Live cameras in Nanaimo, Canada

Nanaimo is the Harbour City of Vancouver Island, on the island's east coast about fifty-five kilometers across the Strait of Georgia from Vancouver and a little over a hundred kilometers north of Victoria. Roughly 100,000 people lived in the city in 2021, and about 130,000 in the wider area. The name comes from the Snuneymuxw First Nation, whose people have lived here for thousands of years. The Hudson's Bay Company opened coal mines in the 1850s, and the wooden Bastion, a fort tower built in 1853, still stands above the harbor. Later the economy turned to lumber and pulp, and today the city is a service and transportation hub. It is famous for the no-bake Nanaimo bar and for its summer bathtub race around the harbor islands.

About the cameras

The cameras grouped under Nanaimo are DriveBC highway cameras, still images updated every few minutes. They watch the main routes through and around the city, including Highway 19, the Nanaimo Parkway bypass and the Island Highway heading north toward Parksville and Campbell River, and Highway 1, the Trans-Canada, which runs south toward Ladysmith and Victoria and ends at the Departure Bay ferry terminal. They help show traffic and road conditions for drivers heading to the ferries.

Nanaimo keeps Pacific Time. Two BC Ferries terminals shape the traffic: Departure Bay, with sailings to Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver, and Duke Point, south of the city, with sailings to Tsawwassen. Traffic surges around sailing times, especially on Fridays and holiday weekends. Winters are mild and rainy with only occasional snow, though the highway over the Malahat to the south can be a different story. Summers are fairly dry and sunny.

Nearby, Newcastle Island, a provincial marine park with a Snuneymuxw name of Saysutshun, is a short foot-passenger ferry ride from downtown, and Gabriola Island lies just offshore.

Sources: Nanaimo - Wikipedia · DriveBC - British Columbia highway cameras · BC Ferries.