My 10th Summer Living in Nanoose Bay

There’s a particular kind of light that shows up here in late August. It comes in low over the water, turning the arbutus bark copper. The whole bay feels like it’s holding its breath before fall. I noticed it again this year and realized something that stopped me for a second. This is my tenth summer living in Nanoose Bay.

Nine Years Ago, and Long Before That

Nine years ago I packed up my life in Victoria and moved north. I was chasing quieter roads and a place that actually felt like home. But this wasn’t really my first time putting down roots in the area. I first came to Vancouver Island from the mainland back in 1975. That’s when my parents built their dream home near French Creek, between Parksville and Qualicum Beach. I grew up just up the road from Nanoose Bay. My family kept our boat at Schooner Cove for several years, too.

Some of my clearest childhood memories come from those Schooner Cove mornings. Bleary-eyed, we’d pile into the car in the dark, heading out for a full day of salmon fishing and poking around the local waters. Part of the memory is the drive itself. Dolphin Drive’s twisty, up-and-down route felt like a local roller coaster to a kid in the back seat, one that sometimes came with a summer sunrise thrown in — the sky breaking open over the water just as we crested one of those hills, catching fire for a few minutes before settling into an ordinary blue morning. It was about as close to the real thing as a small-town kid could hope for. I remember just as vividly coming back in after a good day, limit in hand. The otters would already be waiting around the fish cleaning stations — impatient, playful, and clearly counting on us for their next feast.

Deeper Roots Here

There are other threads tying me to this area too. I attended a Cub Scouts summer camp at Moorecroft Park, learning knots and campfire songs. That land has since become one of the region’s great protected green spaces. From 1987 to 1990, I worked at Blue Door Electronics, the local electronics shop. I did service calls all across the region. That meant installing home audio and video equipment. It also meant sitting down with customers to walk them through the computers I’d just sold them. In a lot of ways, that job was the first draft of what Raindog Solutions does today.

Making It Home

So when I moved to Nanoose Bay full-time nine years ago, it wasn’t really a new place to me. It was a return to somewhere I’d loved since I was a kid, just minutes up the road. It’s also where a long-held dream finally became real. I built my own soundproof home studio, where I write, record, and produce my own music to this day. If you’re curious what that side of my life looks like, you can find it over at rainerwillekemusic.com.

That’s really where this project started.

Nanoose Bay Deserves Its Own Story

Over the years I’ve come to love this stretch of coastline for reasons that go well beyond the view from my deck. Nanoose Bay has a real history — one that stretches back long before “Nanoose Bay” was ever written on a map. The Snaw-naw-as (Nanoose) First Nation, whose traditional territory this is, take their name from the Halkomelem word Naus, meaning “the way in the harbour.” It’s a name that describes the sheltered shape of this bay more precisely than anything a settler mapmaker ever came up with. Their community has been here far longer than any of the newer names layered on top — Arlington, and eventually Nanoose Bay itself in 1916. There’s more recent local history too: the settlers, the resource industries, and the small businesses and long-time families who built the community as we know it today.

There’s the natural history as well — the peninsula, the wildlife area, and the arbutus and Garry oak ecosystems that don’t grow just anywhere. Living here, I’m constantly reminded of that. Deer, eagles, otters, seals, and the occasional black bear all pass through with a regularity that still catches me off guard. Even after nine years, it hasn’t gotten old. That steady traffic of wildlife has been a real source of inspiration behind the camera. You’ll find a growing collection of it documented on AboutNanooseBay.ca’s nature and wildlife pages. Some of those images are also available for licensing through my Adobe Stock contributor page. Worth a look if you need genuine Vancouver Island wildlife photography for a project of your own.

Introducing AboutNanooseBay.ca

I’m happy to finally share AboutNanooseBay.ca — a new community site built entirely around Nanoose Bay’s history, nature, and geography. It’s not a business directory and it’s not an ad platform (at least not yet). It’s meant to be a genuine, growing archive: the stories, the land, the water, and the people who called — and still call — this place home. I’m telling it with the respect and accuracy it deserves.

Right now you’ll find in-depth history articles that go well beyond the tourist-brochure version — the Snaw-naw-as (Nanoose) First Nation’s story, the settlers and industries that followed, and the naming history that turned Arlington into Nanoose Bay. A growing nature and wildlife section is built around real, local photography. There’s a live interactive area map for getting your bearings on the peninsula’s coves, parks, and points of interest. And there are short-form pieces on the geography that makes this stretch of coastline what it is. None of it is filler. Every piece is something I’d want to read myself if I were new here, or just curious about the place I call home.

There’s also a bit of fun built in: a suite of six free, Nanoose Bay-themed games. New ones generate weekly, straight from the site’s own articles and photos. It’s a small thing now, but it’s built to scale. As the history and photo content on the site keeps growing, the games get richer and more varied right along with it.

It’s still early days. I’ll be adding new history pieces, maps, and nature features regularly. And I’d genuinely love feedback from anyone in the community who has stories, photos, or corrections to contribute. If Nanoose Bay is home to you too, I built this for you as much as for myself.

Where Raindog Solutions Comes In

If you’re a regular reader here, you probably know Raindog Solutions is my full-time gig. I handle custom PCs, IT support, network setups, and web development for home and small business clients right here in the Oceanside area. I built, hosted, and maintain AboutNanooseBay.ca the same way I build every client site. That means WordPress done properly, with an eye toward speed, structure, and something that’ll still be standing in ten years.

It felt fitting to build this particular site with those same tools and that same care. Raindog Solutions exists because I love this community and the people in it. AboutNanooseBay.ca is just a more direct way of putting that into practice. You’ll find a link over to Raindog Solutions on the site. I hope a few of you find your way back here through it.

Ten Summers in Nanoose Bay, Here’s to the Next Ten

This site is my thank you to a place that’s given me a lot more than it’s ever asked for. That’s true whether I was a kid tagging along on fishing trips, or now, someone lucky enough to call it home. It’s going to keep growing: more history, more maps, more of the wildlife and geography that make this coastline what it is. That’s the whole point.

If you’ve got a Nanoose Bay story worth telling, I’d love to hear it.

Go take a look: aboutnanoosebay.ca