An anglicised spelling and pronunciation of that word offered the city its present name. The first Europeans to discover Nanaimo Bay were those of the 1791 Spanish voyage of Juan Carrasco, under the command of Francisco de Eliza. They gave it the name Bocas de Winthuysen after naval officer Francisco Javier Winthuysen y Pineda.
In 1858 it became Nanaimo.:184 The city has actually been called "The Harbour City" because the lead up to Expo 86. Indigenous Nanaimo people The HBC attempted to start a coal mine at Port Rupert however the project had actually been unsuccessful. In 1850 Snuneymuxw Chief Che-wich-i-kan, commonly referred to as "Coal Tyee" brought samples of coal to Victoria.
While open to offering coal, the Snuneymuxw wanted to keep control of it and maintain the right to mine it specifically. Chief Wun-wun-shum used to offer coal for 5 barrels in exchange for one blanket. The HBC representative Joseph William Mc, Kay considered this "impertinent". The Snuneymuxw kept their rights to the resource for a while, however slowly lost them due to other tribes and miners from the stopped working Port Rupert project.
While the Bastion was being constructed miners from Newcastle got here aboard the Princess Royal in 1844. An Internment camp for Ukrainian detainees, numerous of them local, was established at a Provincial jail in Nanaimo from September 1914 to September 1915. In the 1940s, lumber supplanted coal as the main organization although Minetown Days are still celebrated in the neighbouring neighborhood of Lantzville.
The very first, established throughout the gold rush years of the 1860s, was the 3rd biggest in British Columbia. In 1884, due to the fact that of mounting racial tensions connected to the Dunsmuir coal company's hiring of Chinese strikebreakers, the business helped move Chinatown to a location outside city limits. In This Is Cool , when two Chinese business owners bought the website and tried to raise rents, in response, and with the aid of 4,000 shareholders from throughout Canada, the neighborhood combined forces and bought the site for the 3rd Chinatown at a brand-new place, focused on Pine Street.