island Provincial Marine Park. It is small enough to walk across in twenty minutes and large enough to contain forested trails, sandstone shorelines, a working community hall, and a handful of small beaches. What it does not contain is a single private automobile. Residents move around the island by golf cart, bicycle, and on foot. The quietness this produces is palpable from the moment you step off the ferry.
What to Do on Protection Island
- Ride the Dinghy Dock Pub ferry — The passenger ferry leaves from the Nanaimo downtown waterfront at regular intervals, roughly every hour. The crossing takes about five minutes. The ferry schedule is posted at the dock and on the pub's website.
- Have a drink or a meal at the Dinghy Dock Pub — The pub is famously described as Canada's only floating pub, moored in the island's small harbour. The deck overlooks the water and provides a direct view back across to downtown Nanaimo. The menu covers pub standards — burgers, fish and chips, salads — along with local draft beer. The deck fills up on sunny summer afternoons, so arrive early if you want a prime seat.
- Walk the island trails — A network of unpaved paths winds through the island's Douglas fir and arbutus forest. The walking is easy and takes no more than an hour to cover the main loop. The forest is quiet, genuinely so, which is unusual this close to a city of 100,000.
- Explore the sandstone shoreline — Protection Island's coast is characterised by the same honeycombed sandstone that appears throughout the Gulf Islands. At low tide, small beaches emerge. The views from the western shore look back toward Nanaimo's skyline; the eastern views face Newcastle Island and the mountains behind the Georgia Strait.
- Watch the harbour traffic — From any point on the island's waterfront you can watch the constant movement of the Nanaimo harbour: BC Ferries vessels from the Departure Bay terminal further north, water taxis, sailboats, kayakers working the passage between Newcastle and Protection islands.
- Respect the community — This is not a resort island. People live here full-time. The roads through the residential areas are quiet by design. Walking quietly and staying on established paths is both courteous and required.
Practical Tips
The ferry to Protection Island is inexpensive and the round trip is one of the best-value excursions in Nanaimo. Bring cash — the ferry and the pub both accept it, though the pub also takes cards. The ferry schedule means you should check times before you go, particularly if you plan to stay for a full meal; the last ferry of the day runs in the early evening. The round trip itself, including a meal and a walk around the island, fits comfortably into two to three hours.
The best time to visit is between late May and September, when the weather is likely to cooperate and the pub's outdoor deck is open. In winter, the pub still operates but hours are reduced and the deck seating is weather-dependent. The island looks different in autumn — quieter, the light lower, the arbutus trees dramatic against a grey sky — and that has its own appeal if you prefer to avoid summer crowds.
Protection Island is one of those places that impresses precisely because it does not try to impress. It is a neighbourhood that happens to be on water, and the most enjoyable way to spend time there is to move slowly and pay attention to the details: the way the afternoon light sits on the harbour, the electric golf cart that passes you on the main path, the view of Nanaimo's downtown towers from a pub deck floating on the Pacific.