Kanoo Dance Hall

Dancing to a live orchestra was a very popular social activity through the 1920s to the 1950s and beyond. Many couples met each other at dances.

The Kanoo Dance Hall on Protection Island, built in 1921, could accommodate 100 couples on a dance floor 30 X 60 feet. Ferries left from the Reliable Boat House in Nanaimo’s commercial inlet and charged $1.50 per couple for ferry and dance.

Live orchestras such as Jensen’s Seven-Piece Orchestra, The Ramblers and The Rhythm Aces played from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m two nights a week. 

The popularity of the Kanoo Pavilion waned when the Pygmy Dance Hall (the largest of it’s kind in western Canada  at 7000 square feet) opened in Nanaimo in 1931, and the Newcastle Island (now Saysutshun) Pavilion opened the same year.