Canada Guide
Vancouver Island
The Bastion
Address: Corner of Bastion and Front streets
The Bastion is a wood-planked tower built by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1853 as a store and a stronghold against native attack, though it was never used during such an attack. It's the oldest (perhaps the only) such building in the west. These days it houses a small museum of Hudson's Bay memorabilia (same hours as for the Nanaimo District Museum); its silly tourist stunt, without which no BC town would be complete, is "the only ceremonial cannon firing west of Ontario" (summer only, daily at noon). This is marginally more impressive than the town's claim to have the most retail shopping space per capita in the country.