By Production Manager Catherine Charlebois
Halloween is here and the Nanaimo Museum is getting in the spirit with its October tours and exhibits.
Coming back for its fourth year are the Lantern Tours, which explore Downtown Nanaimo’s darker side. The tour, which runs every Friday from October 14 to the 28, takes museum goers on a walk through old Nanaimo’s cobbled streets, with stops at Downtown’s most notorious sites.
Back by popular demand, the tour stops by the old provincial jail, the courthouse and the Bastion, and tells stories of grisly events in Nanaimo’s history.
“The Lantern Tour is a history tour with darker themes like murders and hangings,” said Aimee Greenaway, Nanaimo Museum’s Interpretation Curator. “It’s a great way to share stories from the past that we don’t normally include in tours.”
Inspired by a rising popularity in ghost tours and dark tourism, this years tour includes a new story about a crime connected to seedier parts of 19th century Nanaimo.
“We don’t want to give all the juicy details,” said Jamie Franzmann, Museum Sevices Coordinator and Lantern Tour guide. “But the Red Light district crime was a theft involving a teenager, a sex worker and a Madam that made headlines around the province in July 1893.”
Other stories on the tour include an ax-murderer on Protection Island, public hangings, and a famous architect with an infamous personal life.
The tours run from 6:30 – 8 pm October 14, 21, and 28 and cost $15 a person. Pre-registration is required for the tour as space is limited. For more information and to register, visit nanaimomuseum.ca.
A sassy French Canadian with a penchant for puns and coffee, Catherine is The Nav’s Production Manager. Living out of her planner, she is always looking for ways to streamline the paper’s production. You can find her writing in The Nav and also at frozenconstellations.wordpress.com