The event featured a traditional Hakka Kirin unicorn dance where event goers were encouraged to follow the Unicorn as it danced up and down the street, giving blessings to the area. (Lauryn Mackenzie/ CHLY 101.7FM)

Shirley Lo only has a faint memory of the fire that destroyed Nanaimo’s final Chinatown.

“When I was seven years old, I remember seeing Chinatown burn while standing on the roadside, and that is the only memory I have of Chinatown,” Lo said.

It has been 66 years since a fire swept through Nob Hill leaving most of Chinatown in cinders. Not wanting the history of the Chinatown to be forgotten, the Nanaimo Chinatown Heritage Foundation held its first ever commemoration of the fire that happened on September 30th, 1960. The heritage foundation was created earlier this year as a way to preserve the history and stories of the Nanaimo Chinese community and the former Chinatowns.

Photos and old newspaper clippings were on display at the event. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)

There were four Chinatowns built around Nanaimo’s downtown and Nob Hill area at different points in the city’s history. The first Chinatown, built in the 1860’s, was created amidst an influx of Chinese immigrants seeking work in the coal mining industry on Vancouver Island.

Later, in the early 1900’s, the Chinese community was pushed out of downtown, to the area where they would later build the three Chinatowns.

Following the passing of the Chinese Immigration Act, commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, in 1923 and the decline of the coal mining industry, many Chinatown residents moved out of Nanaimo to find work elsewhere.

The final Chinatown soon became derelict with not many people living and working in the area, until the fire in 1960 burnt down almost all that remained.

The commemoration was held on September 12 at a parking lot along Hecate St. where the Chinatown once stood. The event featured a traditional Hakka Kirin unicorn dance where event goers were encouraged to follow the Unicorn as it danced up and down the street, giving blessings to the area. Photos and old newspaper clippings were on display. Nanaimo Chinatown Heritage Foundation Chair Sherron Sue opened the event by explaining the history of the area before the fire.

Nanaimo Chinatown Heritage Foundation Chair Sherron Sue opened the event by explaining the history of the area before the fire. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)

“There was a language school, there was the church, and an opera house,” Sue said. “If you can imagine it, on the weekends, all the loggers and the Chinese that came from Ladysmith, Chamainues, Duncan, all around in the small communities, would come here, and this is where the community was.”

Following the event, CHLY spoke with Sue. She said the heritage foundation wanted to create this annual event to recognize the lives people led in the area.

“ There was a very vibrant Chinese community here, and at one point, 1,500 people on the weekends,” she said. “But after the fire, when it burnt down, there was virtually nothing left.”

Since moving to Nanaimo in 2020 Sue has been researching the history of the Chinese community that lived in Nanaimo and the surrounding area. This led her to try and gather as many stories as she can about Nanaimo’s four former Chinatowns.

“Every time I think, ‘oh, is it time to stop?’” Sue said. “Then more relatives come up, and they say, ‘oh my gosh, thank you for doing this.’”

She said 66 years after the fire, it is now more important than ever to make sure the stories of the Chinatowns are documented and saved.

“Because it hasn't been done. I've been to Sunday farmers markets, I've gone to neighbourhood associations, I've gone to just any of the local community events, and people are like ‘We have a Chinatown? We had a Chinatown?” Sue said. “If there's no mention, and no place to even tell your stories, then people don't know, and then you lose that connection to your community that you live in, because our history grounds us and it gives you a space that you belong.”

Across the street from where the event was held is a building Sue and the Nanaimo Chinatown Heritage Foundation is currently trying to save. (880 Hecate St. pictured in 2026) (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)

Across the street from where the event was held is a building Sue and the Nanaimo Chinatown Heritage Foundation is currently trying to save. The building at 880 Hecate St. is one of the two last remaining buildings from the Chinatown that was left untouched by the fire.

Currently the heritage foundation is working on having the building, and the other one at 997 Hecate St. recognized by the City of Nanaimo’s Community Heritage Register.

“The ideas keep growing from one from my original idea to have [the building at 880 Hecate St.] saved as a culture centre to now, how about the whole area and as a destination area,” she said. “So I think I think we can get there.”

She said if the buildings at 880 or 997 Hecate St. cannot be saved, she would still love to see more in the Hecate St. neighbourhood recognizing the Chinatown that the Chinese community called home.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.

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