Canada Guide
Vancouver Island
Petroglyph Provincial Park
Address: Off Hwy 1, 3km south of downtown
The park showcases aboriginal peoples' carvings of the sort found all over BC (particularly along coastal waterways), many of them thousands of years old. Often their meaning is vague, but they appear to record important rituals and events. There are plenty of figures – real and mythological – carved into the local sandstone here, though their potential to inspire wonder is somewhat spoilt by more recent graffiti, traffic noise and the first thin edge of Nanaimo's urban sprawl.