If you come to Gabriola by ferry from the mainland (or "the continent",
as some Gabriolans have been heard to refer to it), you will pass the Entrance
Island Lighthouse (built in 1876), just to the north of Gabriola, about
15 minutes before reaching Nanaimo.. Click on the image of the lighthouse
for contemporary newspaper accounts of its scandalous history. Or check
out the ferry schedules from Vancouver
via Tsawwassen or Vancouver
via Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo .
Just before you get to Nanaimo, you will pass Petroglyph Park, on your right. Ancient rock carvings, with interpretive signs, are a short walk from the parking lot. The Gabriola ferry terminal is just across Front Street from the Nanaimo District Museum.
Getting to and from an island is not trivial--transportation is one of
the major definers of small island life. If you are interested in travel
from Nanaimo to Gabriola in the late nineteenth century, click on this
image of the SS Esperanza (ca 1892), one of the steamers that visited
the island in the early years of its settlement. If you are more interested
in how to get here now, slightly more up-to-date information on sailing
times from Nanaimo Harbour can be found in the Gabriola
ferry schedule. Even today, knowing that the last ferry to the island
leaves Nanaimo at 10:55 PM shapes the lives of islanders in many and strange
ways.
While the ferry usually keeps to its schedule in the winter, you may have to wait an hour or more on a Thursday or Friday before a summer long weekend. Bring something to read. Or cross the street to visit the Nanaimo Museum and Archives, or walk along the waterfront to the Hudson's Bay Bastion, built in 1853 and a museum since 1906. (There's a good pub on the way to the Bastion.)
)
The ferry docks in Descanso Bay, named by the Spanish explorers Galiano
and Valdes when they anchored their schooners (the Sutil and the
Mexicana) there on June 14, 1792 after a rough passage from the
south. ("Calle del Descanso" means "bay of rest".) To your left, as
the ferry enters the bay, are the Malaspina Galleries, an unusual rock
formation sketched by Jose Cardero of the Mexicana. The location
of the Galleries was lost to geographers until 1903, when they were finally
identified as those described and sketched by the Spanish. (The people
of Nanaimo and Gabriola had known where they were all the time....as can
be seen by the graffiti and many photographs from the late 1800s.) Leaping
into the bay from the top of the Galleries is a rite of passage for young
Gabriolans.
From the ferry dock, go up hill, past the White Hart Pub and the Agricultural Hall, bearing to the right at the post office. The museum is located another 100 meters along South Road, on the right--about a ten-minute walk from the ferry. Taxi service is available all year, and bicycle rental in the summer.
