On Saturday, all the visitors met at Maffeo Sutton Park and took a group photo at the large Nanaimo sign, which is hidden due to the number of people. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm.

Editor’s note: More interviews with event goers can be heard in the audio version.

After one man’s idea to have Americans come and visit Nanaimo, hundreds of them came this weekend.

The idea first started when Tod Maffin was posting videos on TikTok back in February in response to tariff threats from Donald Trump, suggesting Americans come see what Canada has to offer by visiting Nanaimo for a weekend in the spring.

This TikTok post went viral, and soon the Tod’s Nanaimo Infusion was born.

The event happened this past weekend, April 25 to April 27.

Outside of getting a group photo on Saturday, no official events were held for the infusion, which allowed visitors to explore Nanaimo. Many community members in Nanaimo held events to welcome the Americans.

On Friday a food truck festival was held down at Maffeo Sutton Park and the Coast is Queer, hosted a get-together at White Sails for 2SLQBTQA+ Amercians and locals to come togther.

CHLY met with many of the visiting Americans.

Hundreds of visitors and locals gathered at Maffeo Sutton Park on Saturday for a group photo. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

On Friday evening, CHLY spoke to wives, Rhonda Green and Ellen Harden, who came up to Nanaimo from Steilacoom, Washington, for the Infusion after seeing Tod’s videos on social media.

This trip was Harden’s first time visiting Vancouver Island and Green's fifth or sixth time.

Green said they had a lot of ideas for how they were going to spend their weekend in Nanaimo, but she also said they are looking forward to relaxing and taking in the beauty of the community.

“We're going to meet up with a lady who is hosting us, kind of the “Adopt an American” program, for breakfast. We're taking her out for breakfast tomorrow. Then we will come here for the photo-op, hang around, do the market and the food vendors,” Green said. “I have a list of shops to go to that are more on the crafty, artsy theme, then I think there was one of our hosts that will help us find if there are any native cultural places to go see.”

Ahead of the event, Maffin created a Discord server for visiting Americans and interested locals to discuss the trip and ask questions about what they can expect. One development that came out of the Discord was an “Adopt an American” channel, where locals in Nanaimo could “adopt” visiting Americans and then, during the event, show them around Nanaimo.

Rhonda Green and Ellen Harden from Steilacoom, Washington. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

Green and Harden both decided to take part to learn more about the community.

“She gave us a beautiful gift basket. She gave us our lanyards and some tea and mugs,” Green said. “She gave us all kinds of information about what to do here in town, in restaurants, and a recipe for the Nanaimo bars. She gave us Nanaimo bars, and we tried our very first. We split one, and they're delicious.”

Green and Harden said it was both their first time trying Nanaimo and found them delicious. Harden even admits that although there was coconut in them and they don’t like coconut, the bars were good.

Green said they are happy to be visiting Nanaimo and want to send the message to Canadians and Americans about the importance of being allies.

“We just see the Canadians as our friends and our allies. I think that was the message that we want to get across; that most Americans feel the way we do, and that the administration doesn't represent the majority of Americans, that we know that you are allies,” Green said. “It's important to us, you Canadians, who saved Americans during the Iran hostage situation. They put their lives on the line, you're our allies. They took in the escaped hostages and got them to freedom. I mean, that's important, that's why we're here.”

Beth and Aaron Cardenas from Safety Harbour, Florida, saw the videos about the Infusion on social media and decided to fly to the other side of the continent to come and check it out for the weekend

“I saw [the TikToks] and I saw him saying, ‘hey, come on over.’ I showed it to my wife, I'm like, ‘hey–initially joking–we should go do this,’ then she said, ‘yes, let's do it,’” Aaron said. “So we eventually made plans and came up.”

Beth and Aaron Cardenas from Safety Harbour, Florida. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

Beth said she was excited to visit the community for how beautiful it looked.

While they have plans to do everything they can during their trip, they are playing it by ear.

Both Beth and Aaron said that while their visit to Nanaimo was short, they love the community and will definitely be back.

Partners, Julie and Aubrey, are both Nanaimo residents who moved to the city over a year ago from California.

Julie said they made the move to Canada to keep their son and their family safe.

“He was only six months old when we made the move. We didn't want to buy a bulletproof backpack to send him to school,” Julie said. “We could tell that Trump was going to get elected again. We wanted to leave before the election season, because it gets really rough. We're a [transgender-queer] family, so it was time to leave.”

As they recognized they were not the only Americans fleeing the United States out of fear, when they heard about the Infusion, they wanted to get involved in the event to tell visiting Americans about their move to Canada.

Julie and Aubrey, who moved to Nanaimo from California about a year ago. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

“I think a lot of people started to wake up to what we were already aware of as the election was taking place and starting to freak out, like we did, like a year ago. There's this whole group of people that somehow found themselves wanting to come to Nanaimo, to just explore Canada and maybe feel like this could be a new home, or just wanting to be amongst familiar, like-minded folks,” Julie said. “I wanted to be able to, like, say, ‘hey, that was me a year ago, and be happy to share a story if that's helpful,’ or just like, be amongst people that are probably going through what we were going through.”

Aubrey said they heard from Americans during the event wanting to make the move to Canada.

“I think the majority of folks we've talked to are like, ‘Oh, we would love to do what you're doing, but not sure how to do that, or if we'd be able to.’ It's a daunting process, like immigrating,” Aubrey said.

For an event that was just an idea four months ago, Tod Maffin said the event has been a huge success.

“It's very exciting,” Maffin said. “I'm a little overwhelmed. It's hard to put words together, because I have all the feelings. I'm excited and I'm terrified and I'm nervous and I'm happy, and all the things.”

Maffin estimates that around 400 people came up for the Infusion.

“I thought it would be six people from Bellingham, and maybe if that and my wife and I would take them out for lunch or something,” he said. “It's a hundred–I don't know how many hundreds, but it's a lot. I cannot take all these people out for lunch, sadly, but we have food trucks here, so it will work.”

Along with visitors from states nearby to British Columbia and beyond, Maffin said people came from all over the world for the event.

Tod Maffin on stage speaking to the hundreds of visitors who came to Nanaimo. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

“There are two separate groups from Australia. There are people from New Jersey, New York,” he said. “There's Florida, there's a couple in Texas that are driving here, stopping in Los Angeles to pick people up along the way who are also coming here. It's mostly, of course, the western seaboard of the U.S., so Washington, Oregon, California, but truly, there are people from all over.”

He said that during the weekend, he was hearing from a lot of Americans who were visiting the Harbour City for the first time.

“A lot of them weren't aware of how pretty Nanaimo is. I caught some of them just sort of staring blankly into the ocean,” Maffin said. “I think they're also surprised by the quality of the restaurants. I'm hearing that they think a small city, it's going to be–the restaurants will be average, or whatever, and they're like, ‘we had no idea the food here, the restaurants were so good.’ It's interesting to see your own city through the eyes of people who've never been here before as well.”

Now, following the event, Maffin said he is honoured that one of his many TikTok videos accidentally went viral, with hundreds of Americans creating new memories and stories in Nanaimo.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.