What started out as a video on Tik Tok in February grew into a tourism bonanza in Nanaimo as hundreds of American tourists made their way to the Harbour City. On Saturday morning, they gathered beside the Nanaimo sign in Maffeo Sutton Park to take a “family photo” together.
Tod Maffin, who posted the original video and helped coordinate the photo shoot, said the response far exceeded anything he could have hoped for when he uploaded the video.
“I thought maybe half a dozen people would come from Bellingham, and my wife and I would take them out for lunch or something,” he told The Discourse. “I could not have imagined this.”
He then gestured to the hundreds of people in Maffeo Sutton Park wearing red lanyards to help identify them as visiting Americans.
“I think it really shows that there’s still a bond between the people and there’s still a friendship between the two sides.”
Finding hope at Tod‘s Nanaimo Infusion
Maffin said he met one person who was walking on the sea wall wearing a red lanyard when two locals stopped him and asked if he was an American. The man said he was and the two people gave him a hug and thanked him for coming to the city.
“I’m emotional just for that,” Maffin said. “The support is overwhelming. Nanaimo has opened its arms and it’s just wonderful to see.”
Jennie Aus is a social worker from Sandpoint, Idaho who travelled with husband Carl and her adult daughter Miranda.
“We had been just relaxing on a Saturday morning and Tod’s video came across my screen. It was pretty fresh, but already had quite a number of people responding. And I was like, ‘This sounds like a really great way to show that we don’t like what’s happening in the States, and also some support for Canada.’”
Aus said there was “no reason for tariffs or the threats against Canada” and that “there are a lot of people who are just plain angry about it.”
As a social worker, she said she has seen the impacts of the Trump administration firsthand.
“The things that are happening in the government are directly impacting the people that I work with,” she told The Discourse. “They’re impacting the most vulnerable people significantly, and there’s just no reason for that. Instead of making things better and stronger, we’re tearing it down.”
Her husband, Carl, said that even though he doesn’t like what’s happening in America he has hope.
“I think the United States is a unique country. It’s just we’re going through some difficulties at the moment,” he said.
Cindy Ingram, an abstract artist and entrepreneur from Cottage Grove, Oregon, came to Nanaimo because she saw Maffin on TikTok saying, “Mom and dad are fighting, let’s be friends. This is ridiculous. We’re neighbors.”
She thought it was a “hilarious and fun” idea and decided to go to Nanaimo, despite never hearing about the city before.
“I’ve heard more dad jokes in the last few hours than I’ve heard in a long time. It’s easygoing and kind of silly, it’s nice,” she said.
Ingram said she voted in the U.S. election and was not pleased to see Donald Trump elected.
“I hate our president and I’m not afraid to admit that,” she said. “It’s a very scary time.”
As she met other Americans in Nanaimo, Ingram said the conversation would quickly turn to what’s happening in U.S. politics. She noted that “mostly women” came to Nanaimo from America and said it’s “not by accident.”
“It’s because America is becoming increasingly dangerous to be a woman. There’s been a lot of tears. We’re worried about what’s going on in our country and we feel unsafe and uncertain.”
Ingram said being able to gather in Nanaimo and talk with other Americans who feel similar to her has buoyed her spirits.
“I suppose this feels like hope.”
‘It’s something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime’
Another visitor was Melissa Edwards of Port Townsend, Washington, who called Trump the “so-called president” and said she is “horrified” about the “disappearing of people” in the United States to prisons in El Salvador.
“It’s something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime,” she told The Discourse. “But here we are. Is it going to be Holocaust 2.0? It’s looking that way.”
She said everyone in Nanaimo has been friendly and excited to meet American visitors.
“People are just really happy to learn that Americans are here and it’s been heartening to learn that Canadians understand that we don’t want this either,” she said.
Karen Rodgers and Tammi Johnson are a couple from the Carolinas who came to Nanaimo “for a good time with our Canadian brothers and sisters.”
“We just wanted Canadians to know that all Americans aren’t idiots,” Rodgers said.
An Army veteran who served as a truck driver in Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait in 1990, Johnson said she came in part because of how LGBTQ-friendly the city is.
“I know there are areas I can’t go to, so I don’t, and it’s really sad,” she said about living in the United States. “We should be able to walk around freely and not have to worry if I have to look out for somebody.”
She said she felt safe in Nanaimo.
“I don’t feel like [I have to be] looking over my shoulder and I can have a chance to be relaxed and be myself.”
Rodgers said she felt sad for her country.
“We were a country that was great and we could be proud of, and it didn’t matter if you voted Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green,” she said. “We all supported the president and we didn’t bicker amongst ourselves as citizens about who you voted for and what your political beliefs are, because that’s what America is.”
Rodgers comes from a military family and said they are not getting the respect they deserve from the Trump administration.
“They’re taking away VA [Veteran’s Affairs] rights, they’re taking away all kinds of things,” she said. “I wouldn’t be happy if I was in the military right now. I have a lot of retired military in my family, up to Colonel, and it’s not rewarded.”
Maffin said that after all the excitement of the weekend wears off he is going to take it easy.
“I’m going to sleep for about a week after this, and then, hopefully, my wife and I can return to kind of a normal life as nobodies from Harewood, which we also love being.”
