Nanaimo Racing Pigeon Club Celebrates 125 years!

The Nanaimo Racing Pigeon Club, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, celebrates 125 years of history and is Canada's oldest continuous racing pigeon club. Nanaimo was historically a coal town; with coal mining came immigrants from the UK who were skilled coal miners and pigeon racers. The Nanaimo Racing Pigeon Club was founded in 1899. An article in the newspaper, the Nanaimo Harold, from September 4th, 1899, documents the club's formation and election of officers. The article also announced the release of pigeons from the Steamer "Joan”, which transported travelers between Nanaimo, BC, and Vancouver, BC; all pigeons returned home safely.

Image 1: Text from the Nanaimo Harold from September 4^th, 1899. The text reads, “Nanimao Homing Pigeon Society held an Organising meeting in the Fire Hall to elect officers and Committee. President- Dr. Walkem, Vice President – J. Neen, Secretary- G. Wilkinson, Treasurer- W. Stonehouse. Committee: C.E Harrison, T. Wilkinson, J. Thomson. G. Harrison sent a couple of his Pigeons out on Steamer “Joan”. Thy were released off entrance Island, and the birds returned safetly.”  Courtesy of Carl Blumensaat.

Image 2: The steamer “Joan” (UBC Open Collections). The first reported racing pigeon release for the Nanaimo Pigeon Racing Club took place from the “Joan” at the entrance of Nanaimo Harbour.

Image 3: The crest of the Nanaimo Pigeon Racing Club shows the Nanaimo "Bastion", which was a defensive structure built by the Hudson Bay Company in 1853 and is a major landmark in Nanaimo. In addition, the crest shows mountains and the ocean, two characteristics that make pigeon racing challenging on Vancouver Island.

Pigeon racing has dramatically changed in Nanaimo since 1899. This is partly due to the rapid increase in population and, with it, infrastructure that makes travel easy. For example, in 1899, the population of British Columbia was only 162 thousand people- now, over 5.7 million people are living in British Columbia. At the time of the club's formation, there would have been few roads traveling up and down Vancouver Island, and travel by land would have been done by horse and buggy or limited rail service. No one in Nanaimo in 1899 would have had a motor vehicle. In fact, the first automobile visit to Nanaimo was not until 1906 (nanaimomuesum.com). Although we only know of one release location in 1899, most of the early releases were likely done by boat due to the difficulty of traveling by land.

Image 4: George Naylor displaying his trophies in 1960; he swept all of the races that year. George was secretary of the Nanaimo Racing Pigeon Club from 1960 to 2003. His father, Tommy Naylor was secretary from 1920 to 1960- this means that there was a Naylor as secretary for 83 continuous years. Photo courtesy of Susan Whitta.

The Nanaimo Pigeon Racing Club continues to this day with approximately 10 members. The Nanaimo Racing Pigeon Club currently races with the Mid Island Racing Pigeon Club (Ladysmith, BC). Our racecourse focuses on racing the length of Vancouver Island (Northeast) with a final race from Bella Bella where we float plane our birds to the release point. Taking birds by plane would have been unthinkable in 1899 when the Wright brothers were still working on bicycles. 

Submitted by John Olsen (f.olsen@shaw.ca) and Andy Loudon (andrewhloudon89@gmail.com)