Why many Americans are planning on visiting Nanaimo in April
Maffin tells CHLY he sees this event as an opportunity for Americans to get to know their northern neighbours and to help support the local economy. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
Bored on a Friday night as news feeds were full of stories on tariffs and trade wars, Nanaimo local Tod Maffin, accidentally started a “Nanaimo infusion.”
Maffin, who during January and February, was posting videos on TikTok about how people could support more Canadian businesses, posted a video suggesting Americans come see what Canada has to offer by visiting Nanaimo for a weekend in the springtime.
“I thought we'd get half a dozen from Seattle–six or seven people up from Seattle–which is what I was after,” he said. “I thought that'd be really cool, and then I put my phone down. I was doing the dishes and my phone just kept making chirping noises, and I went over and looked at it, and the comment section was completely full of people saying, ‘I'm ready. Let's go.’”
From that one video, Maffin had about 2,000 Americans share an interest in coming to the harbour city. With his phone overheating from the notifications his video was receiving, Maffin planned out the event: Tod’s Nanaimo Infusion.
Planned for April 25 to 27 of this year, Maffin tells CHLY he sees his Nanaimo Infusion as an opportunity for Americans to get to know their northern neighbours and to help support the local economy.
“I wanted to be kind of like ‘hey, we don't hate rank-and-file Americans.’ But also, the mid-Island is going to be hit really hard economically if the tariffs end up showing up.” he said. “So I thought, well if more than a few people show up in the city on the same weekend, on a shoulder season weekend, right when it's not usually that busy, that would be great.”
Maffin explained that while he is the one working on setting up the event, there are no set plans for the weekend of the infusion. He said what the American visitors do and where they stay for the weekend will be up to them. They can explore what they are most interested in.
He has been suggesting Americans check out the Tourism Nanaimo website where they offer pre-planned itineraries around different interests and themes for things to do in Nanaimo.
Maffin admits that while he and his wife moved to Nanaimo in 2018, there is still a lot in Nanaimo that they haven’t experienced yet.
“We don't leave the house a lot, this has been a real opportunity for us to get out and see. We went down to Chemainus and looked at the antique barn, which is amazing, I had no idea,” he said. “But [my wife] and I have not really done a lot of touristy things ourselves. We've wandered around the Old Quarter and gone to the Vault and stuff, but we haven't done a lot of the touristy things that I'm reading about on the Tourism Nanaimo website.”
He said after posting his video about the Nanaimo infusion, he has received a lot of feedback from Americans who will not be able to make it for the event, but plan to keep Nanaimo and Vancouver Island in mind for future travel locations.
Elizabeth Burlington, a lawyer from Portland Oregon, is one of the Americans coming up to Nanaimo in April.
Burlington told CHLY that one of Maffin’s videos about the event showed up on her TikTok and thought it would be a run road trip for her to do.
“If you normally look at something like that, you're like, ‘Okay, why are you inviting strangers to your island home? This is how all horror movies start.’ But you go to the comments, you see what people are saying, and it just seemed like a really sweet and genuine thing,” Burlington said.
Burlington said the only time she visited Canada was in Niagara Falls when she was 14 years old. She is excited to see more of Canada and to visit a friend who now lives in the lower mainland.
“I just love the Pacific Northwest and the geography of it. Everywhere I go is beautiful, and I can just imagine this is going to be beautiful,” Burlington said
She said she is excited to visit Nanaimo and go to a lot of yarn and craft shops, as well as spend time along the water.
She is also excited to spend time with Canadians during a time where she said there seems to be a lot of tension between the two countries.
“So I think what I've also been trying to do is be like, ‘Hey guys, our allies are really super worried about us,’ and I feel like part of that also means saying to the Canadians, ‘America does not want this. We're not our government. We love you guys, we're the same, we're similar, we all just want to hang out and drink beer and look at yarn and go on hikes,’” she said.
Burlington, who has already booked her trip, said she wants this event to be a time when Canadians and Americans can get together and remind each other they are in this together.
Janine Nyborg-Andersen also heard about Tod’s Nanaimo Infusion on TikTok. She said the event came at the perfect time as the Southern California resident was already planning on moving her and her family to Nanaimo in May of this year.
Nyborg-Andersen told CHLY that this would be the first time that she would be in Canada since she was 16, but the move has been in the works for a couple of years.
“We started really looking into getting out of the United States after the school shooting at Uvalde [Texas] back in 2022,” Nyborg-Andersen said. “It was the first Elementary School shooting that occurred after I had my own children, and I was quite honestly horrified by it. That was really the catalyst to tell us ‘you know what? No, we need to get out of here.’”
Nyborg-Andersen will not be able to make it to Tod’s Nanaimo infusion, but she and her family will be going to Nanaimo the week before to look at homes.
As they are planning their move, the event has helped her find community in the Americans visiting Nanaimo and welcoming Nanaimoites.
“So it's, it's been really cool in terms of making connections and just a lot of positivity, especially because of everything that's been going on politically,” she said. “I know that there's also a lot of not-so-great sentiment towards Americans right now, which is understandable, but it's also been really nice to see people recognize that what's going on here is not my cup of tea either. This is not what I want, and that's part of why I'm getting the heck out.”
More information and resources for Americans and locals about Tod’s Nanaimo Infusion can be found on Maffin’s Nanaimo Infusion website.
Editor’s Note: The name of the event has been updated to reflect the updated name
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.