“Nanoose Bay” adopted 31 March 1924 in the 18th Report of the Geographic Board of Canada. Name changed to “Nanoose Harbour” 10 August 1944 as established on map 92F/8, “Parksville” (L.I. 28 August 1951).

Source: BC place name cards & correspondence, and/or research by BC Chief Geographer & Geographical Names Office staff, file B.1.44.

The name Nanoose “Harbour” was applied to this feature by Captain Richards, in 1860, and predates settlement of the area in the vicinity of the harbour by many years. The name Harbour also appears in the title of Admiralty chart 3517 and in the Admiralty and Canadian Catalogues of Charts, it also appears in Admiralty and Canadian Pilots and Sailing Directions and in other nautical publications. (L.I. October 22, 1952).

Source: BC place name cards & correspondence, and/or research by BC Chief Geographer & Geographical Names Office staff, B.1.44.

Nanoose [was a]n adaptation of the name of the [Indigenous people] residing here adopted for the bay by Capt. Richards, H.M.S. Plumper, 1859.

Source: 18th Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 31 March 1924 (supplement to the Annual Report of the Dept of the Interior, 1924, Ottawa), pp. 198.

Nanoose Bay refers to the community, Nanoose Harbour to the body of water. The word is a corruption of the name of the original Island Halkomelem inhabitants of the region, the Snaw Naw As, who have a reserve on the harbour. This Lantzville-Nanaimo First Nation is related to the Snuneymuxw of the Nanaimo region; its members were frequently known as Nonooas in earlier times. BC historians Helen and Philip Akrigg give two possible translations for the name: “a collection of families at one place” or “pushing inward” (referring to the shape of Nanoose Harbour). White agricultural settlement began in the area in the 1880s; several small communities and a large sawmill sprang up. The harbour is HQ for the controversial Canadian Force base used by the US Navy to test torpedoes and other naval weaponry in the nearby Strait of Georgia. In 1999, after a series of protects and attempts by the province to prevent nuclear-powered vessels entering the region, the federal government expropriated 217sqkm of ocean floor and signed a long-term agreement allowing the US to continue testing. Nanoose Creek and Nanoose Hill (formally known as Notch Hill) also derive their names from the Snaw Naw As people, as does Nonooa RK in Nanoose Harbour.

Source: Scott, Andrew; "The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names"; Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, 2009, pp. 418.