The culvert under the Nanaimo Parkway is the strangest landmark in the neighborhood. It carries the Chase River beneath four lanes of highway, its concrete walls layered in graffiti that shifts every few months, and if you follow it west out of Colliery Dam Park you come out a minute later at a small waterfall most drivers pass at 90 kilometers an hour without knowing exists. Locals call it Granny Falls. The city calls it Chase River Falls. Either way, it is the kind of place a resident finds by accident and then folds into a routine.
That routine is the point of this post. Chase River and Cinnabar Valley sit at the south end of Nanaimo in a way that reads, on a map, like an in-between zone. In practice, the neighborhood runs as a self-contained loop: a heritage park residents fought to keep, a coastal trail hidden behind Nicola Road, and a Southgate strip that has quietly absorbed most of the errands you used to drive downtown for. The thesis here is small but stubborn. You do not need to leave the south end on a Saturday.
The Park You Almost Lost
Colliery Dam Park is 27.2 hectares of second-growth forest wrapped around two lakes formed by dams the Western Fuel Company built in 1910 and 1911 to wash coal and pipe water to Harewood homes. The reinforced cement dams built in 1910 continued to serve as Nanaimo's water source until the South Forks Dam was completed in 1932, and the Colliery dams are now part of the Community Heritage Register. A third, upper dam sits farther up the Chase River off Nanaimo Lakes Road.
The park almost stopped being a park. In 2012, the City of Nanaimo planned to remove the century-old dams and drain the ponds after a routine dam assessment by the province's Dam Safety Branch raised safety concerns. A provincial report modeled a failure scenario that would have flooded a wide swath of Harewood between Sixth and Eighth streets and the full Chase River channel down to the ocean. The city's original response was to let the ponds go and allow forest to reclaim the pond beds.
Residents pushed back, hard. Snuneymuxw First Nation raised concerns about sediment flow into the Chase River fishery if the dams were removed, and once the city recognized the opposition it scrapped the removal plan and opted to repair and renovate the dams instead, at higher cost. In July 2015, Nanaimo City Council unanimously voted to proceed with the construction of an auxiliary spillway adjacent to the Lower Colliery Dam, one of three options identified by the Province's Dam Safety Section. The park you walk through today, in other words, is the outcome of a fight your neighbors won. Worth knowing next time you cross the wooden bridge above the upper lake.
The Morning Loop
Most residents do a version of the same walk. Park at the Wakesiah lot where it bends into Sixth Street, drop down to Lower Colliery Dam, take the loop around both lakes, cross the wooden walkway above the upper pond, and then decide whether to keep going to the falls.
Here is what to know before you go, distilled from park signage and city rules rather than from feel:
- Loop distance. The main loop is about 2.3 km and takes most people 45 to 60 minutes at an easy pace, with extra time if you continue on to Granny Falls.
- Swimming. Lower Colliery Dam is a popular freshwater swimming spot in summer, with steps into the water, a swim platform, and a small sandy beach, and there are no lifeguards on duty.
- Dogs. Dogs are welcome on-leash throughout the park, with an off-leash area on the trail around the upper lake, but they are not allowed on the beach from May 1 to September 30 and must be leashed when crossing the bridges.
- Falls timing. Granny Falls, on the Chase River at the far end of the park, runs best after winter rains and slows to a trickle by summer, so the wetter months are the time to go if the falls are the goal.
To reach the falls from the upper lake, cross the wooden walkway and aim for the large culvert that carries the Chase River under the Parkway. The tunnel is wide enough to walk through comfortably, and once you emerge the falls are less than a minute upstream. It is not scenic in a postcard sense. It is scenic in the way that makes you feel like you found something. There is a difference.
The park also connects out. It is used by mountain bikers, with some bridges built for riding, and it links to the Parkway Trail, a paved multi-use path that connects several Nanaimo parks. If you want a longer loop on foot or bike without driving anywhere, that trail is how you extend the morning.
Cable Bay, From The Cinnabar Side
Cinnabar Valley residents have a second trail most of Nanaimo treats as a Cedar hike, because the Nicola Road trailhead sits closer to Duke Point than to downtown. It is on your side of the highway. Drive it in ten minutes.
The Cable Bay Trail is a moderate 6.5 km return hike about 20 minutes south of downtown Nanaimo, with parking at the end of Nicola Road and the first 2 km running mostly downhill through Douglas fir forest to a wooden footbridge at Cable Bay, then a coastal trail continuing another 1.25 km along the shoreline through Joan Point Park to a viewpoint over Dodd Narrows, where tidal currents up to 9 knots attract seals, sea lions, and the occasional Bigg's killer whale. The forest section is shaded almost the entire way, which matters in July when Westwood Lake is baking.
The bridge is the standard turnaround, and it makes an honest 4 km walk. If you continue past it, the trail narrows and the footing changes to roots and rock along the shoreline. Bring real shoes for that stretch.
The reward for pushing past the bridge is the working side of the coast. Log booms, freighters heading to Duke Point, and, on the right tide, the current at Dodd Narrows visibly stacking up against itself. The Harmac pulp mill sits across the water. Sea lions haul out on the log booms and you can often hear them before you see them.
The Southgate Run
Everything else you need is stacked along a short strip of the Island Highway South, mostly at Southgate Shopping Centre and South Parkway Plaza. This is the part of the neighborhood that quietly changed the calculus of living here. A decade ago you drove into town for half of this. Now you do not.
| Errand | Where | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly groceries | Country Grocer Chase River | Weekend hot dog fundraisers support local schools, children's groups, and sports teams |
| Prescriptions | Pharmasave Chase River | South Parkway Plaza |
| Bread and pastry | Hearthstone Artisan Bakery | Small independent bakery in the plaza cluster |
| Wine and beer | Chase River Liquor Store | Located at #10-1273 Island Highway South, hours 7 am to 11 pm |
| Casual dinner out | The Bold Knight | Long-standing Nanaimo restaurant on the strip |
| Takeout night | Paradise Indian Cuisine, Pizza Mia, Sushi Waa | All within the same block |
None of this is glamorous. It is the point. A neighborhood that can absorb its own Saturday errands without pushing residents up Bowen Road is a neighborhood that holds value for a specific kind of buyer: someone who wants the south-end price point without the south-end commute back into their own life.
What The Loop Tells You
Three things thread through the park, the trail, and the plaza. First, the neighborhood has infrastructure it fought for. The park you walk through on a Sunday is a policy outcome, not an accident. A May 2026 column in the Nanaimo News Bulletin walked through exactly how close residents came to losing it, and the auxiliary spillway that made the fix stick is now part of the landscape you cross every time you loop the lower dam.
Second, the good stuff is behind unmarked driveways. Cable Bay does not announce itself. Granny Falls is behind a culvert. The bakery is one storefront in a strip mall. Residents know where they are. Google, mostly, does not.
Third, and this is the piece worth carrying into any conversation about the south end, Chase River and Cinnabar Valley have quietly become a full-service loop. Park, coast, groceries, dinner, and a bottle to take home, all inside a five-minute radius. That is not a common pattern in Nanaimo. It is worth naming.
When You Are Ready To Talk About The Neighborhood
If you already live in Chase River or Cinnabar Valley and you are starting to think about what your home might be worth, or you have a friend asking about the south end and you want someone straight to send them to, the Charlie Parker Team knows this stretch of Nanaimo in the specific way that only comes from working it for years. Reach out when you are ready. No pressure, no pitch, just a straight conversation about the market on your street.